Homestay

I had the privilege of home-staying with Mr and Mrs Sakamoto, an older couple who live near Harvest Church. I was picked up on Saturday afternoon by Mr Sakamoto, straight after the children’s event. A dinner of Sukiyaki (including Australian beef) was followed by a good discussion about our travels and lives.

Mr Sakamoto is a retired University lecturer in Psychology. Mrs Sakamoto is a retired high school geography teacher who has taken school excursions to over 20 different countries. They shared with me about their recent trip to Turkey to see Bible sites like Ephesus and Smyrna.

They have a particular passion for seeing churches grow, and we spoke late into the night about ways to help the Japanese church grow.

The next morning, the Sakamotos took me on a trip around the main sites of Hirosaki City. We saw the castle area and some of the historical buildings. We also saw a Buddhist pagoda near Hirosaki High School (where Yudai attends). We saw the prestigious Hirosaki University where Junji from Harvest Church lectures in ethics. Early Methodist missionaries were a big influence on the educational institutions.

We were able to pray together for Japan and the spread of the Gospel – a sign of our true partnership in Christ despite language and cultural differences. We then joined the evening service at Harvest for the Christmas celebration and Christmas party afterwards.

the final days of mission...

We have officially finished our mission!!!
Yesterday morning (Monday) we left at 8.25am from Itayanagi station and travelled back to the OMF office at Ichikawa for our debrief.

But back tracking a little...
Saturday:
We had a children's Christmas meeting at Itayanagi Chapel.

We played many different games...

Playing 'Bzzt' (the Aussie version)

the Emu position in 'Bzzt'

We had the Christmas message of Jesus told through a story board and a brief talk by Martin. There were about 45 children who turned up - and about 20 of those kids had come because of the fliers we handed out at the elementary schools on the early Friday morning! Praise God for bringing so many children :)

Roy and Nat left for the night cafe held at Kanagi during this time. Pete left for an overnight home stay. Which left Danny, Dave and Judy to play with some of the children after the children's Christmas meeting! It involved much running - playing games like stuck-in-the-mud, bull-rush, musical chairs, bum shuffle...

Sunday:
It was our last official working day of mission =( We were sad to be attending our last service at Itayanagi chapel, Harvest chapel and English service.

Morning service at Itayanagi chapel....we had our weekly worship service - with Dave and Judy helping out the music team, a sermon by Martin on Luke 2. After service we had a pot-luck lunch feast, and we played Australian Bzzt, Christmas Charades and Bingo. Everyone had to bring a 100yen present for Bingo, so everyone got to choose a present from the pile once they Bingo-ed =) It was a little sad as it was the last time we could chat and mingle with the church members. Over the past few weeks we've gotten to know many of the church members and I think we're all very encouraged by them! It's hard being a Christian in Japan and it's amazing to see their faithfulness and trust in God despite the tough times they've had. So please pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ here in Japan - that they will continue to be strong in their faith and that God will continue to grow His people as well as to bring more people to know Jesus.

Feasting :)

Lunch Feast at Morning Service :)

Harvest Chapel service was similar - worship in song, a sermon by Martin and a dinner feast with the church members =) Once again it was sad that it was our last opportunity to see them. During dinner the Aussie team had a chance to share about our experiences on mission. One thing that has been really encouraging to see at Harvest Chapel is that the church members are so faithful and regular! There are not many that attend Harvest Chapel (there's around 10 regular members not including the Ghents and us Aussies) so an absence at church is noticeable. It's also really encouraging to see them united as one big family under Christ =) Please keep praying for Harvest Chapel - that they may continue to stand strong in their faith and God may bless them and grow their church!

At English Service we sang many Christmas carols and each shared about something we've learnt (the Aussie team shared about our experiences from mission). I shared about two things I learnt:

• I never really thought about going on short term mission outside of Australia - and so coming to Japan for mission I didn't have many expectations on what it would be like. But one thing God has showed me is that He IS working all around the world! I've come to realise how small 'my world' is. I'm so used to being brought up in a place where Christianity is the 'norm'. So it's quite surprising to think that many of the outreaches we have held (e.g. children's christmas meetting) almost half or more of the children that come don't even know about Jesus!
• We are so blessed at GracePoint! Although we say we lack leaders and resources - it is nothing compared to the churches here. I've been so encouraged to see the Ghents work so hard in all of their ministries. At GracePoint we have separate teams dealing with separate ministries...but here because churches aren't that big, the Ghents all have multiple responsibilities in different ministries - and all church members are involved in some way. I think this makes church feel like like one big family because everybody is serving God together =) which is pretty cool!

