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
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!
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