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! :)