Set up for Evening Service

Dessert feast at Evening Service

Then to end the day, we went to a bath house to unwind and relax =)

Thank you so much to all those who have been reading our blog and supporting us through prayer =)

• Praise God for all the people He has brought to the outreaches we'ave had, and pray that God will continue to grow the seeds he has planted in people's hearts to want to come to know Jesus!
• Please also keep praying for the Ghents! Even though our team has our time of rest (where we will be travelling this week, the Ghents will still be working hard! So pray that God may give them energy and strength to continue with their ministries.
• Lastly, please pray for our team. Although we may be on holidays, please pray that we won't forget all that we've seen/learnt in the past few weeks. Pray that we will continue to reflect on everything, give praise to God for what He's been doing but also for us to keep praying for all those we have met!

Just to end, this is a video from one of the preschools we visited - they sang us a song about Anpanman!

In case you don't know, this is AnPanMan.

Coming up: Pete will share about his home stay experience =)

Thanks for reading! =)

In Christ,

Judy

Last Days!

Well we are currently in the home stretch of mission and to be honest it only feels like we are scratching the surface when it comes to building relationships with church+town people and serving them.

Thursday was one hectic day/night because we had our Aussie Night - one of the few things that we knew was coming since before we come to Japan. But the fact that we knew it was coming meant all the more that things were put off until the last minute. That day we had gone to a seniors home where we recycled our children's program with a story board, songs (hokey pokey, if you're happy and you know it clap your hands, Silent Night (kiyoshikonoyoru)) and a short message from Martin.

Just so you know what the storyboard is here is a pic:

Pretty much it is a long strip of rice paper which has pictures painted on it and a light shining behind. Some sections are covered in wax which especially shine bright with the light behind it - it is quite stunning - something I would definitely like to have a go at back home. The pictures follow a children's story about the first Christmas - focusing on the shepherds going to see baby Jesus. The story is something that both children as well as the seniors love to watch and is also a great starting point for Martin to share about the real meaning of Christmas. All of Japan celebrates Christmas and yet most people don't even know why they celebrate. Songs like Silent Night are played in shopping centres and stores but people may not even know the words to them! This really provides a huge opportunity to start gospel conversations with the Japanese and is a great reason to go into schools and senior's homes alike to share the good news.

After the senior's home we got back to Itayanagi and crashed for a bit - but that was short lived as we found out that Ruth was so sick she needed to go to the hospital and Micah and Aaron needed to go and renew their driver's licence - so we went from having Aaron (the Ghent's youngest son who just got back from Chicago that day), Micah, Ruth and Martin to only having our team to do massive cleaning and decorating of the church (sanctuary), cooking and planning games, trivia and a sermon. Everyone went into overdrive - Danny went on a shopping run - buying up all the beef mince he could find anywhere. Pete was writing his sermon and helped with the pavlova. Judy, Roy and I were helping to cut veggies and prep food. Nat decorated and cleaned. Danny then prepped trivia. I learnt some Aussie classics on guitar - Gimme a home among the gum trees and Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree. HECTIC!

It's all a bit of blur to be honest. But finally Aussie night was underway and people seemed to be having a great time. Praise God that even though we went way overtime (till 9:30pm...was meant to finish at 8:30 coz of young families) that people were quite willing to stick around and chat. I think that Danny had some good conversations with people. We ate shepherds pie, lamingtons and pavlova. In keeping with our semi theme of sheep, Pete gave a short talk about how Jesus is the shepherd who leaves his 99 sheep to go and save the one lost sheep.

Anyways enough text...here are some pics!

The apple juice was not Australian but very amazing

Pavlova!

Whoa, Pete, what a beast eating all that Shepherd's Pie!

