Two Months!!

I've been saying this a whole lot recently, but my time here is really running out! Out of the two months left i have here, about 2 of those weeks will be spent traveling, so really i'm only left with about a month and a half left! And with that month and a half, quite a large part of it will be taken up by my assignment, which is due at the end of january... no to mention that near that time i also have exams and presentations to do! Well, okay i'm actually not stressed about that at all, but the thing is, i don't have much time left! So i wonder, what does God want me to do with the rest of this time? How best could i use this time to glorify His Name?

Before i came here, one of my goals was to create strong relationships with the people i meet here. In a way i guess i can say that i have achieved that to some extent. I feel that i have been able to make some pretty good friends this year, and i praise God for that! It's also been a year full of awesome experiences, and God has taught me so much, and i thank Him for allowing me to enjoy my time here so much! He's blessed me so much, and i feel so completely undeserving of it all...

Anyway, here's a little update on what's happened in the past week!

So it's December now, which means that Christmas is drawing ever closer! So on tuesday, a Christian korean dude came to our uni for a little concert. He's actually a pastor now, but he could have been a famous singer if he wanted to. He had the offer a while back, but he realised that he didn't want to be making money in that way, and the only music that really made him feel at peace was Gospel music. He could have become rich through singing if he wanted to, but he chose to use his talent so that the word of God may be spread - free of charge. It's so amazing meeting people like that - people who give up the successful life so that they may use their talents for Christ's sake. He doesn't know very much Japanese, so the pastor of the nearby korean church (the church i went to KOSTA-Japan with!) was there to translate. It was a short concert, and only about 20 people turned up, but it was a really nice time - beautiful music and talks about why Christmas is celebrated and all. Awesomely encouraging! :D Praise God for awesome missionaries :)

On thursday night, a couple of us exchange students watched "Facing the Giants" together. Pretty awesome movie! I was moved to tears the first time i watched it (though not as much as Fireproof, which is by the same dudes who directed this movie!), and my friend from Bible study said she'd lend it to me so i could show it to my friends. So that's what i did! About 8 people watched on the night, but only about 4 really paid attention... still, those that actually paid attention really liked the movie. They said they were really moved by it! Out of those 4, three of them are non-Christians, and one of them is a chinese girl who has recently become very interested in Christianity. Praise God that i have these opportunities to minister to the non-Christians around me! And please pray that i will use the rest of my time here to be a good witness to the people here! :)

Just yesterday, that same chinese girl came to our Bible study group for our Christmas party, and although she was rather late, she seemed quite keen on mixing with the others there. Also, one of my Japanese friends - a church goer but non-Christian, came along. He doesn't seem very keen about Christianity at all though... so please pray that his heart may be more open! We lent Facing the Giants to him, so hopefully that will be an eye-opener for him!

I'm also getting my little bro to bring fireproof over so that i can watch it with the people here. Please pray that that will go well!

Today was the second time i did my testimony in Japanese, but since the last time i've tweaked it quite a bit. Praise God that it went well, and the people at my church were able to hear it and be encouraged by it!


The kids at my church are SO cute! Today we had the kids' Christmas concert, where our pastor had a short sermon directed to the kids, and the kids also had a couple of items. I couldn't really do much, so they asked me to be the "curtain opener / closer" LOL! I know it's a small role that could have been filled by anyone, but i think they just wanted me to get a little more involved in some way that didn't require me to use my fail Japanese! :)

Lately there have been a whole lot of birthdays, dinners and outings, and it's been rather hard on my wallet, so please pray that i may be wise with how i spend the money God has given me - that i may be generous towards others and not look to spend so much on myself!

And now I'm off to another birthday dinner, which should be good fun :) A little sleepy, but i'm sure the winter cold will give me a bit of a kick!

Some recent thoughts

Yesterday I had Bible study with some of the Christian students around here, and the passage was Luke 6, where Jesus talks about being "Lord of the Sabbath". Yesterday i decided i would like to be more diligent with spending time with Him, and i thought one way of doing that would be to use Sundays as a day to read, pray, reflect and listen to podcast sermons. I thought it would be awesome for my own spiritual growth if i could make it a regular habit. I mean how much of my time do i really give up to God? He has so graciously provided me with time and money and everything, but am i really using these things for His glory? Or am i instead using these things He has given me for my own comfort and enjoyment? The SMBC podcast i listened to today reminded me that i need to be careful how i use my money as well. How many missionaries are out there working their butts off to get the Gospel out there, and how many of them are struggling because of a lack of finances? And in the abundance of what God has given me, how much of that am i using to support these people who have given up everything to go out and spread the Gospel? Very little i think... it comes as a sharp rebuke...

So today after coming back from church, i decided to spend some time relaxing with my God. So far it's been awesome :) I think this is God's way of answering some of my prayers :D I and some of the people around me have been praying that i can be a good witness to the people around me, and that i can spend my time and resources wisely. But perhaps before that can happen i need to be more firmly rooted in God's word. So in order to do His work well i need to be spending more time with Him, seeking His teaching instead of simply going out and basking in the blessings he gives me without turning back to Him and giving Him the glory. Indeed I have a lot to learn... and i do feel that i have been backsliding a little ever since i got here. So it's important that i do this - to spend more time gleaning from Him.

So today, being the first day I've tried to spend a sunday as a Sabbath, I want to share some encouraging messages. I was just writing in my mission journal (which mr John Chen gave me as a gift for my 21st!) a little while ago, and in it there are a bunch of encouraging stories of missionaries and quotes from famous Christians. Here's one that i read about today - it's the story of a Scottish missionary (doctor) called David Livingstone. In all his hardship he always looked to the Lord and remembered "Lo, I am with you always, even to the end". Those words alone brought Him great comfort in all of His loneliness as a missionary. He also died on his knees in prayer, remembering that God was with Him always. And there's a quote from him in this journal of mine, which reads:

Lord, send me anywhere, only go with me.
Lay any burden on me, only sustain me.
Sever any ties but the tie that binds me to Thy service and to Thy heart.

I found great encouragement in these words. Seeing how much this man depended on God for everything, and how He always looked to God for comfort in all his trials. It brings me great comfort to know that God is always there for us. And i know that i can always find comfort in Him and Him alone - not in money, not in friends or family or anything else in this world. The only source of comfort that will last forever is God Himself. I would be a fool to trust in anything else!

By the way, having a day of rest and spending it with God is awesome :D I know that many of our lives often can't even sustain a single day in the week spent not doing work, but i do think that that is all the more reason to spend time with Him and rest in Him :)

Less than three months left! :0

Time has flown by insanely fast in the last few months... It's already been almost 3 months since my last blog entry, although it has felt like only 1! And i am now in my 8th month here, with less than 3 months left to go... although i am gonna miss this place heaps, i do miss australia a lot too!

So what has happened in the last few months? Hmmmm... well a whole lot really.. so i guess i can give a short summary of what i've been doing, and facebook photos can explain the rest. Pictures tell a thousand words, so that might be better anyways :)

So the big events after the KGK summer camp:

1) Osaka, Nara, Kobe trip with miss Hanna Cho was AWESOME! (Photos are up on facebook) Kobe didn't have much, and the Kobe beef was super expensive but quite nice :) Weather was disgusting throughout the whole week though, so we didn't feel like doing much.

2) Kyoto trip with the Yamanashi Daigaku people was AWESOME! (Photos are up on facebook)
Made me wanna live in Kyoto :D

3) Farewells to the Frenchies - Ben and Pierre, was quite sad... but i will probably see those guys again in the future anyways! (Farewell photos are up on facebook)

4) New Gaijins have arrived! (photos of the gaijins are up on facebook) Admittedly i was thinking it'd be hard to find awesome gaijins like the last ones, but this time round we got quite close very quickly! Awesome stuff :)

5) Church camp was nice :) (photos should be up on facebook...)

6) KGK summer camp reunion was good fun :) Was nice seeing those guys again! (I don't think i took any photos though, so no photos on facebook)

7) Uni culture festival was awesome fun! There were heaps of random costumes at the parade, and some rather disturbing ones too... Our Christian group (connected with KGK) did a Christmas themed thingy and handed out quite a few bilingual Gideon New Testament Bibles! We had record numbers this year! In previous years we had about 20 - 30 people come to the stall, this year we had 85ish! And most received Bibles :) Praise God! (Photos should be up on facebook :) )

8) Christian group outing to Shosenkyo last saturday. Was AWESOME! Shosenkyo is one of the nicest, if not THE nicest place i've ever been :) Yamanashi is famous for its awesomeness in Autumn, and Shosenkyo is in the top 10 most awesome places in all of Japan. I'm going again this coming sunday! :D It was also good to see some of the first years come on the trip :) They're not very regular, so it was nice spending some time with them. Praying that they will be able to grow and help out the group as leaders (we're really running short on leaders for next year...)

