Keeping with the theme that Priscilla started and Beland followed… konbanwa. Tim desu. I woke up really early today like the previous couple of days. People like to call those hours of the morning “ungodly”, but since most of the pastors I love and respect (and people who attend Korean prayer meetings) regularly get up this early, I would claim that’s a misnomer. Anyway, I’m not going to pretend that I do this by choice.
Anyone who’s been up really early knows the benefits of it being quiet and peaceful out, and since I couldn’t sleep, I went for a run / walk—just me, old people taking walks and the paper boys (more like middle-aged ladies) out. On the way back, the sun was getting pretty high up in the sky, and it was a bright crimson red. From my perspective the sun was hanging just over a house built with a traditional Japanese look, and I paused for a second thinking “You know, that’s pretty stinkin’ beautiful. If only I had my camera, I’d snap that picture and slap it on a t-shirt with the caption ‘Land of the Rising Sun’”. But you know, life’s most beautiful moments are rarely, if ever, planned….. did you just roll your eyes?!
Morning Team Meeting
We got the day started off with a team meeting at 8:45 and Beland shared a little bit from Hebrews 2 about how the entire concept and substance of the gospel is what it is because it is consistent with the character of God, and when we evangelize, we are doing the very thing God does-- revealing His character in the gospel. We then spent some time singing worship songs before starting some chores at church.
Chores
I had told the team that this whole cleaning and doing chores at church was probably going to be pretty chill. Boy was that a bold-faced lie. Many of the screen doors and windows needed to be replaced, so we pulled them all out. This turned out to be a tougher job than expected with pulling out the old screens, cleaning the frames off and replacing the screens. The entire team was working on this for a while, but then the guys got pulled to go trim bushes in front of the church.... so the gals finished the job off. Here is a picture of what it sort of looked like.
Morning Team Meeting
We got the day started off with a team meeting at 8:45 and Beland shared a little bit from Hebrews 2 about how the entire concept and substance of the gospel is what it is because it is consistent with the character of God, and when we evangelize, we are doing the very thing God does-- revealing His character in the gospel. We then spent some time singing worship songs before starting some chores at church.
Chores
I had told the team that this whole cleaning and doing chores at church was probably going to be pretty chill. Boy was that a bold-faced lie. Many of the screen doors and windows needed to be replaced, so we pulled them all out. This turned out to be a tougher job than expected with pulling out the old screens, cleaning the frames off and replacing the screens. The entire team was working on this for a while, but then the guys got pulled to go trim bushes in front of the church.... so the gals finished the job off. Here is a picture of what it sort of looked like.
The guys had to shape the bushes, thin them out, make sure that the bushes were flat on the sides and top and rake out a buncha leaves. Why are we wearing Michael Jackson gloves? Apparently, there are some caterpillars in the bushes that could give us crazy rashes if we touched them, so that's why. It was pretty tiring work, but the bushes looked shapely when we were done. Here we are looking pretty fly for doing gardening work.
Lunch and Post-lunch
Lunch was prepared for us and featured tonkatsu prepared by a bunch of the church ladies. After lunch, we all sat around chatting with Kondo Sensei for a while, listening to his testimony, how his ministry got started and other topics. Following that, we practiced some songs that we are planning to sing for a camp on Friday and Saturday, and then we started writing a skit for that camp as well. After the first scene was written, it was time to go off to Osaka Prefecture University for our first official visit to their ESS (English Speaking Society) club.
English Speaking Society
We got to sit down with a bunch of students and just allow them to practice their English. We love that they want to spend time and talk to us because we want to talk to them! Our hope is that we can build our friendships and get around to inviting them out to church, so they can hear the gospel and be connected to a local church. Few students are interested in Christianity at all, but they do like to talk to us and practice English, so we do whatever we can to keep conversations going, students interested and make friendships including talking about everything from their families to their jobs to their majors in school, joking around with them constantly and doing physics problems together... whatever it takes. We spent some time chatting in the classrooms, then went to have dinner with all of them and eventually headed back to church and home.
Lunch was prepared for us and featured tonkatsu prepared by a bunch of the church ladies. After lunch, we all sat around chatting with Kondo Sensei for a while, listening to his testimony, how his ministry got started and other topics. Following that, we practiced some songs that we are planning to sing for a camp on Friday and Saturday, and then we started writing a skit for that camp as well. After the first scene was written, it was time to go off to Osaka Prefecture University for our first official visit to their ESS (English Speaking Society) club.
English Speaking Society
We got to sit down with a bunch of students and just allow them to practice their English. We love that they want to spend time and talk to us because we want to talk to them! Our hope is that we can build our friendships and get around to inviting them out to church, so they can hear the gospel and be connected to a local church. Few students are interested in Christianity at all, but they do like to talk to us and practice English, so we do whatever we can to keep conversations going, students interested and make friendships including talking about everything from their families to their jobs to their majors in school, joking around with them constantly and doing physics problems together... whatever it takes. We spent some time chatting in the classrooms, then went to have dinner with all of them and eventually headed back to church and home.
Crushed Lobster
Ever seen lobster roadkill? Now you have.
Prayer Requests
1. Continued growth as a team in unity, humility, love, service and kindness.
2. Boldness and wisdom in our time with students being careful to respect any restrictions to sharing the Gospel but being aggressive knowing that it's the saving Word of God.
Thank you all for your support! God bless you all!
Ever seen lobster roadkill? Now you have.
Prayer Requests
1. Continued growth as a team in unity, humility, love, service and kindness.
2. Boldness and wisdom in our time with students being careful to respect any restrictions to sharing the Gospel but being aggressive knowing that it's the saving Word of God.
Thank you all for your support! God bless you all!