Hello everyone! This is Ray Kwan coming to you LIVE from Osaka Japan! Ok, if you're reading this it's obviously not live but if you pretend I think it will make for a much more enjoyable experience.
Sorry this post is a little late. I must confess that I was preoccupied putting together a toy car. But anyways, let me share with you what has happened since Priscilla's post. *checking Priscilla's post* Ok, looks like I'm only writing about Monday (6/27).
In the morning, The boys went to Takenaka-san's house for breakfast at 8am. I don't know if it was mentioned already or if you have forgotten but Mrs. Takenaka is a really nice widowed lady at the church. She lives by herself near the church. In 2001 she had her old house torn down and a smaller one rebuilt on the same plot of land. Her house used to take up the whole block. She comes from the family that invented the Polaroid camera. Her family also exported dyes. We had a pretty conservative breakfast consisting of an omlette type thing, a rice dish, and miso soup. She also had natto which Beland and Addison tried and Adler and I stayed away from.
After breakfast, most of the team kicked it at the church while a few of us went to the post office to exchange money. At about noon we went to Plat Plat which is a mall that's relatively near the church. I think it took us about 10-15 minutes to drive there. Of course Jun was our driver and he has exceptional driving skills. We did a few hours of shopping and then came back to the church to relax a little before going off to meet with the Osaka Prefecture University students.
We met the students at the bowling alley. It was pretty fun but it wasn't a very good setting to talk since every has to get up every couple of minutes to go bowl. We spent most of our conversations making small talk. I was very impressed with Leah's bowling score of 153. She had 4 strikes in a row at one point. She had the top American score. I think the top score overall was 174 which was bowled by one of the Japanese guys.
After bowling we went to an udon restaurant. It was the same one that we went to last year. There we got in pretty good conversations with them. Aaron Bitzer, who will be here at least another year, got to exchange contact information with several students. Hopefully he will be able to develop some long-term relationships with them. Also, the team got to share the gospel with many of the students during the dinner. There were about 25 people at the dinner and half of them were students. Please pray that the seed of the gospel will grow in the hearts of the students who heard.
This will be my only post so I'll take a little time now to write some personal reflections on this year's trip. This year has been a lot different than previous years for me. I feel pretty comfortable now leading. I don't know if it's complacency or experience but I am not as stressed this year as I was last year. Hopefully it's confidence in the Lord but sometimes it's really hard to tell. This trip has also been harder than previous years because there have been more people involved with us. This year there are four different groups that we have been trying to minister to: the Japanese students, the young adults at the church, the rest of the church, and the Americans who are here on a more permanent basis. In some ways, I feel spread kind of thin but that's nothing new to me. I don't particularly like being spread thin but sometimes it's what God has for you and we have to do the best with what we're given. I guess that's good because you have to trust in God more-that what you're doing is right even though it's not at the quality you think it should be at.
I guess that's going to have to be the lesson of the day since we have to go help Aaron with an English class now. This is Ray Kwan signing out.
posted by Ray Kwan
P.S. I forgot to mention that Hyo has a sore throat and kind of lost her voice. Please pray for her. Also, Alder has a bad headache so please pray for him as well.
In the morning, The boys went to Takenaka-san's house for breakfast at 8am. I don't know if it was mentioned already or if you have forgotten but Mrs. Takenaka is a really nice widowed lady at the church. She lives by herself near the church. In 2001 she had her old house torn down and a smaller one rebuilt on the same plot of land. Her house used to take up the whole block. She comes from the family that invented the Polaroid camera. Her family also exported dyes. We had a pretty conservative breakfast consisting of an omlette type thing, a rice dish, and miso soup. She also had natto which Beland and Addison tried and Adler and I stayed away from.
After breakfast, most of the team kicked it at the church while a few of us went to the post office to exchange money. At about noon we went to Plat Plat which is a mall that's relatively near the church. I think it took us about 10-15 minutes to drive there. Of course Jun was our driver and he has exceptional driving skills. We did a few hours of shopping and then came back to the church to relax a little before going off to meet with the Osaka Prefecture University students.
We met the students at the bowling alley. It was pretty fun but it wasn't a very good setting to talk since every has to get up every couple of minutes to go bowl. We spent most of our conversations making small talk. I was very impressed with Leah's bowling score of 153. She had 4 strikes in a row at one point. She had the top American score. I think the top score overall was 174 which was bowled by one of the Japanese guys.
After bowling we went to an udon restaurant. It was the same one that we went to last year. There we got in pretty good conversations with them. Aaron Bitzer, who will be here at least another year, got to exchange contact information with several students. Hopefully he will be able to develop some long-term relationships with them. Also, the team got to share the gospel with many of the students during the dinner. There were about 25 people at the dinner and half of them were students. Please pray that the seed of the gospel will grow in the hearts of the students who heard.
This will be my only post so I'll take a little time now to write some personal reflections on this year's trip. This year has been a lot different than previous years for me. I feel pretty comfortable now leading. I don't know if it's complacency or experience but I am not as stressed this year as I was last year. Hopefully it's confidence in the Lord but sometimes it's really hard to tell. This trip has also been harder than previous years because there have been more people involved with us. This year there are four different groups that we have been trying to minister to: the Japanese students, the young adults at the church, the rest of the church, and the Americans who are here on a more permanent basis. In some ways, I feel spread kind of thin but that's nothing new to me. I don't particularly like being spread thin but sometimes it's what God has for you and we have to do the best with what we're given. I guess that's good because you have to trust in God more-that what you're doing is right even though it's not at the quality you think it should be at.
I guess that's going to have to be the lesson of the day since we have to go help Aaron with an English class now. This is Ray Kwan signing out.
posted by Ray Kwan
P.S. I forgot to mention that Hyo has a sore throat and kind of lost her voice. Please pray for her. Also, Alder has a bad headache so please pray for him as well.