Other than all that, God has been amazingly awesome in giving me so many rich experiences this year! I haven't held the English conversation class very much in the past month because of a bunch of stuff, but it was running quite well. One of the chinese girls who came has become rather interested in Christianity and now wants to come to Bible studies when she has time! Previously she went to church once and found ti very boring so she didn't go again. But God seems to have moved her heart :D Please pray that she will be able to come to Bible studies in the future :)

Running English conversation classes and teaching English to others has been quite enjoyable actually. Ever since starting i've been thinking that perhaps this is what God wants me to do. Perhaps i will be able to come back to Japan and do the JET program here (teaching english). And while doing so, i may be able to do some mission work here :) Still don't really know, but it seems like a big possibility at the moment.

Japanese classes have gotten rather difficult, and i'm taking a Japanese history class that is absolutely impossible for me to understand... so that's pretty bad... but the Japanese work doesn't take up too much of my time, and i haven't got many classes, but i still manage to fail at studying. I'm happy that i have free time, but often i spend it on the wrong things i think... it's hard to know how i should spend the rest of my time here... so please pray that i may be wise with that!

Recently i've been reading "A Call to Spiritual Reformation". I stopped ages ago, which was a bad idea because this book is AWESOME! It has really taught me a whole lot about prayer, and i will probably need to read through it again some time. But yeah... awesome! I highly recommend it! :D

Anyways, that was quite a brief summary, but i think i got most the main stuff down! I now need to get ready to go to teach English and earn some extra cash :)

Stay awesome friends!! :D

KGK Summer School - “Is This It!?”

So last week I went to KGK’s evangelistic camp, and I gotta say it was amazing :) The way they organised everything, the location (we situated near a mountain lake called matsubarako in nagano. There’s a Christian campsite there :) sooooo nice!), the group discussions, the talks, the testimonies, the music, the fellowship, nearly everything was just right! Seeing how some of the leaders worked tirelessly all day, and woke at 6am for prayer meeting each morning, was an amazing thing to see :) I am really thankful that God allowed me to go on this camp and see how the KGKers work :D I think about one third of the people there were non-Christians, and some had little or no exposure to Christianity at all! Also, at least one person turned to Christ :) Kouhei - the guy who decided to become a Christian, stayed up with me on the final night to talk for several hours about how he felt about this new faith, and it was just so encouraging to hear his thoughts! Another guy who considered himself to be a Christian and had stopped attending church, realised after the camp that he could no longer deny that Jesus is Lord. I’m sure there were many other stories, but i haven’t heard them yet.

Two days prior to the camp, I got a message from a friend in KGK saying “HEY! I heard you’ve been made into a group leader for the camp!” And I was like “WHAT!??” It was very sudden and surprising, and considering i had only a day or two to prepare, and considering the whole camp was in Japanese, i was quite unsettled... I accepted coz i thought it would be an amazing experience, but honestly i was afraid because i’d never done anything like it before. So i prayed and prayed for me and my co-leader, and for the camp, and it turns out that it went really well :) So i really thank God for speaking through me, despite my broken Japanese - I managed because He gave me the strength and ability to do it :D Considering I had so little sleep before the camp, and considering how little i slept during camp, it was amazing that I lasted for the whole cmap and managed to lead as well - and i know that i could not have done it on my own strength.

So the theme for this year was “Is This It!?” (and the logo used was Michael Jackson’s “Is This It” poster!). Most the messages were delivered by Hayashi sensei - a guy with an Osakan accent :) looooove the way Osakans talk lol! Anyways, his talks were based on Matthew 19, the story about the rich young man, and a bit before that - the one where Jesus says that the kingdom of God belongs to little children. One of the talks was done by Ooshima Sensei, who is also a heaps good preacher. He preached on John 4 - where Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well and tells her that He offers living water. Our Bible studies were also based on that passage. Just being reminded of how deep Christ’s love is for us and how sinful we are, and how much we need Him... is seriously amazing. No matter how many times i hear these messages they never get old, and i couldn’t help but get teary eyed whilst listening (i wasn’t the only one trust me!). The songs we sang were largely based on those Gospel themes too, so that didn’t help to stop me from weeping lol...

So after each talk we would break up into groups to discuss what the talks were about, and anything else we had questions about. This was probably the main part of the camp - sharing time. I heard from most group leaders that the time spent in the groups was amazing because everyone opened up and spoke so honestly about what they felt. That was true for our group as well, and thanks to my co-leader Ayako and our staffworker Makiko, our other group members were able to understand the messages and express what they really felt about it all. Two of our group members were very new Christians, and the other two were non-Christians.

Aki was one of the young Christians (well he’s older than me but younger as a Christian) - and before the camp he didn’t expect very much, but he said he was very glad he came because he got to learn so much about his faith. Tomika - the other Christian in the group, was able to open up and learn heaps as well. Tomoko - a non-Christian girl who has been investigating religion and in particular Christianity for 3 years, was also part of our group, and she really opened up and shared honestly about what she thought. Initially she came because she was angry at Christianity for something her Christian friend had done in the past, so i think initially she was not very open, but after a while she really opened up and shared why she was angry and why she could not accept Christianity. Through many tears she got her point across, and after a few days she was no longer reserved about how she felt. I think by the end of it she had a much better opinion of Christians and Christianity, although she didn’t want to accept it still. But i feel that this could be a large stepping stone for her on the way :) We plant the seeds and God makes them grow hey? Anyways, the other non-Christian in our group - a guy called Yuu, came probably not knowing exactly what he was looking for, but by the end of it he heard the message and although he was unable to accept it, I think he felt that Christian fellowship and many of the teachings in Christianity are awesome. This guy was super popular amongst the ladies too loolll, so i think he thoroughly enjoyed his time there. He also talked a whole lot in the group and asked a whole heap of questions, so i really pray that we got our point across and that he continues to seek!

I really liked how the days were structured - and although there wasn’t a lot of variety in the program, i felt that that extra time spent in groups was much needed. The fact that nearly every activity was done in our groups was really really good for bonding - perhaps something we can think about for our camps back in Australia :) I’ve never been in a group that has opened up so honestly before - so i was really glad :D Okay, i didn’t understand everything that was said, but i think i got most of the important stuff that was said :)



Here are the lyrics to 3 of the songs that we sang at camp. I really came to love these songs heaps :D This first song’s melody is very Japanese i reckon - it sounds like a Ghibli song or something :) You can look them up on youtube if you wanna! Just copy and paste the titles.


今こそキリストの愛に応えて (I now respond to Christ’s love)

私が神の子とされた　罪人の私が
I’ve been made into a child of God, a sinner like me

無限の愛の大きさにただ感謝をしよう
I’m ever thankful for this amazing and eternal love

こんな私のためにさえ命まで与えた
He gave up His life even for a person like me

十字架の愛の大きさにただ感謝をしよう
I’m ever thankful for the great love shown on the cross

-CHORUS-

今こそキリストの愛に応えて
I now respond to Christ’s love

命を　すべてを　ささげよう
And offer my life and everything to Him


生きる指針を失った　迷い子の私が
I’ve lost all direction in life, but

生きる希望と喜びに満たされてるなんて
I have been filled with a living hope and joy

何の力もないけれど何かをしてゆこう
I have no strength but I will do something about it

こんな小さな物だけど何かをささげよう
I have not much to offer you, but what i have i give to You


CHORUS-

たった一度の人生を無駄にしたくはない
I only have this one life and i don’t want to waste it

力の限りキリストを愛し続けよう
With all my might i will continue to love Christ

多くの友を救うため　福音を告げるため
I will tell the Gospel in order to save many friends,

日本の国を救うため　世界を変えるため
In order to save the people of Japan, and to change the world


満たして下さる方 (The One who satisfies me)
主よ　私は飢え渇いて　今 ここ に来ました
Lord I come to You starving and thirsty
主よ　あなたに両手上げて　こころからあがめま す
Lord, I raise both hands to you and worship You from the bottom of my heart
主よ　あなただけが　
Lord, only You
私を満たして下さる方
Can satisfy me
主よ　あなただけに 賛美の歌をささげます
Lord, only to You will I give these songs of praise



注がれた愛 (Love poured out)

愛する友のために命を捨てる
To give up one’s life for a friend you love

これほど大きな愛があるだろうか
I wonder if such a love exists?