Strong Tea

After this was a massive cleanup job - we were all going a little crazy by this stage but we seemed to have the energy to get it all done that night=)

Today (Friday) we needed to leave the house by 7am to hand out invitations at school gates for a Christmas Party. This required a lot of effort on the part of everyone but by some miracle we all made it. It was cold with lots of snow around but quite fun. I was posted at a school with Roy - many of the children were very excited and open to taking out invitations - please be praying that they will want to come to the party.

After this we went to our last two preschools. They were super fun and we received gifts at both! Once we got back we had some zonking time where some slept, and others (Judy, Pete, Nat and I) went to an onsen 5mins down the road from church. It was super hot but super nice!!

Then Judy, Nat and I had to rush off to a Kanagi event in a town about 30 mins from Kanagi. There we ran a Christmas party with the Mesas (Armin and Heike) where we sang songs, had a visit from Santa (yours truly) played games and ate some nice food. Aside from my Santa pants falling down many times, the highlight of the night was talking to Shunsuke about Christianity. He doesn't believe in anything he says but is still quite open to talking about Christianity. I gave him a Two Ways To Live tract and told him to use it to study English as well as find out about what Christianity is. I hope and pray that he does read it and come to faith as a result. Pray boldly=) Armin said that many of the people who were there tonight had never been to any church events before so praise God for bringing those people. He purposely brought those people there that night to hear the gospel. Please be praying for Armin and Heike who have been working hard at Kanagi Chapel for the past 5 or so years without seeing much fruit for their labour. Pray that they can have strength to carry on their ministry in a town of 15000 and only a handful of Christians. Armin is feeling discouraged by this so please be praying for him and his family.

Storyboard with Christmas Tree!

Anyways that's it for me. Please keep praying for us that we can finish strong. Pray for Ruth, too, as she recovers from her cough and also for the other's on the team still sick (Danny, Pete and Judy).

Oyasuminasai! Ashita ne!

デービッド (David)

Tanoshii Tuesday!

Tanoshii Tuesday! (Fun Tuesday, Japanese used for sake of alliteration and… because we’re in Japan)

Danny again to blog! Where to start

… Well I guess I’ll start chronologically and start with the start of today! Today was started with a devotion set by Roy on Philippians 3:1-11. We reflected on works based salvation and how we at times although in our minds know that it doesn’t work like that, at times we can place too much value in our own works and we really do place our hopes in them, whereas Paul views things such as his social standing and his heritage rubbish when compared to the surpassing greatness of Christ.

Could we look at our modern day equivalents and do the same? We’ll continue to work that out won’t we =)

After that we prayed for the school we were about to visit and the night café which has just happened (I am writing this at 11:07pm).

The school was amazing. Hiroshi-san, the school princip

al, really stuck his neck out to get us in because it is a secular school and he risked many a complaint from parents for having foreigners in from the church. He is a Christian and it was really encouraging to see God use him to open up this path for us, despite the risk. Everything went fine though, so no need to worry =)

We played a game of Bzzt! with them using Australian animals, di

d some trivia, sung hokey pokey together and we sang silent night together as well!
They sang us one song and it’s… too awesome to describe in words so… I won’t.

But here’s a video instead =D !

The school just seemed to have this warm atmosphere about it, Hiroshi-san has that same kind of atmosphere too. Maybe they’re related =O ?

After that we had the chance to eat lunch with the 5^th graders. Can’t speak for everyone coz we all sat separately, so I guess I’ll… give my account! I sat with 5 people, Keigo, Sato, Chisato and Rinoa… admittedly I forgot the name of the last one, but it was Japanese if that helps.
I got to share with them my photo album, showed them all the things that are cracking at the church (stuff like study lounge, Tom and Mary’s wedding, an internet café thing after Burwood at 5 and several photos of the church boys in manly poses =) ).

See?

Unfortunately my Japanese wasn’t good enough to quite explain two ways to live and with the restrictions of it being a secular school we could only show them examples of godly living through how we lived our lives and our photos. But we are only one part of their journey, this is prayer numero uno comes in!
Pray that they might question why these foreigners travelled all this way to spend time with them and share their lives with them. That Hiroshi-san might keep being a great witness to the love and transforming work of God and that God will reveal Himself to these kids and show them the joy to be had in Him. Pray that Hiroshi-san can keep on taking care of the kids in a way reflective of God’s love that he might be given the opportunity to share about why he’s so different to the other principals out there. And let him say at that time, that it’s all because of God!Give thanks also for God’s provision of someone to shine like a star in the dark sky of elementary schools and that that light points all to Jesus.

