Beautiful day

Today i woke up to a beautiful sun and sweet mountain air :) Today's probably the first time i've been able to wear shorts and thongs! (I need to make sure i stop using the word "thongs" here, coz the british and americans here use that word for something else...so "flip flops" is what i need to get used to, otherwise it becomes sorta awkward turtle...) Anyways, now that i have a bit of time, i decided to blog a bit about the last few days! I'll include some photos so i don't have to use as many words :)

Grocery shopping

Living on my own, shopping for my own groceries and learning to cook has been a rather fun experience. I suck at cooking but the ingredients they have here certainly do make things easier sometimes! So i look forward to experimenting with food throughout this year and teach myself to cook :D Groceries have been rather expensive, but it's all worth it :) Here's a little simple meal that i cooked up on my own :D

It was a tad bit plain, but i'll learn for next time :)

KGK

Yesterday i was finally able to meet some of the KGK (Kirisutokyou Gakusei Kai - Christian Student Gathering) people :) So we had a little Bible study session all in Japanese... i was able to make out some of what they were saying, and i sorta understood the questions and all, and i had my english Bible at hand so that was okay :) Often it was hard to express myself but i think i'll get used to it eventually, God willing! The Bible study was conducted pretty much the same way as we do it in Australia - no big differences really! I was able to learn some very important vocab for Christian use :)

Seirei - The spirit, but also used for the Holy Spirit Himself

Reihai - Worship

Dendou - Mission

Shitagau - To obey

Mikotoba - The word of God

Tetteiteki ni - fully / completely

Saidan - Altar

Saidan wo kizuku - To build an altar

Gutaiteki ni - Concretely

Senrei - Baptism (the characters used for this word are 洗 - to wash, and 礼 - ceremony)

So you may be wondering which passage i learnt these new words from. It was really interesting that my first Bible study here was from this passage - Genesis 12 - where Abraham is sent out to a country not his own - away from all the things he's accumulated - a foreign land (almost exactly the same situation i'm in right now!). So it was the perfect passage for me to be studying, as it reminded me that i needed to fully trust in God despite the hardships that were to come, and have trust in God despite uncertainty, just as Abraham did :) Amazing hey? :D

A few of the KGK members! I'm not sure how big KGK is here, but i think it's not very big...they were very very surprised to hear that Credo had 200 members!

The guy on the left is our Bible study leader Hajime Ito, then the girl on the left is Nemoto Kae (the girl i got in contact with before i came to KGK - she's my host (Kaori)'s cousin's friend :D) The girl in front of me is Kana, and the girl in the middle is Maki (these two girls go to my new church)

Yay for church!! :D

So today was my first time at a Japanese church (apart from the time i went with my host family in Tokyo about 5 years ago!), and for part of it it was a bit of a shocking experience. When i arrived i was greeted very warmly by the welcomers. I took off my shoes and was given slippers and was directed to the church hall upstairs. As i walked in, the room was already packed (although quite small) and i was there about a minute late! Back at my own church in Sydney, there would barely be anyone there a 9am when the service is meant to start. So i guess that was quite encouraging (although i guess it's also part of Japanese culture not to be late). I guess it's something i'll need to get used to. I mean living in Australia certainly isn't good preparation for the strictness of the culture in Japan! When i walked into the church hall, i was directed to some of the vacant seats near the front, and admittedly i was kinda scared coz the service leader looked like a very strict, old fashioned man. I felt he was giving me a glare as i walked in (about a minute late!). The guy next to me (Shinya) noticed i was new, but he thought i was Japanese (as with most people here do -_-")! He noticed that i was very lost so he helped me find the songs we were singing in the worship book (yeah, they don't have a projector or anything - every song they sing is in the worship book). Also, the names of the books in the Japanese Bible aren't exactly easy to read, so i was quite lost when they were flipping around the Bible. After settling down into this new environment a little, i was struck by the differences in how the service was run. Indeed it was interesting - although very traditional in the way it was run, the church was also quite warm and friendly. They started off with one song (i recognised this song! - a traditional hymn - Holy, holy, holy! I also noticed that at the end of EVERY song, they all sang "Amen" - pretty interesting i thought!) , then turned to a Psalm. After one verse of the Psalm was read by the service leader, the rest of the congregation read the verse after that, and that continued for the whole Psalm. You can imagine how hard it was for me to follow when everyone else was reading at native language pace! Then there was another song, and then a prayer. The prayer went on for quite a while, and i didn't really understand so much of what he was saying, but i could tell that here was a man who regarded prayer very highly. One thing to note however, is that the Japanese pray to God with very very formal language, which is appropriate in their culture because even with anyone older than you, you are meant to use formal language. The super formal language that is used in prayers is similar to that used in business contexts. Anyways, i was thankful that the service leader wasn't also the preacher, because he seemed a tad scary (sorry to say!). The preacher was a younger, friendly man named matsumura san (im guessing that was his last name). He was quite an interesting, energetic speaker (rather unexpectedly actually), and i managed to understand about half of what he was preaching (assisted by my english Bible of course!). The passage that was read from was Mark 7 - one of the instances when Jesus addresses the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. The main point of his sermon then was that we should be worshiping God with our hearts, not with traditions. I'm glad he preached on this, as i can now be at ease knowing that the church will not be run in a very strict way. The sermon was followed by another song, and then a prayer. The way the prayer was done was a little bit different in that the person who prayed stood out the front, but his back was turned to the congregation, and he faced the front instead. I thought about it and it made sense - he was bringing to God our prayers, on behalf of the congregation. The service then ended with another song, offertory, church news and the benediction. Afterwards i was a little shocked when the pastor decided to give me and the other new people a warm welcome from the pulpit. The welcomers noted that i was an exchange student from Australia and relayed this to the pastor. So i received a warm welcome from the whole congregation :) If you ask me, i think that is what churches should be like - warm and welcoming. After all this, i was warmly welcomed by other individuals slightly older than me (workers) - a primary school english teacher (Megumi), another male worker named...oh crap i forgot his name :( Japanese names are quite hard to remember unfortunately...well for me anyways! After these introductions i received a free bento (boxed lunch) and was joined by these new people i met and the pastor himself for lunch. I left the church feeling very warm and welcome - it's gonna be a very interesting year indeed :)

My beautiful new church :D

Anyways, since the weather is so beautiful today, i decided i wanted to be out. So i'm gonna head to the nearby mountains and do a bit of hiking with the two french guys and one of the german girls :D Wooh! fun fun!

Oh yeah, here's a little picture of some of the new flowers that have been blooming recently. The sakura have mostly fallen now, so those trees are mostly green now. But yeah, these other trees aren't as numerous but the flowers are quite the awesome :D

Peace out! Love and miss you guys :)