Hey There!
It’s Ashley and I will be blogging about our trip to Nara with the students on Saturday! Today was a really long day. We met up at 9:00 am and then headed to Nara by train. Nara is about an 1 hour away from Osaka. It is most famous for being home to Japan’s oldest Buddhist temples and it’s free roaming deer.
Once in Nara, we met up with students from Osaka University, Osaka Prefecture University, and Nara Women’s University. Here is some of the team and the Japanese students posing with Nara’s mascot (a little buddha with antlers)!
It’s Ashley and I will be blogging about our trip to Nara with the students on Saturday! Today was a really long day. We met up at 9:00 am and then headed to Nara by train. Nara is about an 1 hour away from Osaka. It is most famous for being home to Japan’s oldest Buddhist temples and it’s free roaming deer.
Once in Nara, we met up with students from Osaka University, Osaka Prefecture University, and Nara Women’s University. Here is some of the team and the Japanese students posing with Nara’s mascot (a little buddha with antlers)!
Next, we met up with the English club president from Nara Women’s University at the restaurant she works at part-time and had lunch. Lunch was delicious and we spent this time bonding and chatting with the students. Here’s a photo of Eri serving us lunch!
After lunch, we then headed over to the Todai-Ji temple, where we were greeted by deer. Below are some photos of us with our four-legged friends. We were able to feed them crackers, but were careful as these deer seemed way too comfortable around us.
Once inside the temple, we saw one of the largest Buddha idols. Apparently the size of it’s nostrils is large enough for a person to climb through and to demonstrate that, visitors were allowed to climb through a hole of that size. Here are some photos of us at the temple and some of the group attempting to squeeze their way through the hole.
After food and fun, we then walked to visit a Shinto shrine and it was time to focus our attention on making sure that our new friends heard and understood the Gospel. We had shared the Gospel with some of the students already, so we followed up with them to see what questions they had. For other students, it was their first time hearing the good news of Christ, our Savior. Our discussions included more testimonies, the comparison of Catholic beliefs versus Protestant beliefs, and where Christians stand on the theory of evolution. The conversations lasted well past dinner and our time with them was very encouraging, especially since we only have one more day left with them. We did say goodbye to some students for the last time, but thankfully there will be a few students joining us tomorrow for American Day at Hamadera Bible Church!
We are so grateful that God has blessed us with the opportunity to be here and proclaim Him to the Japanese students. Looking forward to a fun-filled day with the students tomorrow and a bittersweet end to our time in Japan. We hope that they will be attentive to the sermon and messages preached. Please continue to pray that the seed of the Gospel would be planted in their hearts and that there would be more exchanges between the students and HBC church members even after we leave.
Fun quotes of the day:
The first train on our trip to Nara was really crowded and a few of us were pushed inside by passengers waiting to board… Mike: “These people are fiesty. These people are fiesty! …you wouldn’t expect that from them.”
While squeezing his way through the hole at Todai-Ji temple…Tony: strugglin’ & strugglin, stops and exclaims: “I HATE YOU BELAND!” (ha ha! Beland had encouraged Tony to try it and was pushing him through. It was too funny!)
Click on the video below to see just what I mean….i love the bystanders that clap for him at the end!
We are so grateful that God has blessed us with the opportunity to be here and proclaim Him to the Japanese students. Looking forward to a fun-filled day with the students tomorrow and a bittersweet end to our time in Japan. We hope that they will be attentive to the sermon and messages preached. Please continue to pray that the seed of the Gospel would be planted in their hearts and that there would be more exchanges between the students and HBC church members even after we leave.
Fun quotes of the day:
The first train on our trip to Nara was really crowded and a few of us were pushed inside by passengers waiting to board… Mike: “These people are fiesty. These people are fiesty! …you wouldn’t expect that from them.”
While squeezing his way through the hole at Todai-Ji temple…Tony: strugglin’ & strugglin, stops and exclaims: “I HATE YOU BELAND!” (ha ha! Beland had encouraged Tony to try it and was pushing him through. It was too funny!)
Click on the video below to see just what I mean….i love the bystanders that clap for him at the end!
By His Grace Alone,
Ashley
Ashley