Hello all. This week was pack full of adventures, so I will be giving two updates in one! For more photos, you can look on my Instagram.
Earlier this week my staff and I had an Outreach day. my staff and I had an Outreach day. We had worship and intercession this morning with the Kona team— which is a Crossroads DTS which is a DTS geared towards people not as young. The youngest person in their group was 29 and tons of couples in their 40s and 50s do Crossroad DTS.
After that I had orientation with Jing, who is the temporary Sendai YWAM base leader, and then a group of us went to lunch at a Korean restaurant. I rode the train back with Wendy and got to connect with her, out of the core YWAM team I hadn’t had the chance to connect with her yet so I enjoyed getting the time to know her.
After some time resting at home, the team and I did Kokobuncho (red light district) ministry. We worshiped in a park for an hour. We had planned on doing a prayer walk after worship, but ended up talking with people in the park. We chatted with a couple of dudes from Nepal, two girls in Japanese festival outfits (the outfits are called “Yukatas” if you want to look them up), and then an older man.
A few days prior to our outreach, my team and I went to the festival is called “Tanabata”, it originated in China but I was told nowadays it has no meaning and is just a summer festival and a time to celebrate for fun.
We left for the festival an hour before it started. The subway and trains were packed, the final subway I went on we were squeezed so much that from door to door it was basically all people with no gaps. As we went to one of the viewing areas, there were thousands upon thousands of people. We were located right near the Site of the Sendai Castle.
There were food stands and tons of people wearing traditional Japanese clothing, namely “Yukatas”. We found a spot in the grass and the show started with drones that went around to form shapes with colors. Then the firework show lasted about an hour and a half. On the way out, the subways were closed and the streets were packed with people, it looked like a stampede but luckily no one was pushing or shoving at all. We stopped on the way for some Italian food before heading home.
Overall I feel extremely blessed that God has placed me in this team. I’ve got to talk with most of the team and I get along well with everyone. I have been enjoying my time getting to learn about the culture and people, and getting to spend time with the global Kingdom of God.
[8:55 PM, 8/8/2025] Megan Bowman: My prayer requests remain similar to my previous updates, especially emphasizing prayer on learning the language as I have not had the opportunity to speak with many people outside of my team- all the locals we meet do not speak English at all. Learning language takes time, and I pray that God’s wisdom can help guide me in the process.