逃れる道もなく何かを求めて
When I had nowhere to run to, while i sought something

私はまだ罪の中にいた時
While i was still in sin



キリストが私のために命を投げ出して
Christ gave up His life for me

その愛を永遠の愛を心に注がれた
And poured out His love, His eternal love into my heart


All in all, the camp was awesome and i really thank God that i could be used to lead a group despite my broken Japanese. This camp, like KOSTA, helped me to understand more about how mission in Japan would look like. It appears that even a failure like me can be used by God to accomplish bigger things :) So i am truly truly thankful for the great opportunities that He is giving me.

Thank God for:
- An awesome camp, awesome fellowship, and His amazing love
- Kouhei - the guy who became a Christian at the camp
- Allowing me to get through the camp and experience leadership in Japanese

Please pray:
- That i may continue to think about how i can serve God here
- That i may seek God first and foremost, and follow Him with fervour - praying constantly and being diligent in reading His word
- That my Japanese language ability may continue to improve more and more
- That i won’t be lazy for the rest of these holidays and that i may get my assignments done, and get some studying done :)

Thanks for reading! :)

KOSTA Japan :D

There's been a whole lot on, but i'm just gonna blog a bit about the camp i just went to :D So KOSTA is a camp that was started in american by exchange students from korea, and it's made its way to Japan! This year was i think the 5th or 6th year in Japan, and it was an amazing camp to say the least. i think there were about 3000 koreans, couple of hundred japanese, couple of hundred chinese and like 20 people in the english part. It was HUGE!

The koreans are crazy! Worship style and everything is just so different! We had a summer festival thing the other night which was like a concert - there were heaps of amazing performances that night :) They did a re-make of some korean drama as a skit and made it Christian like, and also a remake of UP! :D They also had a bunch of famous singers come to sing, they had a heap of dances and other artsy performances :) Soooo awesome!

Learnt quite a lot and i was just struck by how disciplined the koreans and japanese are! Especially how they pray, worship and stuff. I mean it was kinda crazy... their praying style, but i can tell that they really do lift up their hearts to God when they worship. It's really amazing! Something i need to learn from. All in all, it was very tiring but i learnt heaps, and i think i can say that i am quite sure God wants me to mission here as a long term missionary some time in the future. It seems so obvious now! But of course, that would mean that i would have to go to Bible college i think! My parents are gonna hate that so much...

I met this american guy (who really reminds me of a friend of mine who just got married!) who is doing this english teaching program here in Japan for 2 years - and it's with a Christian organisation! :D I was so happy to hear about it :) He sent me the website for it, so i may check it out some time :) This guy was telling me how hard it is if you are doing the JET program (the non-Christian english teaching program) it's hard on Christians who dont have a proper support group there for them. So he told me about the thing he's doing :) I think he said he's almost finished, but he doesn't know where to go next. He said he may end up as a missionary in Japan as well! One of the kroean guys i met there (who is about my age and is living in Japan indefinitely) was also thinking about mission here :)

I was also talking to my other foreign student friends and a couple of them said they wanna end up living here in Japan - either because they dont like home, or because they wanna start a business here. In any case, it might mean that i will see some of them again here in Japan in the future :D

I'm really glad that God brought me to that camp :) If i haven't told the story on this blog already, i shall explain it now. So when i was on the Credo mission team in Japan, one weekend i was with the team in Kanazawa, but i had to come back home to make it for class on monday. So as i waited for the bus at kanazawa, this korean missionary came up to me and started talking to me, thinking i was a local japanese person who knew nothing about God. We talked abotu what we were doing in Kanazawa, and he told me about KOSTA. Didn't think very much of it, but when i get home early the next morning (dead tired) my chinese friend from the local korean church came up to me and gave me a pamphlet for KOSTA! So i thought "i think God wants me to go to this camp...", so i signed up and went!

I guess He brought me there to strengthen my will to do mission here... seriously it just seems so certain now. One of the talks that hit me the most was a talk the other night. The speaker was a 91 year old korean pastor, and he seemd younger because he was quite full of energy still :) When he was 67, he received the call (i think through a dream....and he referred to the Acts 2 passage where Peter quotes Joel "your old men will dream dreams") to minister to the world. he knew he then had to learn english even though he was so old. Once his mind was set, he set out to learn, and although it is like basically impossible to learn another language at such an old age he continues to try. He memorised all of Genesis 1 in English, as well as all of Martin Luther's "I have a dream" speech. Although i could not understand a word he said, i was so encouraged and inspired in seeing how hard he worked for God. He's also the pastor of the flutist who came to play that night, and the flutist was saying how great a pastor he is. He was saying that everyday at 4am, the pastor would get up to send an encouraging message to the flutist. 4am!!! And he's a pastor of a huge church in Korea! This pastor was also saying that afterh e learns english, he wants to learn chinese! He's really really got an amazing vision... and i am really inspired by how hard he works for God. Then i look at myself and i think about how lazy i am, and how small my passion for God is... and i think that i will need to get my act together. That's certainly what i prayed. And i think i will keep praying for that so please pray for me to grow in passion and love for Christ so that i may do His work wherever i am - that i may be His witness to the ends of the world (that was the theme for the camp btw - Acts 1:8).

The stories of the other pastors and speakers were amazing too...and some of the other testimonies i heard from other people were really amazing! One speaker was a famous korean pop star, until he went to jail for something - then God brought him back. Now he is the pastor of a church here in Japan! Another dude started a church i think in America - and although he didn't know much english, he started a taekwondo class, and from there proceeded to build 3 churches! One of the other guys i became friends with was born and raised in america - Christian family, but a rebel. He got into drugs and went to jail in the past, but when he came to Japan to study, he became a Christian! Actually it was 4 years ago at this camp that he became a Christian (i was wrong... this year wasn't the first time for this camp to be held here lol...)! And now his passion and all is very encouraging.

Now i can really see why Korea is one of the biggest (or maybe THE biggest) Christian country in the world... i've heard that Korea sends out more missionaries than any other country! Their passion is amazing! Their discipline and their style of worship is certainly something to model. Although i found it a little strange admittedly, perhaps i could get used to the worship style. During prayer, the person out front would tell us what to pray for, then all at once, while music is playing, everyone would pray together, and some would be doing some loud screaming, shouting thingy... i certainly found it... different... very different indeed to what i'm used to... but i feel that it shows how passionate they are and how much they pour out their hearts to God. I think many of the preachers may have lost their voices from praying so loudly! Some of them had pretty hoarse voices by the end of it!

I also heard a few songs that i came to like quite a lot! I don't think they're new or anything, but here are the names of the songs i liked:

Above all

There is none like You

I could sing of Your love forever

He knows my name

So yeah, the camp was certainly a great eye-opener :) Here are some videos for you to enjoy!

I was surprised at this! I found it quite funny that they would re-do the lyrics to pop songs like these and make them into Christian songs haha!! The strange thing is... koreans tend to be quite conservative and yet these girls dressed up almost exactly the same as the SNSD girls and danced almost exactly the same dance...in front of a big Christian audience of about 4000 people :0 Still rather interesting though (i mean i do like SNSD after all LOL!) Sorry for the horrible quality of the video though :(

This next one is of a korean singer who i think sings for some dramas and stuff. Her name is Lisa something, and her english is quite good! I assume from her good accent and her name that she was raised in America haha. SHe has a really really amazing voice :) She made like no mistakes and i heard her sing 3 days in a row! Crazyness! Oh and the pianist is really goood too :) He's like a jazz pianist that plays a lot of crazy stuff haha.

And this last video is of the flutist guy who came to play for us one night. He was really amazing :) He's a famous flutist in Korea - he does songs for korean dramas and stuff :D He studied in america for a bit as well so his english is quite good, except that he pronounces Jesus as "Jejus" like most native koreans do :P Before he did his last song he explained to us that everytime he wakes up in the morning, he gives a flying kiss to Jesus! Looolll, it sounded funny but i thought it was cool :) So he told us to do the same: to say "Jesus! I LOVE YOU!" And give Him a flying kiss :) I.e. kiss your fingers and blow upwards, facing heaven :D After his first song, he said something quite profound. At first i thought he was being boastful, but turns out i was wrong haha... so he played with three different flutes - a silver one costing more than $30,000 US, a gold one costing more than $100,000 US, and a small wooden irish flute costing less than $100 US. After playing all three he said "they all make different sounds but it's not like one sounds worse than the other. What matters is the player!" At this point i thought, "is this guy saying that he's so awesome that he can make even a cheap flute sound awesome!?" And then he said "what i mean is, even if you feel like you are useless, God can use you in amazing ways because He is God. You may feel like you are worth several hundreds of thousands of dollars and not be used by God in such amazing ways as someone who feels worthless." So no matter how useless we feel, we can rest assured that because God is the one in control, we needn't worry about feeling useless! So please enjoy this video! :D I really looooved the music he played! :) very nice and calming!

