J's ninja vlog no.3 from Ushitsu

Sorry, had no internet there for a week so couldn't upload this, but enjoy!

A crazy couple of days!

Harry Lam here reporting in for my first proper blog on the mission trip! I haven't been able to join the team very much, but i was asked to do this blog now because the team is busy "cycling, tracting and interacting" up in Ishikawa-Ken right now! So it looks like they'll be doing several kilometres of cycling for a couple of days (on the itinerary it said about 30km of riding each day!! imagine that in this super humid and hot weather :( )!

Anyways, here's a bit of a recount of 24/6 - 27/6. I am writing this a few days after all these events so i apologise if i miss anything! There's a whole lot to blog about, so forgive me if this post is very long! If you find that it is too long, please at least scroll down to the bottom for the prayer points!

Australia Night 24/6

After many days of stress and frustration in lead up to Australia night, the night finally came! Jay started us off with a short explanation of Australian culture in comparison to Japanese culture, and Yoshiki was there to translate everything (that guy's a legend!). Then we decided to break into dance with an all Aussie bush dance! Everyone had a whole heap of fun learning the dance and sharing each other's sweat in the heat while dancing :) then we had a short break, in which the Japanese students had a taste of Australia: Anzac biscuits, fairy bread, vegemite and some other stuff :) I think they loved it! Although, i do think that some of the students, being Japanese, could not truthfully say that they didn't like the vegemite :P One of them said it tastes somewhat like soy sauce! I think they were kinda right, except it's a little stranger than soy sauce... Anyways, so the night continued with a skit about the prodigal son, and Masaki doing her talk in English (with Yoshiki as translator). I think the students thoroughly enjoyed it all :) They decided to give us all presents, but they had only prepared 6 of them, because well, they didn't account for me since i wasn't there most the time. But Kat told me to go up and grab the gift in her place, and she somehow convinced me to hold onto it...

Anyways, all in all it was an enjoyable night of good fellowship between Christians from two different cultures! :D (i'm not sure if there were any non-Christians there...)

Friday 25/6: Nagoya!

So the next morning we got up early to check out, and we then caught the train to Tokyo station, from which we caught the bullet train to Nagoya. I think it was about a 2 - 3 hour long ride. One awesome thing about bullet trains is the amount of leg room they have :D

Anyways, upon arriving at Nagoya, we met Azu, who helped us a heap with luggage (legendary!!). She also introduced us to one of her friends, Dai, who was also quite helpful :) So when we got to Nagoya, we had no idea who we were meant to meet exactly, and we were a bit late so we thought they'd left already. But we got in contact with him and met him at Mister Donut. So there we met Mr Joseph Kim - a Korean who grew up in America, co-missionary with Michael Oh, the founder of the Nagoya Bible Seminary - another legendary dude :) He drove us over to the Seminary, where he gave us a short tour and filled us in on the many different initiatives that have been taking place there. Sounds like there are heaps of different things going on there, and it seems that although missionary work in Japan is really hard work, there is a ray of hope. Joseph told us that he was sure that God was using globalisation to make the new generation of Japanese more open to western culture and religion, and he showed us an interesting youtube video to show us why he thought so. Can you guess what he showed us? For all the Big Bang fans out there reading this blog, he showed us the clip for "Gara gara go" by Big Bang :) Basically, he was surprised that a bunch of Koreans would be singing in Japanese and English. Several decades back that would have been absolutely unheard of! But now, huge korean bands like Big bang are becoming very very popular even in Japan, which has a huge fan base. Could God be using these things to bring the Japanese back to Him?

So we're all praying for the work to continue, and for the Gospel to be spread more and more there (see below for prayer points). Allthough it was a shame that we couldn't meet Mr Michael Oh himself, it was an awesome privilege to meet Joseph, who is a very knowledgeable and faithful man indeed!

After our meeting we went out to eat some awesome Nagoya specialty flat udon :D The price was awesome for the amount that we ate :) And we had a really awesome time chatting away about random things and enjoying each other's fellowship. Praise God!

