Greetings America,
It's Beland subbin in for Ashley because she's still at a camp with a bunch of girls.
What can I say? Today was an interesting day for the guys. I will explain how in a moment. (Obviously I'm only writing from the guys' perspective)
It's Beland subbin in for Ashley because she's still at a camp with a bunch of girls.
What can I say? Today was an interesting day for the guys. I will explain how in a moment. (Obviously I'm only writing from the guys' perspective)
This morning, before we left for a "camp" event with Osaka Christian College, which is an all girls junior college, we practiced somes songs and a skit we had prepared for the students. For lunch, we had Japanese McDonald's. I must say, Japanese people put us Americans to shame because of how good they can make McDonald's burger taste... heh.
We drove south from HBC for about 40-50 minutes and arrived at a retreat site specifically designed for Osaka Christian College. We thought it was going to be a "camp" type of thing, but it turned out to be a nice building with sleeping quarters, showers, etc. We didn't know how many students to expect but when we got there, 4 girls had already arrived. Since there were 4 girls on our team a few female Japanese staff members, us guys simply introduced ourselves, made some small talk and quickly slipped away to let the girls hang out with the girls. I must say, throwing a football around in Japan certainly makes me miss home quite a bit.
A group of us spent a good portion of the afternoon at the beach.... well, an artificial beach, but it was still nice. We tried playing "American football" or "Ame-futo" as they call it in Japan, but it didn't work out too well with the Japanese staff guys, hahaha. The guys swam in the ocean for a bit and had some good fellowship time while the girls sat with girls and talked the whole time. I guess that's how guys and girls are different.... seems like us guys always have to be doing something together, where as girls seemed to be perfectly fine with just words : ) Anyway, the girls seemed to have gotten to know the student girls quite well.. the were talking to each other about relationships(?). You can probably picture this afternoon inside your head: artificial beach. on one side, boys and football...on the other far end, girls and umbrellas. Actually... you don't to imagine... I took a picture.
We drove south from HBC for about 40-50 minutes and arrived at a retreat site specifically designed for Osaka Christian College. We thought it was going to be a "camp" type of thing, but it turned out to be a nice building with sleeping quarters, showers, etc. We didn't know how many students to expect but when we got there, 4 girls had already arrived. Since there were 4 girls on our team a few female Japanese staff members, us guys simply introduced ourselves, made some small talk and quickly slipped away to let the girls hang out with the girls. I must say, throwing a football around in Japan certainly makes me miss home quite a bit.
A group of us spent a good portion of the afternoon at the beach.... well, an artificial beach, but it was still nice. We tried playing "American football" or "Ame-futo" as they call it in Japan, but it didn't work out too well with the Japanese staff guys, hahaha. The guys swam in the ocean for a bit and had some good fellowship time while the girls sat with girls and talked the whole time. I guess that's how guys and girls are different.... seems like us guys always have to be doing something together, where as girls seemed to be perfectly fine with just words : ) Anyway, the girls seemed to have gotten to know the student girls quite well.. the were talking to each other about relationships(?). You can probably picture this afternoon inside your head: artificial beach. on one side, boys and football...on the other far end, girls and umbrellas. Actually... you don't to imagine... I took a picture.
Here are the girls in their nice little huddle with their new friends, chit-chatting away... and 20 feet away is Brandon by himself, gazing at the other side of this artificial beach. This type of scenario was quite common throughout the day. I think the guys couldn't take it anymore... so we decided to swim over to a man-made island and play "king of the island"
For dinner, we had an "American style BBQ." That means one person grills bigger pieces of steak and serves the meat rather than several people surrounding a "fire box" cooking smaller pieces for themselves...so called "Japanese style." I guess you can get a similar type of experience in Korean Town, LA, too.
There's our bbq man, Shinsuke!!! He is one of the key Japanese staff members in our trip. Without his faithful ministry in driving the team everywhere and taking care of little things here and there, our team would probably be lost somewhere in Japan right now. Shinsuke just started seminary this year, and teaches junior high/high schoolers on Sundays. His English is better than the average Japanese person so a lot of the team members appreciate having fun conversations with him. He is on his way to becoming a pastor... but he definitely has his moments of... well... I'll just let the picture tell you....
After dinner, the team was given an hour or so to present the things we had prepared for the students. We sang "Shout to the Lord" in English and Japanese, some more English worship songs, and acted out a skit called, "the Prodigal Daughter." The girls on the team were very creative and wrote a nice little skit that followed the story line of the Prodigal son, but in a modern day setting. The team had a lot of fun acting it out, and even though we tried really hard to slow down our speech and enunciate everything, the English might still have been a little bit over their heads. Fortunately, one of the Japense staff ladies translated an explanation of the skit at the end and read directly from Luke 15 and we were able to procalim the gospel to all 8 unbelieving students today. According to the English teacher/missionary that was in charge, Dan Perry, the girls hear a "biblical" message at chapel at least once a week and has had the gospel preached to them several times, so this is not unfamiliar material to them. Nonetheless, we are still thankful for the opportunity to share and to spend the whole day with the students. We played an English game called "fruit basket" after our presentation time...
here is a picture of me confused about why I had lost the round while I scratched my head to think of what to call out next.... Tim doesn't look too entertained by me.
Please pray for the girls on the team, as they will have a few more hours with the students tonight and tomorrow to personalize the gospel and call them to repentance.
Tomorrow, after this group of girls leaves the retreat site, we will be meeting a second group of students and doing pretty much the same thing as we did today. They are supposed to be all freshmen tomorrow, so perhaps they are less "desensitized" to the gospel. Please keep praying for our team! We love it here but we miss home and we miss all of you! Thanks for reading!
Please pray for the girls on the team, as they will have a few more hours with the students tonight and tomorrow to personalize the gospel and call them to repentance.
Tomorrow, after this group of girls leaves the retreat site, we will be meeting a second group of students and doing pretty much the same thing as we did today. They are supposed to be all freshmen tomorrow, so perhaps they are less "desensitized" to the gospel. Please keep praying for our team! We love it here but we miss home and we miss all of you! Thanks for reading!