We prayed for them as well left the school and then it was off to baking time! I’m sure you’ve heard lots about the baking but it’s really an awesome way to show love! So… if you ever feel like showing me some love but not sure how, food me up =9 (sorry I’m getting kind of hungry at the moment, and I’m missing the luxury of having a pantry with some snacks)

Roy was masterchef (he’s taken quite the liking to baking) and baked some cakes with Ruth after making some cookies and the rest of the team handled cookies for the pre-schoolers tomorrow.

We had quite the frantic set-up for the night-café, a quick inhalation of our dinner and then more set-up. The night café ran really well, there was a cosy atmosphere, songs sung by Yudai, Dave and Judy, and Mame. Afterwards we got to mingle with everyone there. A lot of the people from one of the English classes came along which was really awesome, Pete got to talk with Junji about his beliefs. Although he says he doesn’t have a religion he does believe in coming back as a ghost and has a few similarities with Shinto, Pete worked his magic to get him thinking more about what he actually believed.I got to chat with an English student called Kudo-san. He’s recently started reading the bible but in English so he’s finding it quite difficult. He’s not a Christian but I assume he finds it interesting.
I got to share with him a lil’ about my plans to go to bible college after graduating from uni. He had to leave soon after but I left an English and Japanese two ways to live booklet with him. He seemed pretty happy to be able to learn some more English and the bible and so was I =D

Prayer points for night café are for everyone who came:
Give thanks to God for giving us the energy for tonight, for bringing so many people and giving us the privilege of taking part in His plan for the people of Itayanagi!
Pray that they might keep coming to events such as these so that they can mingle with a community changed by the grace of God and that come to know more about God. Pray that as Kudo-san goes through the bible and two ways to live that he reads it not just as words to learn but a message from God, showing of our original rejection of Him and how He redeemed us from the ramifications of our actions and how He wants us to be a relationship with Him.
Pray for Junji that he might keep reflecting on what he believes and that as he attends English classes that we remember to encourage this reflection and help him see that he does believe in something, but not the right thing, and then that we point him towards God!Pray for our team, we are kind of refreshed physically because of yesterday but today was kind of a doozy. Pray that in our weakness we can see that we need to rely on God and pray that God will give us strength!

That’s all from me today and yesterday (it’s 12:07am now so technically I wrote this blog yesterday and today and will be posting it up even later today because the internet is out and I’ll post it in a few hours time). Have fun working that out =D !

P.s IT SNOOOOOWED, IT SNOOOOWED! HERE’S A PICTURE OF THE SNOW!

The white stuff is the snow just in case you missed it

one heck of an eventful sunday and a very calm day off monday

Yesterday was another busy day. Sunday is where the team has to muster all their energy! Like last week, we had english class and 3 services to go to.

We began with english class first for the kiddies! losing one of the teachers (Ruth fell ill *sadface), naomi had to improvise, and i honestly think she did a great job with it! we first played a fruit name game, and it was so cute seeing the kids struggle to say the veggie or fruit in english. Have in mind though the oldest was probably 10 and the youngest was 3, i thought they did a pretty good job. After this game, we helped them practice their lines for the christmas happening in 2 weeks time. it's sad toknow we won't be able to see thier skit =(. It was so cute hearing them read their lines. It's all really gospel-y lines, i hope they will get to the stage in life where they can understand their lines and come to know god through that.

Young Life (the youth group at Itayangi Chapel) had to prepare lunch for service, so we gladly assisted. i can't descibe what i was (pete calls it an asian-rice-lasagna). Go yudai! service was awesome! though it was hard to understand.it was really awesome to see the older people form the congregation to lead in music! judy and myself said our testimonies. it was so weird to hear martin translate it into japanese....