This one was reaaalllly nice :) This was when he showed that the little irish flute could sound really awesome :D

Anyways! I've got a bit of stuff to prepare for the KGK evangelistic camp, and i've only got tomorrow to do it :( But im really looking forward to this! Should be an amazing time :D Should open up my eyes to see how to mission here effectively as well!

Thank God for:

- KOSTA - Japan and the awesome people i met there, along with their awesome stories

- For keeping me strong and teaching me so much

Please pray for:

- Revival in Japan - that God will raise up more leaders, and more people who want to know our Saviour Jesus Christ!

- For the KGK camps (one this week - the evangelical one, and one next week - the Bible camp for Christians) - that they may run well and that many will come to know Him through them!

Well then! Thanks for reading and keeping up to date on my blog :D

English Conversation Class and Hanabi taikai! :D

Today was one amazing day :D So for a while now i've been trying to set up this english conversation class for the Japanese people, and today was the first lesson! There were 5 others and there should be more coming next week! It was quite fun, and i think i can say it went quite well :) It seems not many Japanese actually know anything about Christianity at all... which is sad... there really needs to be a lot of work done here! But praise God the class went well today :) Please pray that the rest of the classes go well too!

Anyways, after the class, Takatsuya (one of the dudes that came to the English conversation class) and I met up with the others at Ichikawa Daimon for the fireworks festival :D I can't express how absolutely awesome the fireworks were :0

In Japan the fireworks work quite differently to how they do in Australia. They go for about an hour and a half, and they do short bursts or sets for a few minutes then take breaks in between. All up i took 34 videos, so i think there were 34 sets unless i missed one! So they spread out the fireworks, unlike in Sydney how they shoot them all at once and go crazy! There are also a lot more interesting fireworks (like happy faces, sad faces, stars, love hearts, cat faces and fish!), and they are made to be enjoyed over a longer time, and you get to say "WOW" more often because they go psycho at the end of each set, and the finale is an absolute killer :D. They are also very well patterned :) It's not like New year's in Sydney when everyone is drunk and rowdy haha... The location was also perfect! Surrounded by mountains, the fireworks were shot from a river area, and we were RIGHT in front! :D Thanks to one of our Japanese friends we were able to reserve a place super close to the fireworks, and the view was amazing to say the least :) Oh yeah, and during one of the breaks, a dude proposed to his girlfriend and she said yes :D Awesome stuff! The videos are obviously nowhere near as good as the real thing, but hopefully you can see how awesome they were anyways :D

I apologise for the annoying voices in the videos lol!

Here's a video with the interested shaped fireworks! xD

This one here is the second last set, and it ended so amazingly that we thought it was the last! Turns out we were wrong :)

And here's a video of the final set :D

There's also a bunch of other stuff which i havent gotten around to blogging about, but photos are up on facebook and photos tell a thousand words :D

Super late post

This is one really late post, and it will include thoughts and reflections from a couple of weeks back (on the 2nd weekend of the mission trip) and also of the past few weeks. I will not So bear with me, as it will be a super long post (as if my others weren't long enough!)

Mission Weekend # 2

So once again i caught the bus to Shinjuku, arriving at the bus stop soaked because of all the rain (it's been wet season for a while!). I then caught the train to Yokohama from Shibuya, noticing after about 4 stops that i had gotten onto the "women only" carriage... I was wondering why all the people around me were giving me strange stares...and to make it worse i don't look like a foreigner, and so i think they might have just taken me for a pervert :( So after my realisation of my embarrassing failure, i changed carriages at the next stop. Upon arrival at a station near Yokohama, i met up with Makiko, who brought me to the KGK group meeting, where i was able to meet a whole bunch of awesome people, many of which had really good English speaking skills :0 They seriously put my Japanese to shame! After the talk, we had a super late dinner at 10:30, and managed to make it in time for the last train back to Asakusa! Praise God that we could make it on time!

The next day, we headed to the KGK office at Ochanomizu to meet up with "So Sweet" Sousei and the other KGK people, and traveled together to the KGK National Conference. Good teaching, good fellowship, good times :) My host (a korean guy called Ha Nuru) had to leave early, so i followed Keita who lived on the same train line as him. It was good talking to Keita about his faith, and it was very encouraging hearing about the work he and the other KGK students have been doing. Nuru lives in Saitama, which is the prefecture next to Tokyo. In other words, my travel back to his house was quite long... it almost took me two hours to get there!

Anyways, Nuru is a korean dude whose dad is a missionary from Korea :) It was a tad late by the time i got to their house, but i was warmly welcomed by their family and was given an amazing korean meal :D They were really happy that i finished all the food they put in front of me (i was really really hungry lol...). After the meal, we watched the Japan vs. Netherlands match, which Japan lost...but it was quite enjoyable spending that time with the family :D That night i couldn't sleep very well at all, so i was falling asleep in service :( I personally didn't Nuru's dad's preaching style, but i felt that the church was very nice and it had a very home-like feel :) It could be because their church is situated below their home in the same building though haha...

After church and an awesome lunch i said goodbye to the Ha family, and trekked back to Asakusa to meet everyone again.

It was Fi's birthday (yay!) so we went out for dinner and for a little jazz live at a nearby pub. The band was awesome! Our mission blog has some pretty hilarious videos of us dancing :P Alen got picked up by a small old Japanese lady who asked him to dance LOL! And we all ended up getting up to dance eventually :) It was a heap of fun! We finished the night off with some ice-cream and headed to our new accommodation...which was rather dodgy... the showers were tiny, and were either too hot or too cold. It's like you couldn't mix hot and cold to make it warm or cool, it was just cold or hot :(

So we checked out and left again for Ochanomizu to pick up our luggage and Sousei. We then traveled by bus to Kofu for a meeting with the KGK people from Yamanashi daigaku. The meeting was a tad awkward... a few failures in communication and epic fails in translation on my part :( Well it was my first time ever doing translation lol... Still i think it was nice for the team to meet the people there and be encouraged by their stories! We also learnt about my Chinese buddy Haru-chan (Chan isn't here last name btw), who is not yet a Christian, but she continues to go to church every week and has attended a few KGK meetings :)

After our meeting we headed down to near the station to eat some Yamanashi specialty houtou :D That stuff was aweessssommmeee :) A tad bit on the expensive side, but each bowl had a heap of stuff in it :) We then parted way - alen going off to tokyo, and the others leaving for their accommodation in Fujiyoshida.

Our third weekend has been blogged about in our mission blog :)

Final Mission weekend - de-briefing and relaxing :D

Last friday was the first time ever i caught the train from Kofu, though i've been here for more than 3 months already (unbelievable!). That night it was pouring and i struggled as i made my way down to the station on my bike while holding an umbrella. When i arrived i was quite soaked, but i was wearing thongs so i didnt have to deal with wet shoes and socks :D So i met with alen, aki and kevin at Fujiyoshida station, and they brought me back to the church where we were staying. The accommodation was amazing :) Loooooooove tatami mat rooms :D The showers were great too (staying anywhere outside tokyo is pretty awesome :) ). We had our final de-brief meeting that night, and everyone except for myself was dead tired. I think they all had a great sleep that night :)

We woke up the next morning to the sound of aki playing the piano, and man oh man that guy can play! So i asked him to play some studio ghibli music, and he did :D I hope this video works! And if it does, i apologise for the bad quality and the excess movement of my hands lol

Anyways, so that morning we had breakfast at coco's - an all you can eat buffet breakfast :D It was AWESOME! And all that for just 680 yen :D As if that's not awesome!! So after we got our big breakfast boost we headed back to the church, grabbed our stuff and said goodbye to the lady pastor there. We then trained it to Kawaguchiko, from where we caught the bus to the fifth level of mount fuji (about halfway up! it apparently takes about 3 days to climb to the top if you start at the bottom...). We only climbed up one level (to level 6) since we didn't have much time. There we took a break and had our lunch (which we bought at 7/ll earlier). A couple of us bought mango melon bread, and it was AWESOME! :D Best melon bread i've ever had! I should've gotten some more :( The view from up there was amaaaazing :) The air up there was nice and cool, and we ate some tasty mountain cloud (as jay suggested we should) :D I think the clouds actually made the view really nice :) It felt like we were in a studio ghibli movie (Laputa or howl's moving castle :D)! We had to leave early to make it back to tokyo on time, so we headed back down the mountain and caught the bus back to kawaguchiko, and then another bus back to tokyo.

