A Journey's End

みんあさん、ひさしぶり。すみません、いそがしかった。

I'm so sorry for a late late blog! Coming back home has been so busy without much time to stop and reflect on Japan. I'm grateful for an August school course that has ended unexpected early this week so I have a few days to recharge and write this blog before the fall term begins.

My last three days in Japan were probably the most tiring days, but I loved all of it, so it didn't feel like work! The VBS (Vacation Bible School) program during these three days ran from 10am-2pm and we planned games, songs, crafts, a Bible lesson, and food each day, while teaching English to the kids. Although the program was short, compared to the VBS's I've done at home, it was very jam packed and required a lot of energy.

My favourite part was actually teaching the Bible lessons. Since some kids may not have ever heard of Jesus or God, we introduced the fundamentals of Christianity to lead up to the gospel. The first day, we taught how God was the creator of all the animals, plants, nature, and people. "God created everything" was the English phrase of the day and our butterfly craft was an extension of the beautiful things of the world God created. On day two, we presented "God made you special." In this lesson, we had an exercise where kids stood up if we asked who was a girl, who was a boy, who loved baseball, who loved to sing, etc, to demonstrate that everyone was unique, and therefore special. After, we passed around a secret shoebox with mysterious glitter pouring out of it. I told the kids that someone veeeery important to God was in that box and that they could take a peek but had to keep it a secret from the others. One by one, the kids lifted the lid and found them face-to-face with a mirror, and each one would exclaim,「ああ、わかった！」meaning, "Oh, I understand!" It warmed up my heart so much to hear the kids realize that each one was special to God. M told me later that when she was trying to control a little troublemaker, he looked in the box and she explained to him that it was a mirror because he was the special person. He suddenly quieted down and she felt that he probably didn't hear that at home very often. Japanese families are not very affectionate with one another and children are sometimes pressured to perform well in all areas of their life in order to not shame the family. With this, my prayer is that the kids really understand that their value isn't in their earthly success, but in being God's creation.


The lessons led up to the gospel teaching on the last day- "God loves you." However, this proved to be a challenge for us to understand how to explain Jesus' death on the cross in a way the Japanese kids would relate to. Kids in Canada and US are made aware that they are guilty because of their sins. These are the bad things they think, say, or do that break God's heart, and they need God's forgiveness to take away their sins. Japanese kids, on the other hand, are in a culture that already draws attention to their shame and the need to restore themselves. Japanese people really put an effort at maintaining cleanliness everywhere, all the time. They must take shoes off at the door on lowered floors so dirt doesn't drift in, they use bathroom slippers whenever using the toilet so germs aren't carried out, and garbage is well taken care of and sorted. With this mindset, we told the kids that there was Someone who could make them clean forever. They wouldn't have to feel shameful or dirty anymore. Jesus, because he was perfect and died for the shameful things we've done, saved us so we only have to be cleansed of our sins once and for all. Although I didn't expect any instant responses from the kids, I really pray for and ask for your prayers for their hearts to openly inquire about Jesus and accept his gift of cleanliness.

One more amazing thing I witnessed on this trip- that God's mission field is literally everywhere! M and I went to the bathhouse every night because there were no showers at the church. We quickly made お姉さん (older sister) friends who also frequented the bathhouse. M explained to me that normally women would not open up easily or become friends in any other setting, like in a convenience store or a grocery store. It was only because you couldn't do much else while sitting in a hot tub with other naked ladies besides look away awkwardly or talk to them. This one lady we became close to told us a little about her life and where's she's travelled, and a few times we had the chance to tell her why we were in Japan. In the end, we felt intimate enough to invite her to church. Although she was busy that Sunday, I was really happy that we were able to plant a seed and be an example of a Christian to her. She was actually so unexpectedly nice to us, offering a ride home, bringing us candy, and buying tayaki (a common festival snack) from far away because I really wanted to eat a real one from Japan. I honestly felt so blessed and she's even recently sent me an email asking me how I'm doing!

Looking back on this trip now, I wouldn't have asked for a better experience! I am so grateful and touched by people's prayers and financial support. I really felt on fire for God, where I had no option but to trust God and not rely on myself, especially because of my inadequacy. God provided over and above all my needs in even in my unemployment and simple faith. He also gave me the opportunity to listen to people's stories and serve them despite my limited Japanese. 

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. (2 Corinthians 12:9)

Going forward, I hope to return to Japan for a longer term to build on my relationships with the church, the missionary, the kids, and the bathhouse lady. My goal is to improve my Japanese so I don't need to rely on a translator and to raise my own funds so I won't put a burden on others. I want to see more of what God can do in Japan!

どうもありがとうございました!

Love,

J

PS. Click here for a link to all my Japan photos!

Love in Morioka

ただいま！ I’m back!

The last few days in Japan was very exciting and crazy, and zapped much of our team’s energy. However, we powered through it with God’s strength and ended on a strong note.

