Application Out
My JET application has been officially received by the embassy of Japan in DC. I got confirmation this morning. Now I have to wait until January before I learn of the interview results. Interveiws will be held in February and then I will not know if I got the job or not until late March early April. It is quite a bit of a time span, but with thousands of Americans applying and even thousands more from around the globe, it seems pretty understandable that they would take a while. Only 20% of people who apply get selected. It is a highly competative program. I am applying for one more school in Japan, but I cannot apply until the spring. They don't have their new application online yet. I don't want to just limit myself to only one program. Thought I really hope I get this job. Not because I am an anime loving manga craving Japanese freak (which, I am not any of that) I really feel that God has placed these people on my heart. Whenever I think about possibly not going to Japan, I can feel my heart cry.
God's plan for my life is a little hard to understand at the moment. Sometimes I question whether I am making the right choice and am really listening to him and not just thinking that I am. I pray all the time for direction. I asked him several times a day if I am making the right choice by apply for this program. I don't want to be doing all this work on the application, septeple checking everything as an OCD person would, and it not amount to anything. My advisor has been most helpful, and she is not even my advisor of my Japanese major. She is my advisor over my certification for bilingual education. My actual advisor keeps forgetting that I exsist and acts like we just met every time I visit her office. (I have seen her 12 times, in case you were wondering).
I try to remember to pray every night with JD before we go to bed, but there are days when we forget. We forget quite often, actually. I always feel guilty for it; and wonder if I truely am listening to God at all.
When I was in high school, I knew, 1000000% knew what God had planned for me and went for it. Many people told me not to, and kept asking if I was making the right choice, but I ignored them and did what I knew God was calling me to do. Then I graduated high school, graduated college, and began working at the best job I had ever had. I was making equivalent to $0.25 an hour and working almost 20 hour days 7 days a week, but I loved it. It did not bother me. I worked in that field for nearly 6 years. Now I feel like there is a need for a change. I feel like God is redirecting my life and has been molding me into the person he needs me to be for the Japanese people I will encounter. Half the time, thinking about ministering to the people in Japan is not right for me. I went to school to become an English teacher, not a missionary. I know how to teach foreign languages not how to teach theology. Yet, when I think those thoughts, I keep hearing a song my mom sang to me when I was very young. It pops in my head everytime I encounter new people, and often times when I feel like punching people that make me angry. "They will know we are Christians by our love, by our love. They will know we are Christians by our love."
Perhaps, I am not meant to teach about the Bible. Maybe I was placed on this Earth to show people God's love through my actions and my words. God is love. The more love I show, the more people will be willing to talk to me. That will be how I can reach the lost souls in Japan. My heart aches for them. I want everyone I meet to be loved and love God in return. I want them to spend eternity with Jesus. If I never go, if I never find those lost people, they may never get that chance to learn to love God. I might be their only encounter.
This is how I know, God placed Japan upon my heart.