We arrived in tokyo at about 9, and we were all starving and ready to stuff ourselves! We met up with Azu, who led us to the place. And i've gotta say, that was the most amazing shabushabu ever :D It was a bit expensive (all you can eat for 3000yen per head) but i think we ended up eating much more than just 3000yen worth of food! Between the 10 of us, we had 174 plates :D That's probably 150 plates of meat and the rest veg LOL! Seriously, we were all so full we could barely walk! Soooooo goood :) Jay and alen went absolute psycho over the beef :P The awesome thing was that the beef they prepared for us was pretty good quality stuff too :) Not just the beef, but the pork, the tofu and veggies - everything was pretty goood quality! I seriously think we would've put them out of business if we did that everyday LOL. Oh yeah and the ice-cream they gave us at the end was amazing :D Especially that maccha ice cream :0 Soooooo gooooood :D

So we stumbled back to our accommodation in Asakusa (the Khaoson Samurai hostel - the one we stayed at at the beginning), for our the team's final night there. I didn't end up sleeping at all, and alen only got about 2 hours. We stayed up that night having a looooooong man chat, and we talked about some pretty important stuff - about faith, about girls (as guys do) and about our thoughts on being on the mission team.

Needless to say, the very next day i was dead (although to me it wasn't quite the next day, but the previous day continued on for another 24 hours). But throughout the day i think i did okay at staying up :) After brekky, Midori (one of the girls working at Khaosan) was teaching a brazilian dude (Igor) some origama, and we heard Midori playing the ukulele, and we recognised the song! She was playing All in All!! (which in Japanese is called "Yowai toki no chikara" i.e. My strength when i am weak - the first line of the song) So i asked her "where did you learn that song!?" And she told us that she learnt it in church in New Zealand. So it turns out that she's a Christian :D She told us that she became a Christian 3 years ago and got kicked out of home for it. But she held onto her faith, and she started working at Khaosan (which allows workers to live there). I'm not sure how old she is but she looked about 20. She said that she goes to two churches on sunday - a korean church in the morning, and another church in chiba-ken (which is a prefecture near tokyo). To see a young Japanese girl become a Christian and hold onto her faith despite being rejected by her parents for it - that is truly an amazing and encouraging thing!

So we said our final goodbye to the hostel, and left for alen's church - Jesus lifehouse (which started off in Australia). The church is huge for a church in Japan - about 100 - 150 attendees in the morning service, which is one of about 5 services they hold on sundays. The church is very charismatic, and is much like Hillsong. I...don't know what to say really...well... the music was great, and the talk was quite good bar the fact that there was very little Biblical content (it sounded a little like a motivational talk), and the people there were really friendly and willing to connect with newcomers. Other than that, i worry that the members don't know enough about the Bible...in terms of reaching out to people they are awesome at it, but i really do wonder about the strength of their faith.

After church we had lunch at a nearby place (which had this really really annoying theme song that they played over and over and over LOL) and then bummed around for a bit at 7/11. The 7/11 had a bunch of tables on the side for people to sit, eat and chat :D Awesome stuff! Before we left, Alen made an important speech (based on what we were talking about the previous night), which was certainly much needed - for him and for the team. After all that was cleared up, we decided to pop down to Karaoke for half an hour :D 150 yen for half an hour including unlimited drink bar? Awesome stuff :D I love Japanese karaoke!! Anyways, we were only there for half an hour but we sang our lungs out :)

The time came for us to part, and we each went our separate ways - Kat, Jay, Kevin, Masaki and Joel made their way back to Sydney, Aki, Azu, Alen and myself went home, and Fi made her way to Tokyo to wait for her Shinkansen down to Kyoto.

So i made my way to shinjuku to catch the bus from there back to Kofu, but i needed to do some shopping for some presents, so i made my way to Tokyu Hands to check it out (first time!) and bought some stuff :) 6pm, caught the bus back to Kofu and slept for half the ride (which was surprisingly good!). Thankfully it didn't rain, but since it was a sunday, none of the shops were open by the time i got back to Kofu... so i didn't get to buy the groceries that i needed... Gonna have to do that tonight!

So what's happenin?

It's been rainy season for a while now, and if it's not raining, it's hot and humid (like disgustingly humid).

Thankfully i finished my final UTS assignment last friday and handed it in, so i no longer need to worry about assessments for a while. I still have uni though, and i have a few presentations and exams to do. I don't feel that my Japanese has improved very much lately, but i guess i haven't really been putting it to much practice... nor have i been studying very hard unfortunately.

I've been thinking a whole lot more about mission lately, and about how it would look like if i were to come here in the future to do work here... I feel that God is putting it in my heart to do mission here!

Sluggard!

It's been more than three months already... it's amazing how fast time can fly, when it feels like just a few weeks ago that i was saying i can't wait to go to Japan! Ever since my arrival, God has been teaching me a whole lot about Himself and about my role in His plan. For the first 2 months i studied the book of Ecclesiastes, and now i've moved on to 1 John. Ecclesiastes was amazing, but also very difficult. Problem is, for the last 3 months i have been enjoying myself immensely and i feel that i've been neglecting important things like spending time with God in prayer and reading His word. Nor have i been studying very hard at all... i feel that i have been rather lazy with a whole lot of things in fact, and it's not good at all.

So the reason i say this is that a few days ago, on the bus back to tokyo from fuji, i was listening to an SMBC Principal hour podcast, and the message was from Proverbs 6:6-11, and was about ants and slugs (i.e. hardworkers vs. sluggards). The message certainly hit me hard and made me reflect on all that i've been doing. Most my life, even when i've been busy, i feel that i haven't been using my time well. I may have filled up my time with a lot of things and made myself busy - but often i did so in order to make myself unavailable for the things that really mattered, like spending time in prayer and quiet time, helping the church out with things, studying, helping out at home, and spending time with people. I often made myself busy so that i could get away from the important things - the things that i knew i should do. That's what the speaker was talking about basically - that you can be a sluggard even if you're busy. Busyness doesn't necessarily mean that you are getting things done - busyness can be a means of escape. Indeed, we should look towards the ants - they work hard all day and do not tire from their work. They know what is important and they go straight for it. Instead of doing what is important i have been busying myself with things that do not matter. When i considered the speakers words, i knew that he was talking about me. I have certainly failed to be a godly man, as i have failed to work hard at everything as if working for the Lord. That is one thing that God has put in my heart to start changing).

Anyways, that was another long post, but if you have read this far, thanks so much for your patience! Here are some prayer points:

Praise God for:

- The Credo team getting back to Aus safely

- The people of the Japanese church - they've been a huge encouragement, and i'm sure the team has been struck by how mature and loving they are

- Awesome weather on our mount fuji climb

Please pray:

- As i start up and English Conversation class for both Christians and non-Christians (a weekly event connected with the church) for every saturday in the holidays. Please pray that i may be prepared for it and that i may be a good witness to the non-Christians that come. Also praise God for those who have expressed a keen interest in it (i guess because it's free and heaps of Japanese people wanna learn proper english) so far, and please pray that more people would want to come.

- That i can be a good witness wherever i am

- That i may learn how not to be a sluggard - that i will use my time well to do God's work and develop good relationships

Thanks guys :D

Mission weekend #3

So i've written about the 3rd mission weekend on the mission team blog which can be found at http://mychestnutsoil.blogspot.com/

Sorry i haven't had much time to blog in the past few weeks, things have been rather crazy! I will try to blog about the second mission weekend later if i get time...and hopefully my memory will serve me well enough to remember the important bits :)

Please go to that link and read up on what's been happening on the mission, and also please pray for the team! :D

For myself, please just pray that i have enough energy and good time management to get my work done as assessment times approach! Thanks so much :)

Two whole months!

Well it's actually already been a bit over 2 months now :0 I can't believe how quickly time passes!