Dave, Pete and myself then headed to Kanagi church headed by Armin Messer and his family. The church was just newly renovated so it was real pretty. there were 5 people who attended the church. one of the church goer's lived right opposite the church building! she was really nice. We also met eiji san. He suffers from short term memory loss after suffering a high fever a few years ago. Armin had to translate for us, but it was so encouraging to hear that he turned to christ despite his disease (armin shared that eiji san sometimes forgets his baptized too).

it was then nite english church~! pete did the sermon on psalm 73, funny references to fraser island! we also did our christmas skit, i very good practice run! i know what to edit now! was a great time to feel at home again, with an english service! yay! then we had a massage sesh! yay

day off has been awesome! really relaxing. we're doing a test run dinner for aussie night on thursday! wish us luck!

Prayer Points

• pray thanks that mission has gone well so far
• thanks for the on going work on the missionaries
• pray for Ruth as she's a bit ill
• pray for the continual health of the team

Harvest Saturday

The vision is a simple one, but one that will take decades to achieve. There are 500,000 people living on this volcanic plain in northern Japan, stretching around the two key cities of Hirosaki and Goshogowara. The vision is plant a network of ten churches, each with around 50 people. Once that project is finished, this denomination (JECA – Japan Evangelical Churches Association) will have a strong network throughout the region.

Itayanagi is between the two big cities and has a strong and growing church developing, under the capable leadership of Martin and Ruth Ghent. To the north, closer to Goshogowara, Kanagi Church has been planted and is beginning to grow under the leadership of OMF’s Armin Messer and his family.

To the south, the next target is Hirosaki City where a church plant is underway. On the outskirts of town where the city merges into apple orchards and farm country, a farmer’s house and barn were purchased and now serve as a church and pastor’s residence (but there is no pastor yet because the Ghent family drives 40 minutes as required to visit the church a couple of times a week). The church is called Harvest.

So how to reach a community that has heard nothing at all about Jesus except for the commercialised Christmas that hits Japan every December?

To begin with, the church needs to build respect so that the community knows that it is a safe place to come. During the week we handed out leaflets to the surrounding houses and the local school. As the church becomes part of the community, suspicion about this unknown religion will hopefully lessen.

Next, the church needs to communicate Christianity in a way that will connect with the little that people know about Jesus. And so Christmas becomes the connection point. Today we had a children’s Christmas party with about 50 primary school kids attending. Many of them had no connection with the church. But they were keen to come along and learn about Christmas, and to participate in a series of games, songs, and a Bible talk to explain the true meaning of Christmas.

It seemed like an event bigger than we could achieve on our own. But the Gracepoint team, the Ghent family and people from Harvest Church worked together as a team to present Jesus. For some of these kids it may have been their first contact with the Christian message.

For prayer:

1. Give thanks for our partnership in the Gospel with the local church here and with the missionaries.

2. Pray that the kids who heard the Gospel today might go on to hear it enough times to grasp the true meaning of grace and that they may become the leaders of some of the church plants that are planned for the coming years.

Welcome to Winter Wonderland

So for the first time since we've arrived in Japan (approximately 11 days ago), I can finally say my snow boots have served its purpose... albeit for 15min, since the snow was almost all melted by the time we were on the move. But hey, that didn't stop the joy of actually seeing a snow-laden landscape for a change. Especially for Nat who shifted from a groggy, I-just-woke-up voice to repetitive high pitch squeals.

~

Since being here, I've officially boycotted watches and calenders, and relied on the sun and my hunger to tell the time. I still have no idea what day of the week it is every time I wake up until somebody tells me its not the day I'm thinking it is. But seeing how the last post was for Tuesday, I guess I probably have about 2-3 days worth of amazing tales, prayers, and thanksgiving to share with you all =D.

~

Wednesday

I guess I'll begin with Wednesday using Nat's photos as my guide and hopefully it'll jog my memory of what's been going on this week. So I believe we went leaflet dropping for Harvest (the church plant in Hirosaki). Ok I lied, it actually snowed on that day too, but only for a short while and very lightly. We split off into pairs and ventured into the neighbourhood armed with invitations to a children's Christmas event at Harvest (on Saturday 11). Afterwards we went back to Harvest to prepare for english classes for the kids, making cookie dough for the kids cooking lesson. Twas great fun, the kids enjoyed themselves and lots of mess was made.

During the english classes themselves we sang a song, Pete did a nativity scene skit involving the kids. What really struck me that day was when the kids were shouting out 'KAMI SAMA' and pointing towards the baby Jesus toy. To see their excitement reminded me of matthew 19:14

¹⁴ Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

...and it was a great encouragement!

