hi everyone! it's beland, and i will be talking about what happened on Friday! (continuing on with adler's post bout the chicken foods, that was thursday night)
so friday morning addison and i woke up at 7:30, as we have been doing for the past week. it's quite tiring to be waking up at this hour when you get back to church usually after 10. (we got back from the chicken at around 12:30am)
the guys: Ray, addison, aaron and i (adler slept in again) went to mrs. Takenaka's house again for breakfast (that's why we wake up at 7:30 everyday). dorothy and hyo live there so they joined us too. today we had fried shrimp and cod fish for breakfast, hahaha rich, but guuuuudd.
we came back to church, the whole team got together and had our last morning meeting for the trip. we studied acts 20 together. the passage is about Paul's farewell address to the Ephesians, the whole passage is basically a pool of applications for us to pick up from paul's own view of his ministry towards the ephesians. so as we depart from japan soon, as a team we want to learn from God's Word and apply these things of paul's ministry and in turn showing such qualities in our ministry.
after the meeting, some of us went to help out at aaron's english class, some of us figured out the last administrative things for the gifts for the people here, some of us practiced music, and some of us wrote in their journals while the rest took naps before lunch.
i am constantly touched by the diligence of the ladies here who cook lunch (and dinner too sometims) for us daily. as you may know, japanese people are culturally focused on politeness and servanthood. but i know these women don't just act like this because of culture. but their hearts are really filled with joy when they serve, because they know they serve Christ, who is beyond and above culture. these ladies, i tell you, when they see the people on the team, they have the biiiigggest smiles on their faces, you can tell that they are genuinely happy when they see us, they are so excited when they hear updates about our work in the colleges. i was talking to pastor okada at the onsen (OF COURSE AT THE ONSEN... if you don't know what the onsen is, you can check back a few posts). okada sensei told me that it is encouraging for him to see the team members serve so intensely for 2 weeks. whether or not we are this intense the other 50 weeks of the year, to the japanese believers here, okada sensei says, the team is a reminder of how all christians should all be at all times. so back to the lunch ladies, i believe they are truly encouraged by our testimony, and that's great, because that's why we're here, praise GOD and the glory to Him for all the work that HE did!
we left after lunch to go shopping at this big mall/shopping center. the place looked very much like a standard american mall, nice and bright. we spent a couple of hours there looking around for gifts, etc. i don't know if i'm just biased or what... but i believe 90% of the stores there were women clothes stores. i guess i shouldn't be surprised. so as you may have guessed, i didn't buy much. priscilla and leah got t-shirts with bad english on them (they have been searching for these) it says like "grow up, the source" or something like that. fun. Raymond san however, was pretty excited about all the toy cars he saw, as you have read in his post a couple of days ago. so he bought 7 or 8 of them today. hahah.
we drove to momoyama university and met up with the english club members. if you don't already know, out of the 3 univeristies we minister at, this is the smallest english club. at first there were only like 3,4 people, then there were like 7. for me personally, tonight was a great night, it was our second and last meeting with these students at the university this time. i had a good time talking to Noriyuki. he is a very special guy. his english is good, he is a nice guy with a very innocent mind, and he sits on a wheelchair. i had been friends with him since our visit last year, and i am really really happy that i got to come back this year and build upon that relationship. i talked to him both times we were at momoyama this year and it was very good. he opened up a lot to me, and i shared a lot with him too. he has heard the gospel serveral times and shows pretty good understanding of it. i don't want to just share the gospel with him because of obligation, but of out true love. it's hard to really love someone if we are honest. sinners trying to love sinners just doesn't make much sense. but the gospel and God's love covers a multitude of sins. it's hard sometimes talking to nori, telling him about God and how good God is, His love, His holiness, and His desire for nori to turn to Himself. sometimes i wonder if i can give an answer that fully describes God's compassion and love towards nori if he pops a question, "why did God made me to be born crippled?" no he didn't ask this question. but by thinking about these things, it challenges my understanding about the gospel and about the Lord and His plans. tonight nori and i read over psalm 23 (he lives poetry and he studies the chinese ones) please pray for noriyuki to repent.
it started raining really hard while we were all talking. according to mrs. takenaka, japan's rainy season started today. and lo and behold, some big fat rain came down. large drops....the wind was so strong that it blew some rain into the classroom. some people on our team were quite excited and decided they would run into the rain and let other people take pictures of them. i probably don't need to tell you who they are. so soon after adler, dorothy and addison came in from the rain, we opened up some snack gifts we brought and ate some. the club time ended around 7:30pm, when the security kicked us out of the building. we moved our meeting to a restaurant near by and had some pretty good food. party platters (there were fries, sausages and chicken kabobs/yakitori) and many other delicious and japanesey things. we drove nori and another guy ryosuke (i met him last year too) to the station and parted ways. this might've been the last time we would see their faces, depending on if they show up for the events on the weekends. they were both unsure about their schedules.
so tomorrow is a big day. Saturday is when we have the crazy all day events. we wil be getting up to set up for a bbq for dinner, and at lunch time we're going to visit the zoo around the area, and visit a shinto shrine, then we're going to come back for the bbq.
please PRAY for the students who will show up. and please PRAY for the college student who go to HBC. our ministry is really to connect these two groups together, since we will be gone in a couple of days. please pray for the gospel to be proclaimed, as it already has. thanks for praying.