I have never been away from home for this long, but it's been a pretty awesome experience so far :) Living on my own in a foreign country isn't quite so scary, although it takes some getting used to. I'm really glad that God has brought me this far already. 8 more months!

Now after 2 months, i know that i have kinda become a bit harder to contact and all, so i apologise for that. But i guess this is just a temporary thing, and i'm gonna try to make the most of this experience, so i'm trying not to dwell too much on how things are back home in Aus. That doesn't mean that i'll stop contacting you guys, but it does mean that i may not be able to be very prompt with my responses!

So the past 2 months have been amazing :) I've pretty much settled in enough that i'm starting to become rather lazy... after i finished my second assignment for this semester (one more due at the end of June!) i bludged for about a week or so...so i'm just trying to get back on track with work and stuff. I gotta admit i've been rather slack with a lot of other things too... but it has been quite fun :) After i handed in last month's assignment, we watched movies like almost every night! So we rented a lot of disney and pixar movies and also some Ghibli movies :) May i say, Finding Nemo in Japanese is HILARIOUS! :D Love it :) I was kinda sad that we couldn't find Lion King at the dvd store though :(

A barrier to mission?

So for those of you who haven't heard already, i am no longer allowed to go and join the credo mission team :( Of course i will try to join them for as much as i can still, but i will be missing out on most of it unfortunately... Although it is saddening (i was really looking forward to it), i know that God has His plan for me apart from that mission. Perhaps there's something He wants me to do right here where i am. Anyways, not being able to go on mission means that i get more time to do my assignment, and i won't be missing out on a lot of important stuff at uni. It also means that i get to spend a lot more time with my foreign buddies here before they leave. If i were to leave for a month, who knows what would happen to those relationships! I don't know exactly what God would have me do, but i trust that He will help me to do what He wants me to do. In the end, not being able to go on mission with the others isn't all that bad (although it also meant that i had to pay for accommodation that i didn't even use :( ). But anyways, there's a lot that i can be doing right here where i am, so please pray that i will use this time effectively!

English conversation

So one of my friends here found a job teaching two middle aged ladies how to converse in English. 2 weeks ago, she couldn't make it, so i took over the class for one day. I've never really tutored anyone before, so it was quite a new thing for me. But after that one class i felt like it was something i wasn't too bad at. The two ladies told me that they really enjoyed the class and wanted me to come back to teach them again some time. I think that after my friend returns to england, i may be able to take over for her for the rest of the year :) This looks like a good opportunity for me to build up my experience! Who knows, i may end up teaching English in Japan or something (or Japanese in Australia!).

A few weeks back i also found out that there is ONE other Christian living in these dorms :) He's a Chinese guy (i don't really know his name apart from the kanji he uses for it, so let's just call him Chinese guy for now :D) that's been studying in Japan for maybe 2 and a half years now. Recently he picked up Korean and English as well, and he's been struggling a little bit with English so he asked for my help. When he heard that there was another Christian living here, he was overjoyed and he came to greet me. He then asked me if i could teach him a bit of English, and i agreed to help him once a week on wednesday nights. At first it wasn't so hard, teaching English pronunciation - although it is very very hard for asians to learn proper English pronunciation :( The hard part was when we got to English grammar. I haven't learnt how to teach English ever before, so i may need to take up a teaching program of some sort if i wanna teach properly. I struggled with teaching him several things like the use of copulas (?) in English. The word "The" is rather hard to explain... and there are a lot of other things that i can't really explain very well because of my limited Japanese speaking ability...but hopefully i'll get there with practice :) It's very informal anyways so no traumas :D In any case, i'm very glad that i have these opportunities to teach and make myself useful for a brother in Christ :)

Also, recently i've been talking to the other members of my church and the KGK people about starting up a free english conversation class so we can invite our non-Christian friends along. The plan so far is that we set it up once a week, and we will probably be learning English through simple Bible teachings. I wonder how this will turn out? Right now because of mission on the weekends and uni work and stuff i haven't managed to find time to put anything together, so please pray that we will be able to start something soon, and that God uses this to bring more people back to Him :) KGK hasn't had any real reach out thingies for a while now, so i think it'd be great to get this started, and hopefully it will continue! I'm sure there are a lot of people who are keen to learn English :D

Mission begins!

So the Credo team arrived nice and safely last Saturday :) Praise God for that! I was able to spend the weekend with the team as they settled into life here. It was heaps of fun :) So on Saturday i got to Shinjuku at about 10am, where i met Azu (a Japanese Credoite who came to Credo several years back with a guy called Aki. These two are AWESOME :D) first up, and we then made our way to Asakusa (my first time there in 5 years!), which is where our accommodation was. We expected the team to be there already, but they weren't, so we were a little worried that they had gotten lost. But right before we were about to leave to get something to eat and wait, Kat came through the door! :D After we put our stuff down we made our way to Harajuku (also my first time in 5 years)! We got some stuff to eat at a rather traditional ramen store, and Aki came to join us for lunch as well :) After that was the Meiji Jinguu - a pretty big temple surrounded by an awesome forest :) There we met up with my little sister Kaori (who is going to Melbourne to study for 2 years starting early July! Melbourne may be a little far from Sydney, but you Sydney people better take good care of her :P). We then went for some awesome Harajuku crepes :D They're probably the best crepes i've ever had! Then again i haven't really tried many different types of crepes, but they were really really cool! I want some more...

After our Harajuku adventure, we made our way to nerd town Akihabara (also my first time in 5 years!) where we shopped a bit for electronics and stuff. The guys and girls split up for a bit - the girls went to a cafe, and the guys went to an arcade (typical hey? :P) We then decided to go back to Asakusa to shop around for a bit at the hundred yen shop and then waited for Alen for a bit for dinner. We had cheap Italian food at Saizeriya for dinner :) Pretty good stuff! We probably all spent 10 bucks or less! We then all walked back to our accommodation and got some much needed rest.

Day 2 was another day of settling in and fun :) So we trekked over to Aki's church in Kawasaki, where we met a lot of nice people and heard Aki's testimony :D Soon after, we left to have lunch at a nearby store, which was pretty nice as well. Aki was probably nowhere near full though (that guy can eat 20 plates at sushi train! what a monster!). Still, whether full or not, we trekked down to Mitaka where the Studio Ghibli museum is :) Before that though, we decided to get some ice-cream :D The museum was pretty awesome :D But they really know how to milk money from people! The souvenirs are really cool but really expensive, and they screen Ghibli short films there that can ONLY be seen there. They have about 8 Ghibli short films, and each time you visit you can only watch one! So yeah, they really know how to milk you for cash hahaha! Still, the place had some pretty cool stuff! Shame i couldn't take pictures inside, but some of the pictures of the outside are on facebook if you wanna check them out! There was also an awesome huge nekobasu (the cat bus from Totoro) inside with kids playing around in AND on it! I wish i were a kid :( Anyways, so after our Ghibli adventure we made our way back to near Mitaka station for some sushi train dinner! Strangely, the best stuff i had that night were the free miso soup (3 bowls :D) and the pineapple! The pineapple was really nice and fresh, and really really juicy :) Aki didn't quite eat 20 dishes, but he seemed quite satisfied anyways!

So after dinner we trekked back to shinjuku where i said bye to everyone. The last bus came at 10pm as usual, and 2 hours later i arrived back in Kofu, safe and sound :) All in all, it was an awesome weekend :D

So it looks like i'll be joining the mission team every weekend from now until they leave, so i will be able to spend quite a bit of time with them thankfully :) travel might be a bit of a pain, but i'm sure things will work out :D

Praise God for:

- The Credo team arriving safely

- A nice start to mission

- Allowing me to get my assignments done (and getting pretty okay marks for them too!)

Please pray for:

- Me to use my time well, getting assignments and other important things done

- The English conversation class idea to come to fruition

Thanks heaps guys, love you all! :)

Unexpected

Most of this week has been rather uneventful, up until the weekend that is! These days uni has been quite normal, learning bits and pieces here and there, but i guess the place i am getting the most practice in speaking Japanese is at KGK and church. I really do need to start hanging around the Jap people more! Anyways, here's a what's been happening these past two days.