We then trekked to our one-night accommodation in Nagoya. I really wish we could've stayed longer though, coz it was seriously such an awesome place! It has its own onsen, and it was quite big and comfortable to live in unlike the other accommodation we had. On top of all that, it was very cheap! Anyways, once we got to our accommodation it was officially our day off :) So the options we were given by Azu were to go out for Karaoke or to go and watch a baseball game. Everyone was too tired to even want to do anything, so we decided on plan C: to spend the night inside. Azu kindly offered to take some of us shopping to bring food back for everyone :D So a few of us drove down to the shops to get some food. We arrived at a huge shopping mall, where we shopped at a huge supermarket :) So when we got back, we ate, and then had dessert, at which point we discovered Jay's "maccha face" :P Jay's the biggest face of maccha, and upon finishing his maccha ice cream his face showed his absolute appreciation of maccha. So we called it the "maccha face" :) Oh yeah, so Jay also has been nicknamed "Nagaremizu" which means "running water"... you can go and figure that out yourself :P (he was also previously nicknamed "diabetes boy", does that help?)

Saturday 26/6: Sakae, Nagoya castle and Kanazawa

So we had a day off to explore the area a little. Azu took us to Sakae, which is one of Nagoya's big city areas with heaps of good shopping. So we stopped by the hundred yen shop and UniQlo to shop a bit :) We then met up with Joel (who soon got the nickname "Jama-Joel" which means "Joel, who always gets in the way" or "Obstacle Joel") :D The ten of us then went out to look for food, and we found this rather expensive but super awesome and satisfying restaurant where we got huge plates of amazing food :) After an awesome meal, we trekked up to Nagoya castle and explored the area a bit. May need to wait for mission photos to go up, and that might take a while! (The team is quite busy after all...) We then said goodbye to our legendary guide Azu, and made our way up to Kanazawa from Nagoya. Upon reaching Kanazawa, we met up with the accommodation dude, who led us through some rather dodgy streets to bring us to the accommodation, which looked pretty dodgy on the outside too...but the inside was quite nice and i think some of us had a pretty good rest :) Some of us stayed up a bit to prepare for the next day though.

Sunday 27/6: Wajima Bible Church

Sunday was yet another early start. We made our way back up to Kanazawa station, and met up with Mr Stephan (pronounced "Steven") and Simon (a Korean dude who spent about 11 years living in Brisbane!), our missionary guides for the next week. The drove us (apart from Joel and Alen who caught the bus up) to Wajima. We properly introduced ourselves and talked a whole lot about various things like where we were from and all. The journey up was amazing! I mean the scenery up there is seriously so amazing, it made me wanna live there, honestly! It's a shame i couldn't get out of the car to take a couple of photos though...but i think the image will remain in my head forever :D Mental snapshots are awesome...but they only seem to serve one's own purposes...they should so develop a "mental snap" camera :) One blink and voila! Perfect snapshot :D Anyways, on the way up, we stopped by a convenience store to pick up some food, and our driver got attacked by a rogue falcon :0 I think it was going for his food... it dove at him twice! It was quite awesome but also quite scary haha...

So, we arrived at the church at about 9:30am, giving us about an hour to prepare for the church service. So at 10:30 we were all ready to go! We performed "My heart is filled with thankfulness" for them, then i did my testimony. The pastor Arakawa sensei (a really really jolly man :) another legend!) gave a short talk on Psalm 139:14 (LOVE Psalm 139!), then we had a break and played some awesome games organised by him. He showed us the Japanese version of rock scissors paper: "Jan-ken-poi! Acchi mite HOI!" I think Alen has a new favourite game :P He absolutely blitzed it!