After coming back from Iwaizumi, we were blessed with two days of recuperating and VBS planning. During this time, M’s family friends drove all the way from Tokyo (a day long trip) to visit her and the church. The couple greeted our team like we were old friends and they donated boxes and bags of food to us. I was so touched to receive such kindness from brothers and sisters who didn’t even know us and treated us like family! There was a box of mini buns they donated (it looked like a Japanese version of Chinese buns) and the couple explained that a team of disabled workers made those buns. Those volunteers worked their best on making the buns because they wanted to support missions if even they physically couldn’t go on missions. This gives me so much hope because it really shows that nothing- not disabilities, not finances, not even people- can get in the way of God using a person to be part of missions.

The next night, our team was blessed with the chance to go to the さんさ踊り (sansa odori), a festival that features traditional music and drumming. It’s unique to Morioka and happens every year during the first week of August. M and I were dressed up in yukata’s, the traditional festival wear for women, with the help of the missionary’s wife and the pastor’s wife. The yukata’s were so pretty and I was very grateful that the pastor’s wife lent them to us to be part of the matsuri (festival). Our team went downtown to immerse ourselves in the culture along with crowds of other Japanese people visiting from local towns. The main event was a sort of parade down a main street, where hundreds and hundreds of dancers from different groups danced, played instruments, and sang in celebration. It was amazing to see the talent in Morioka with people of all ages and the pride the Japanese had in the culture.

On Sunday, we heard another sermon from the pastor about the good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). Jesus brought up this parable when a lawyer asked Him what it took to inherit eternal life. Most of us remember that the man explained what he knew already, which was, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” However, it is easy to skip Jesus’ previous question, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” It’s really interesting that Jesus doesn’t ask what have we read, but whether we’ve read it with the conviction to do what it says and to carry it out in our lives. For me, many things in the Bible becomes head knowledge, like trusting in God, loving my neighbour, and fleeing from temptation. I know all those things, but I often catch myself not believing it or acting it out in my behaviour. The pastor then encouraged us to love our neighbours like the Samaritan man did- with not 10% of ourselves, not 50%, not 90%, but with all 100% of ourselves. We become one with our neighbour so we place all the love we usually have for ourselves on to our neighbour.

What’s really cool is that the first sermon I heard after I returned to Canada was on the same passage! The pastor addresses Jesus’ response to the question, “And who is my neighbour?” However, Jesus doesn’t tell the lawyer who his neighbour is, but explains through the parable how to be a neighbour. What Jesus says is that we shouldn’t be focusing on who we should love, because he already asks us to love everyone- our friends and enemies. He wants us to focus on how to be loving. We continued on this note, where the pastor explained that a loving neighbour puts others first. This seems so simple, but it is the hardest thing for mankind to do. Throughout our whole lives, from baby to old age, we like to put ourselves first. We are most well aware of what we want, and things that deviate from fulfilling these desires frustrate us. But to love our neighbours as ourselves is to throw away selfishness and embrace selflessness. This includes throwing away what we value, such as our reputation, time, energy, strength, and finances.

It is admittedly hard to love others, especially those who don’t love us or who wrong us. But C.S. Lewis puts it best when he talks about loving our neighbours despite their mistakes:

Now that I come to think of it, I remember Christian teachers telling me long ago that I must hate a bad man’s actions, but not hate the bad man: or, as they would say, hate the sin but not the sinner. For a long time I used to think this a silly, straw-splitting distinction: how could you hate what a man did and not hate the man? But years later it occurred to me that there was one man to whom I had been doing this all my life—namely myself. However much I might dislike my own cowardice or conceit or greed, I went on loving myself. There had never been the slightest difficulty about it. In fact the very reason why l hated the things was that I loved the man. Just because I loved myself, I was sorry to find that I was the sort of man who did those things. Consequently, Christianity does not want us to reduce by one atom the hatred we feel for cruelty and treachery. We ought to hate them. Not one word of what we have said about them needs to be unsaid. But it does want us to hate them in the same way in which we hate things in ourselves: being sorry that the man should have done such things, and hoping, if it is anyway possible, that somehow, sometime, somewhere he can be cured and made human again. (Mere Christianity)

My little rant on this amazing passage in the Bible has really extended this post, so I’ll continue the rest of my Japan stories (VBS and post-thoughts) in my next post. I’ll just ask for your prayers for me to be a loving neighbour. It’s always easy for me to find faults in others and ignore my own faults. But pray that I can be aware of what others need and to love on them unconditionally and intentionally. When I say that, I mean loving not because of bubbly feelings or because I will get something in return, but making a choice to love.

ありがとうございます！

Love,

J

Prayers for Iwaizumi

ともだちたち、ひさしぶり！

'Tis the night before VBS! However, we've spent our last week well, preparing for the VBS as well as spending 3 days in Iwaizumi. We teamed up with 3 other girls from Japan and America to help out a local missionary who has been working alone building churches in the Iwate prefecture for 15 years. Iwaizumi is an area near the coast that was damaged by the 2011 tsunami. It is absolutely beautiful there but unfortunately houses people who have lost their homes and families so they have to live in kasetsu (temporary homes).