KGK Yamanashi Block Event

As usual, I spent saturday morning at KGK Bible study. Well... I say "as usual" but that was really only my second Bible study haha... but anyways it should be "usually" from now on coz i don't have anything on on the weekends (bar mission for the next month). The Bible study this time was led by Kawakubo sensei (the einstein looking teacher who goes to my church). The Bible study was on Mark 5:25 - 34 (where the woman in the crown who was subject to bleeding for 12 years was healed), and truthfully i didn't get much from the Bible study except for new vocab, which is a plus anyways :) After the Bible study we sat around for a bit talking, and sensei was telling me about how things were in KGK in his days. He was telling me how they used to hold weekly events in KGK like social gatherings and things, but that doesn't seem to happen very much these days. Then he started talking about english conversation classes, and i was thinking that would be an AWESOME idea! So hopefully God will use me to start something of the sort, and invite both Japanese and English speakers to the class - both Christian and non-Christian. Although i would feel quite strange being the only discussion leader...

please pray that something may be worked out :D

Anyways, so from 12:30pm a few of us KGK students left kofu city, and we were given a lift from Nemoto san (who was my first contact in KGK apart from Momoko last year at NTE). It was kinda funny coz she's a very small girl, and she drove a cute little car that could barely go uphill. SHe was also too afraid to use the highway, so we went via smaller streets round the mountains...which turned out to be a lot scarier than she thought. When we were going downhill i was said to her "erh...this kinda reminds me of a rollercoaster" and she was freaked out LOL. That was a bit of a lol moment for all of us :D Apart from the uphill and downhill roads, there were also some very very narrow roads that were 2 way roads, and we had a few near misses with huge trucks...turns out it really may have been better to take the highway haha! She apologised and told us "i'll make sure i practice driving on highways for the future!" Anyways, other than that, the scenery on the way there was amazing :D Unfortunately, i didn't take any photos, but i was able to take some awesome mental snaps :)

So after a one and a half hour drive we arrived at a church in Tsuru, where we were greeted by the other Yamanashi block members (i.e. the other KGK people in our prefecture), some who I hadt he pleasure of meeting in Tokyo a few weeks back at the welcome event for new students in KGK. Not everyone from our prefecture was there, but the total number of attendees was about 10...still it was nice :) We started off with a bit of music, and self introductions, and games. I was happy coz i knew two of the three songs we sang. One of them was "As the deer" and the other was "Kimi ga aisareru tame umareta" which is a Japanese song composed by a Korean girl (i think). It means "You were born to be loved". After introducing ourselves, we played an interesting variation of pictionary, where one team member faces away from the team while they each draw whatever they want (in relation to the topic on the card), and they are given 30 seconds to draw. After thirty seconds the other team member turns around to look at the pictures, and has a short moment to guess from the collection of pictures. In the end both teams got everything, so there wasn't much competition, but some of those kids could DRAW! Awesomeness :D

We then went on to Bible study, which went for quite a while. We flipped through a couple of passages (Psalm 97, Psalm 139, 1 John 4:7-10, Gospel John 3:16-18, 36. **the name John is pronounced "Yohane" in japanese, so when they first said it i was like "say what?"). The theme was "the character of God". I was really encouraged by that Bible study, as i was able to see the faith and knowledge of the people there. It certainly made me feel right at home, as if i was back in Credo again. So basically, it's like Credo but in Japan :D Well, we are really all from IFES anyways! So it was really nice being in that Bible study, as i was able to participate just like i did back home, only the language barrier was a bit of a problem sometimes. I would've liked to contribute a bit more, but i was still able to do my part in encouraging them with related Bible passages (i love my bilingual Bible and iTouch :D). I heard some of the other groups were having some rather more intellectual conversations about theology - but it may be a while before my Jap is good enough to move onto apologetics and theology haha....but hopefully i'll get there eventually!

So after Bible study was dinner. New students didn't have to pay for the event or the dinner, so i got off :D Once again, the hospitality shown by the Japanese people is amazing! The food was also deliciously awesome :) After dinner we took a photo, and then left for another one and a half hour drive. Here's the picture of the group:

The guy to my left is Sousei Nagai, who is one of the staffworkers in KGK that i met at the welcome event. He's heaps friendly and cool :) His name "Sousei" actually means "Genesis" :D I thought that was pretty awesome anyways! He was telling me about a Christian camp a few years back that was held for people from East Asia. There he met some Chinese people (i think) who nicknamed him "So sweet" LOL! And then some others gave him the nickname "So sweat" ROFL! Well, i rofled (not literally...) because the name was funny, but also because it was pretty fob :P Oh yeah, he's one of our contacts for our upcoming mission as well :) He also seems very knowledgeable!

Soon, us Kofu city dwellers left for home in Nemoto san's tiny car, this time we found a safer route to go by :) We chatted for a bit about various things, and for a bit there was some discussion on theology as well. I was just glad to hear them talking about that stuff because i didn't think it would happen very much in Japan. It seems that they aren't very different from us at all :)

All in all it was an awesome (although very hot) day, and i feel really blessed once again that i have been brought here to experience what the church is like here in Japan.

Yamanashi Baptist Church

Yesterday, Hajime sempai (one of the first KGK members i met - the dude that brought us to Tokyo for the welcome event) invited me to his church (which is the church Akihiro Iseki went to. Aki is one of the dudes who went to UTS as an exchange student, and became friends with the Credoites. He will also be joining us for mission :D). This Baptist church was the one Aki introduced me to initially, but Hajime sempai told me that it would probably be better for me to go to my current church because there are more youngsters there (lol...he's not that much older than me). Well, anyways today i decided to go check out his church as well, and once again, i was blown away by the friendliness and hospitality of the people there. In general, the older people of Japan are much friendlier than the youngsters, so it felt like a very warm church. Apart from two toddlers, i was the youngest there :P Everyone else apart from Hajime sempai was middle aged or above! From the moment i stepped into the doors i was being warmly greeted by the others one by one. It was a great pleasure to meet so many friendly people :)

So the reason Hajime invited me to his church today was because today was the first day for the new pastor (Mokuyama Michio san). It was certainly a great encouragement hearing his testimony, and also his wife's testimony. He told us about how he was a non-Christian until his uni years when he was brought to church by a friend (i think this was in one of his 6 years in America). He told us the story of how the pastor of that church worked hard to bring him to Christ. Over a very long period of time, the Pastor persisted in sharing the Gospel with him, and in seeing his persistence and passion, Mokuyama san began to slowly feel a change in his heart. After a long period time, the Pastor approached him again and asked him whether or not he believed, and at that moment, he said "yes i do". the strange thing for him was, he didn't know what it was. He just felt like he believed all of a sudden. He told us that it just happened "some way or other". Although at that point he didn't know exactly what he believed, the persistence of that Pastor seemed to be a strong influence on his change of heart. From then he began to study God's word more, and he began to grow in faith more and more. He became convinced that the Bible was 100% true, and he eventually got into ministry and spent some time on mission. Today was his first day ever as a Pastor.

After his testimony, his wife got up to tell hers. She grew up in a completely non-Christian area where there were absolutely no churches for miles and miles. I missed a bit of what she said so i wasn't sure whether or not her parents were Christians, but i know that she told us that she didn't believe at all for a very long time because of the life she lived. She didn't ever see much happiness and she saw a lot of suffering, especially during the time of WWII. She told herself that she would study hard to become a wonderful nurse, and that she never wanted to have anything to do with religion of any sort. I'm not sure if she became one in the end though, because there was a time when she eventually came to know Christ. I think it was when she was still a student or something, some of her friends invited her to a Christian gathering, and it was there that for the first time ever she experienced the warmth of a Christian environment. She was saying that she never experienced such warmth before, and it felt like although her heart was darkened in the past, that this experience was the beginning of her change of heart. As she began to spend more time with these people she began to know the love of Christ, and it affected her so deeply that she came to accept Christ into her heart truly. She cried as she told us this part of her testimony - that the love of Christ was so deep that He would die on the cross for those who rejected Him, and that He would offer salvation to the world despite the fact that the world despised Him.

Although the church is small and full of older people, and although it was only my first day, i felt like i was right at home. At lunchtime we all sat around, and like one big family we shared a meal together and chatted (the food was awesome :D And once again, because it was my first time, i didn't have to pay!). A few of the people got up to express their joy at finally receiving a Pastor at the church (they've been pastorless for a while now i think!), and a very Spiritually strong Pastor at that. The Pastor himself got up after a while to address us, and he told us that he thought we didn't need to dress so formally at church. Some of the older people were wearing suits and stuff, so he told them (although he was wearing a suit himself) that they needn't be so formal. He said to us that as we slowly come to know each other more and as we grow as a family, there is absolutely no need for such formalities. Some of the other members were also saying that although the Pastor and his wife are well known for their strong spirituality, that the church should not see them as superhumans, but instead see them as members of the church just like everyone else - as flawed human beings. So they encouraged us to take our part in encouraging the Pastor and his wife as well, and to support them as much as we could. This i think, is definitely how a church should look like.