p.s. not sure if tetsuro is going to show up tomorrow, more updates to come.
belando
the guys: Ray, addison, aaron and i (adler slept in again) went to mrs. Takenaka's house again for breakfast (that's why we wake up at 7:30 everyday). dorothy and hyo live there so they joined us too. today we had fried shrimp and cod fish for breakfast, hahaha rich, but guuuuudd.
we came back to church, the whole team got together and had our last morning meeting for the trip. we studied acts 20 together. the passage is about Paul's farewell address to the Ephesians, the whole passage is basically a pool of applications for us to pick up from paul's own view of his ministry towards the ephesians. so as we depart from japan soon, as a team we want to learn from God's Word and apply these things of paul's ministry and in turn showing such qualities in our ministry.
after the meeting, some of us went to help out at aaron's english class, some of us figured out the last administrative things for the gifts for the people here, some of us practiced music, and some of us wrote in their journals while the rest took naps before lunch.
i am constantly touched by the diligence of the ladies here who cook lunch (and dinner too sometims) for us daily. as you may know, japanese people are culturally focused on politeness and servanthood. but i know these women don't just act like this because of culture. but their hearts are really filled with joy when they serve, because they know they serve Christ, who is beyond and above culture. these ladies, i tell you, when they see the people on the team, they have the biiiigggest smiles on their faces, you can tell that they are genuinely happy when they see us, they are so excited when they hear updates about our work in the colleges. i was talking to pastor okada at the onsen (OF COURSE AT THE ONSEN... if you don't know what the onsen is, you can check back a few posts). okada sensei told me that it is encouraging for him to see the team members serve so intensely for 2 weeks. whether or not we are this intense the other 50 weeks of the year, to the japanese believers here, okada sensei says, the team is a reminder of how all christians should all be at all times. so back to the lunch ladies, i believe they are truly encouraged by our testimony, and that's great, because that's why we're here, praise GOD and the glory to Him for all the work that HE did!
we left after lunch to go shopping at this big mall/shopping center. the place looked very much like a standard american mall, nice and bright. we spent a couple of hours there looking around for gifts, etc. i don't know if i'm just biased or what... but i believe 90% of the stores there were women clothes stores. i guess i shouldn't be surprised. so as you may have guessed, i didn't buy much. priscilla and leah got t-shirts with bad english on them (they have been searching for these) it says like "grow up, the source" or something like that. fun. Raymond san however, was pretty excited about all the toy cars he saw, as you have read in his post a couple of days ago. so he bought 7 or 8 of them today. hahah.
we drove to momoyama university and met up with the english club members. if you don't already know, out of the 3 univeristies we minister at, this is the smallest english club. at first there were only like 3,4 people, then there were like 7. for me personally, tonight was a great night, it was our second and last meeting with these students at the university this time. i had a good time talking to Noriyuki. he is a very special guy. his english is good, he is a nice guy with a very innocent mind, and he sits on a wheelchair. i had been friends with him since our visit last year, and i am really really happy that i got to come back this year and build upon that relationship. i talked to him both times we were at momoyama this year and it was very good. he opened up a lot to me, and i shared a lot with him too. he has heard the gospel serveral times and shows pretty good understanding of it. i don't want to just share the gospel with him because of obligation, but of out true love. it's hard to really love someone if we are honest. sinners trying to love sinners just doesn't make much sense. but the gospel and God's love covers a multitude of sins. it's hard sometimes talking to nori, telling him about God and how good God is, His love, His holiness, and His desire for nori to turn to Himself. sometimes i wonder if i can give an answer that fully describes God's compassion and love towards nori if he pops a question, "why did God made me to be born crippled?" no he didn't ask this question. but by thinking about these things, it challenges my understanding about the gospel and about the Lord and His plans. tonight nori and i read over psalm 23 (he lives poetry and he studies the chinese ones) please pray for noriyuki to repent.
it started raining really hard while we were all talking. according to mrs. takenaka, japan's rainy season started today. and lo and behold, some big fat rain came down. large drops....the wind was so strong that it blew some rain into the classroom. some people on our team were quite excited and decided they would run into the rain and let other people take pictures of them. i probably don't need to tell you who they are. so soon after adler, dorothy and addison came in from the rain, we opened up some snack gifts we brought and ate some. the club time ended around 7:30pm, when the security kicked us out of the building. we moved our meeting to a restaurant near by and had some pretty good food. party platters (there were fries, sausages and chicken kabobs/yakitori) and many other delicious and japanesey things. we drove nori and another guy ryosuke (i met him last year too) to the station and parted ways. this might've been the last time we would see their faces, depending on if they show up for the events on the weekends. they were both unsure about their schedules.
so tomorrow is a big day. Saturday is when we have the crazy all day events. we wil be getting up to set up for a bbq for dinner, and at lunch time we're going to visit the zoo around the area, and visit a shinto shrine, then we're going to come back for the bbq.
please PRAY for the students who will show up. and please PRAY for the college student who go to HBC. our ministry is really to connect these two groups together, since we will be gone in a couple of days. please pray for the gospel to be proclaimed, as it already has. thanks for praying.
p.s. not sure if tetsuro is going to show up tomorrow, more updates to come.
belando