While we were able to stay at a traditional Japanese home, called akerakan, we witnessed kasetsu communities that families could call a house, but not a home. On our first day in Iwaizumi, we set up a cafe and kids activities so people of all ages could gather to talk or play games or enjoy snacks. The kids loved all the activities we had for them and the old obaachans enjoyed having our artistic team member draw a caricature of them. What stood out to me the most was a girl, probably 8 or 9 years old, looking out for the kids and babies younger than her. She seemed to know if they were sad or needed help and was very willing to take time to make them happy. This really made me wonder if she had to look out for herself or younger sisters in her family as well and I realized that it was quite possible in kasetsu families that parents are too busy or were lost in the tsunami.

The next day, I was blessed with the opportunity to visit two kasetsus, the first having an entirely different atmosphere. Only one ojiisan (grandpa) showed up to the cafe. The kasetsu community was eerily quiet and no one was outside. The kasetsu from the previous day was full of life, where men were chatting and smoking outside, people passed by and greeted one another, and a man was out for a walk with his dog. However, at this kasetsu, it felt like hope was lacking. The ojiisan was very happy to talk to us and shared a bit of his life with us. He said that his home was very small and narrow and that the walls between each house was very thin. This caused people in kasetsus to keep to themselves, because they were afraid of bothering others by talking too much or having the TV on. The missionary shared with us that this group-centered culture of pleasing others may have been why the turnout to cafes was so low. She mentioned that because the room was small, people who may have wanted to attend were afraid they would cause discomfort so they would let others go instead. It saddened my heart that people like the ojiisan had to live so cautiously like this without knowing for how long. The ojiisan said he had been living there for 2 years and expected 2 more years in the kasetsu before the government was supposed to kick them out, but he didn't know what would happen then. People have already been slowly moving out of the kasetsu into permanent homes, but unfortunately that was changing the community feel in the kasetsus and making some families feel left behind.

In contrast, the kasetsu community room we visited in the afternoon was covered in walls of encouragement for Japan's recovery. It was much more joyful there and we had a lot of fun with 3 very cute kids! One boy named Fumia-kun was such a good kid, listening well and being kind, and he was so happy to be with us. At the end, our teammate was pondering which drink he wanted from the vending machine after depositing his money. Fumia-kun quickly yanked the cancel button, saying that our teammate should save his money and watch out because the machine would keep the money and cancel the transaction if it took to long before a drink was chosen. This kind of selflessness is so rarely seen with kids Fumia-kun's age and he was one of our favourites.

The last day was one of the best days for me. We went to a home where mostly old obaachan (grandmas) came out to the cafe. One obaachan asked to sing karaoke and was happy to see us try. She was too shy to  sing on her own at first, but after a while, she abandoned all pride and sang loudly into the microphone even though she couldn't get the words or the rhythm right! We also helped provide a craft for the obaachan's, giving them beads to make a bracelet. I helped out the singing obaachan and she was so funny! She didn't hold back and try hard to be extra polite, like most Japanese people. She pointed out a weirdly shaped bead on the bracelet I had finished for her and said it didn't look right. I asked a teammate to cut it off for me and he did. However, she then pushed the beads around and pointed at the bracelet. She said something like, "There's a hole here! It's alright, you don't have to make the bracelet again... but there's a hole here! ... I'm really sorry, really. Don't need another bracelet... But there's a hole! It looks weird!" I was laughing so hard that I didn't have the heart to tell her that she could just even out the beads so there was no hole. I just made her another one and she was really happy. It made me happy too because she said there was no need to be polite because we were friends. That was the first that someone called me a friend because most people hold back knowing my Japanese is terrible and that I'm mostly smiling and nodding. I loved this obaachan and really hoped that in the future, her openness and transparency would allow her to be open to Christianity one day.

Another woman at the kasetsu came by and showed us all these cultural items that were featured in the upcoming Bon festival in the Tohoku/Iwaizumi area. She taught us about the flutes and cymbals and dances and explained that were used to commemorate ancestors and family members who have died. Originally the dances and music were performed for the gods but they were now more used simply as celebration. However, a teammate commented later that he felt a lot of spiritual warfare when she had come. The missionary explained that the specific kasetsu area was very closed from Christianity and that the women who came to the cafes knew it was a Christian group. She felt as though the woman sharing her culture was not only because she had pride in the things in her community, but because she wanted to bring her Buddhist background into our Christian-run cafe.

Therefore, as this blogpost title is called, Iwaizumi needs your prayers! It takes almost 20 years on average to build a church in this rural area (15 years for urban Japanese cities) and the area is not very open to Christianity. The mission field will also be changing, because kasetsus will be emptying out and new communities will be built. All these changes may dampen the hope of Japanese people who don't want more change and who dislike constantly adapting to new atmospheres. The local missionary may have to change her cafe structure and may lose connections with people who must move away. So please please pray for this area!

Lastly, VBS tomorrow will need your prayers!
- Thank God for a decent turnout of 25-35 kids each day along with 10-15 parents who will stay with them
- Pray that the camp won't only be about fun games, but lessons about God and what God asks us to do
- Pray for the team to be in unity as we may be tired and worn out during the long day
- Pray that the language barrier won't be an obstacle for us non-Japanese speaking
- Pray that connections with the parents and families will be built so the church can grow through this camp

ほんとうに、ありがとう！

Love,
J