After that we hit up dohton bori, a REAL okonomiyaki, not the falsely advertised okonomiyaki that we got in tokyo. Danny had waited eagerly for this =)

The day was ended without another bout of baking!

Prayer Points and Thanksgiving:

• Pray for the Children's Christmas event, that the local community may come with an open heart to a true message of Christmas - Jesus! Pray that God may have mercy on the townsfolk and work in their hearts to lead them home to Him.
• Thank God for all the children He's brought to Harvest church for English classes. Please pray that God may continue to reveal Himself to them.

Thursday

The day once again began at Harvest however was a complete change of pace. The men, empasis on men, did some rewarding and MANly MANual labor as we helped complete the insulation for one of the rooms of the church. It involved high scaffolding and POWER tools. My weapon of choice was the air gun, but to make it sound MANlier it was a gas POWERed nail gun.

Whilst this was going on, the ladies were doing some craft and caretaking, so now to switch to a more feminine author and quick spiel, NAT!

It was good, there were plenty of ladies that came along with around 15 kids and alot stayed back for the lunch.

Back to ROY!

We visited a 100yen store afterwards to buy stuff for our costumes for the young life (youth group) christmas party. I also picked up a nice tie for 105yen which translates to $1.20. WIN!

After that we did leaflet droppings.

That night the men (again the emphasis on men), spent some time, as pete would put it in his terrible american accent, 'in the Word'. We went through the topic of faith and were machine gunned by a truckload of references to the word faith in the bible, surprisingly faith shows up alot in the bible =p

One thing that real stuck out for me in my stay in Japan and that stay is God's sovereignty, that saving faith is a gift from God and it's by His grace that we are able to be reconciled to Him through the resurrection of Jesus. I apologize for the long sentence, please take some time to, as eug would say, 'unpack this'

So it is my prayer that - the japanese community in Hirosaki and Itayanagi may have God reveal Himself to the people. Thank God for the 2 churches that He has planted in Aomori, pray that He uses them as a beacon of light pointing to the person of Jesus.

Side note: Recently I've been having great conversations with a Japanese local called Mame. It's amazing that share so many common interests, we both love the same music and just connect so well. What's more amazing is just how open he is to the gospel, he is not Christian yet, but I believe he is seeking and he has many questions about Christianity. A few days ago we went through two ways to live, he was quite receptive to it, on Tuesday I was also able to share my testimony with him. Please pray for Mame, thank God that He has brought Mame to the church, pray that God may grow this seed that has been planted in his heart. Pray that myself and other people may have opportunities to encourage him through the bible and the Word, and guide him into a better understanding of Christianity

Friday!

This morning, we hit up some preschools to share with them the real story of Christmas, we also played games and sang songs with them (action songs!). We also gave them the cookies we baked all those previous nights. Again it's amazing being able to reach out to these children in Japan, as I reflect I can really see how great a gift children are, that God has given us. A prayer point here is for these children, that God will use these visits to plant seeds in their hearts, that they may come to know the joy that comes in Jesus.

Before the afternoon... MORE BAKING! I think all of us now have become pretty pro at baking cookies thanks to Ruth's amazing tutelage.

After the baking we had the young life christmas party! We all wore costumes and played games together. I shared my testimony and then we had dessert, we continued to enjoy our fellowship over dessert

And now for praaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayer points!

- We're all pretty tired and getting kind of sick, especially Danny, please pray that he may recover quickly and regain his energy to continue to faithfully serve in Japan-

- Also there are two kids who caused quick a ruckus during Christmas party, noise and disrupting wise, so pray for the Ghents, Naomi (their daughter) and Yudai (currently living with the Ghents) that they might be granted the wisdom in how to deal with them in a loving manner.

- Pray for our rest, we are all starting to feel physically drained, some emotionally strained. Give thanks to God for being a gracious God who gives rest, and supplied us a Sabbath on the Monday. Pray that we use it well, and that we glorify God even in our rest!

As a sidenote: Danny may or may not have scribed this blog for a very tired Roydon Wu. He expects the same favor some day =)

With this, I salute you all and bid thee farewell

I assure you I do not normally talk like this, it is getting on in the hours, from Danny