During lunch i had a little talk with the pastor about his missionary experiences and his time in america. So i made the comment that america has a huge proportion of Christians in comparison to Japan. Then he said something very interesting, and i thought it was a very good and true observation. He said that although there appear to be many Christians in america, there is probably a very small number of people who truly believe and live out their lives as Christians. I agreed with him on that. Then he told me that in Japan he has seen that the people who call themselves Christians actually truly believe. And although there is a very small number of Christians in Japan, their faith is quite strong because they are a minority and so they hold onto that faith. So the church in Japan is quite strong, but still it is very hard to do mission in Japan because of the group culture. Still most the Christians in Japan (and most that i've met) have grown up in Christian families, but because of the group culture in Japan, those that are raised in Christian families do tend to become Christians eventually even if they don't early on in life.

The pastor also told me something very interesting that he saw during his mission work in Japan. There was a missionary team from America - 5 westerners and 5 Japanese people doing streetside evangelism around Shibuya. He said that the most effective work was done by one of the pairs in the group - one American and one Japanese. The American preached on the streets...in ENGLISH. That caught a lot of people's attention, and then for those that didn't understand, the Japanese guy was there to translate. Because the American guy was there, lots of people were interested. People were nowhere near as interested when there was just an ordinary Japanese guy preaching on the streets. From the work of that pair (i mean the work of the Holy Spirit through that pair), in a short time (not sure how long) 7 people came to know the Lord :D Upon hearing this, i am greatly encouraged, seeing that there are indeed some very effective ways to evangelise in this kind of culture :)

These past two days have been a huge huge encouragement i'd say! Something i've been praying for lately has been for me to find out what i can do to help the churches and the Christians here, because lately i've been feeling that i haven't been doing much to encourage the people here and i feel useless. But in these two days i have been able to hear of ways that i can help, and of ways i can encourage the people here. Indeed i feel that God has answered that prayer! So thanks heaps, to those of you who have been praying with me on this :) I'm sure that God has a whole lot in store for me in the future :D

So here are some prayer points!

Praise God for:

- The Christians that i've been able to meet in KGK and at church - for there friendliness, hospitality, encouragement and faith

- For answering my prayers and showing me some of the things i can do here :)

- For His great love :D

- That my language ability has become a little smoother

Please pray:

- That i will continue to grow in maturity in Christ day by day, and that these experiences will enhance my understanding of who He is, and what he would have me do

- That my language ability will develop more and more

- That i may learn more about the culture that i will be doing mission in

Thanks so much once again for those of you who have been praying for me constantly, and for those who have been keeping up with my blog entries (although many of them are very very long!) :D

effortless, joyful hospitality

I wasn't really planning on blogging at this time but i couldn't help but share a bit about today's church party (for new members to the church). At about 3:30pm we left the church, and drove about 40 minutes out towards the mountains. I've gotta say, the area is sooooooooo awesomely nice :D It's a very agriculture based area, and surrounded by beautiful mountains. The air there was amazing as well :) The house was also very big for a Japanese house, and definitely very warm and "homey".

Once again, i couldn't help but notice how amazing the people here are at showing hospitality, and we'd only met each other like once or twice! Once we stepped into their door they wouldn't stop giving us snacks and drinks to eat before the huge bbq dinner. It was also nice having tim tams again :D Although tim tams here cost much more than they do back home :( Anyways the dinner was absolutely amazing! I really really stuffed myself silly coz they just kept bringing out more food. And they didnt start eating until they finished cooking! The steaks were much huger than i thought they would be, and seriously, they were the softest, juiciest, most delicious steaks i've ever had :) I never thought i'd have so much meat here in Japan! They also had these humongous oysters (photos will be below!), and although i'm not a huge fan of oysters, i thought they were quite nice :) No doubt it would have been a very expensive dinner as well...and there were heaps of leftovers so they told us to bring stuff back home (yay! don't have to make lunch tomorrow :D). They seriously made hospitality look so easy, and they did it all so effortlessly and jofully :) Once again, i do think that that is something we all need to learn from!

It wasn't just their hospitality that was heaps encouraging, the dude from church that invited us over (Ishihara san - he's probably in his 60's or 70's) is very very knowledgeable about the Bible and about the worldwide church. To be honest i thought that people in this area would be very closed off to the rest of the world, and i thought that their Biblical knowledge would be very limited. Turns out they are much more open to the worldwide church and seemingly more knowledgeable than a lot of the churches back home. And they are obviously very Bible based, because Ishihara san talked for about an hour about the dangers of becoming non-Bible based. he was talking about how many churches have gone astray, and how they have fallen into the trap of not following the Bible, and he warned us about that kind of thing. I feel that it is really a huge blessing to be here to experience being a part of this church. And despite the language barrier, i feel right at home.

After dinner was dessert, which was also amazingly awesome :) Sorry i didn't take any pictures, but my stomach will remember it :D After dessert we spent some time in prayer, and we were also informed of the upcoming events. There's a retreat coming up in july, but it's really close to exams and after mission (and by then i will be very very behind in work) so i may not be able to go :( Taking a month off for mission was already a rather tedious task, but thankfully the uni let me take that time off :) God is opening up so many doors for me, so i am really really thankful :D

This morning after the service, an old dude from a Gideon church in Japan was telling us a story of the work of that church in Japan, and he was telling us about how he struggled with cancer from decades back (i think, my Jap isn't good enough to translate what he said properly) and how he has worked hard at ministry, and about how God has gotten him through all that (or something along those lines!). It was just really nice to see that the church partners with a heap of other churches in their work (the announcements always have prayer points for other churches in the area as well). It was just heaps encouraging to see how God is at work here in Japan. It is still very very difficult to do mission here i think, but i do feel that God is doing something here. Anyways i've heard some pretty good things about the Nagoya Bible college started by that korean guy (Michael Oh... i think!) in recent years (i think). So, perhaps God will send some kind of revival here in Japan :D That is my prayer! So pray with me please :D

I'm also really looking forward to the upcoming credo mission here :) Please pray for that also! (Along with the team heading for Indo!)

Anyways, here are a few random photos showing a few of the things i've been up to in the last 2 weeks :) Enjoy!

KGK welcome event in Tokyo :)

A pikachu drawn by someone in a previous calligraphy class :D

View from the third floor of our dorms one evening :)

Looks somewhat...holy :P

Stitch costumes we got for Rosy and Ben for their birthdays :D

The awesome, cosy home we had the bbq at :)

The view right outside their house :)

Part of the dinner we had :D

The beautiful steak we had :D

My humongous oyster :)

Megumi is the English teacher i was introduced to in my first week here!

Oh yeah, and it was freezing over there and i didn't have a jacket so they lent me one for the night!

The view at night :) You're meant to be able to see the moon and a single star above it, but this image is scaled down so nah

Anyways, another random recount - i just bought a new bike! :D The bikes that were left for us from last year were pretty horrible and they didn't have gears or anything, so i decided it would be nice to buy a new one. Cost me about 150 bucks, which i thought was reasonable :) Anyways it's gonna be really nice riding around everywhere now! So much easier to go grocery shopping now! On the night of the day i got my bike, after i had a huge dinner i decided i should work off some of what i ate, so i went for a ride down to somewhere i'd never been before. It was really nice :) The streets here go really quiet at night, i barely saw anyone, not even many cars on my short adventure at about 10pm. So the ride down from the dorms was amazing - all downhill, and the road was all mine for most the way :D Of course, the ride back up was really really difficult...if i do that everyday i'll have thunder thighs in no time LOL!

Anyways, prayer points!

Praise God:

- That He has kept me safe thusfar despite my fail biking skills

- That He has blessed me with such an amazing church

- For awesome foood :)

- For great times with fellow brothers and sisters in a foreign land

- That the Australian government has been so generous in helping me with cash!

Please pray:

- That God will allow me to manage my time well so that i can fit in more study, as i have no really been making the most of opportunities to learn more about the language and culture. I have realised how fail my language abilities are, so please pray that i can pick things up quickly :)

- That i may be prepared for the upcoming mission trip (have to write up a testimony, and will probably attempt to do so in Japanese!)

- That i get the chance to use the Japanese two ways to live thingies that Danny Hung sent over (thanks so so much dude :D)

Thanks guys :D Love you all!