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