We then had a really awesome lunch, and some really nice cakes and waffles for dessert (which were leftover for afternoon tea as well :D). So we re-charged a little and prepared for the next segment, which was an English service (evangelistic) at which Jay gave his talk completely in English. While it was a good talk, i don't think many of them understood much of it! Still, it was a great opportunity for us to bring the word to them anyways! Afterwards we enjoyed some time together playing very similar games to the ones we played in the morning. Alenface was heaps excited about jankenpoi again, and this time he managed to beat about 5 people in a row! What a beast!

The following bits aren't exactly part of the team activities, but i thought they'd be encouraging for you guys to hear so i decided to blog about it too:

So Joel and I had to leave early, and we caught the last bus from Wajima station at 6:10pm (yeah...that's HEAPS early i know!) with a non-Christian girl called Miku. The bus ride was about 2 hours long, so it was an excellent opportunity to talk to Miku about her thoughts on religion (and a great opportunity to spend some time man-chatting with Jama-Joel!). Miku, like many Japanese, grew up in a Buddhist family, but did not hold onto that belief herself. So she was actually very open to hearing a little about the Gospel and gladly accepted a two ways to live tract from us (by the way, this was my first time ever explaining Christianity and the Gospel in Japanese, so praise God that He gave me the words to say!)

So after our two hour bus ride, we reached Kanazawa station, where i said bye to Joel (who caught the last train to Kyoto) and Miku. My bus was an overnight bus - an 8 hour trip to Shibuya, Tokyo. So i had to wait almost 3 hours for that bus, with nothing much to do. So i bought some food for the trip (and for breakfast next morning) and sat down to do a bit of journalling. Whilst journalling, a man with a cute little daughter in a pram came up to me and asked "are you travelling?" Immediately i thought "oh wow, this guy must be a missionary or something!" (Japanese people don't tend to talk to random strangers unless asking for directions or something). So it turns out this guy is a missionary from South Korea (another one!!!) who has been in Japan doing ministry for about 10 years. It was an awesome coincidence and i told him how happy i was to see him doing that kinda work there. We told each other about what we were doing there, and i talked to him about Credo and the mission and stuff. KGK also came up, and so we talked a bit about that too. He then told me about an event coming up called "KOSTA". This was a South Korean initiative that started in America about 24 years back for Korean exchange students. It is now a camp that takes place in about 12 different countries, Japan being the 12th, this year being the first for Japan! Well...he didn't actually tell me all that info...he just told me the name "KOSTA" and we left it at that. But when i got back to my place in Yamanashi, my Chinese friend (the only other Christian living here in these dorms) who goes to a local korean church gave me a pamphlet for KOSTA-Japan 2010. I get the feeling God wants me to go :P

So that wraps up those four days! Please take some time to pray!

Praise God for:

- a smooth running Australia night - quite a lot of students came, though i'm not exactly sure if there were any non-Christians there...

- the awesomely encouraging and faithful KGK students

- the initiatives taking place in Nagoya Bible Seminary, and the way He has been using missionaries like Joseph Kim and Michael Oh here

- using globalisation as a tool to make the Japanese more open-minded about foreign cultures (and thus foreign religions like Christianity as well)

- Stephan, the missionary from OM that the team is now working with

- Miku, a non-Christian girl who has been going to the English classes once a month at Wajima Bible church. Praise God that she heard a bit about the Gospel for the first time, and that she has now received a "Two ways to live" pamphlet in Japanese.

- sending so many faithful missionaries from other countries, especially South Korea

Please pray:

- That God will continue to be at work amongst the KGK students all over Japan

- That God will use Michael Oh, Joseph Kim and the others at the Nagoya Bible Seminary to further the work being done here in Japan. In particular, pray that as they seek to eventually open up a church

- That God will open up more paths for missionary work here in Japan

- That God will raise up the next generation of pastors and Bible teachers here in Japan, using native Japanese people to preach to the Japanese (apparently there is now not a single Bible college that has proper accreditation from the government).

- For the church in Wajima - that God will use Arakawa sensei's English classes and the other events there to bring more people to Himself

- For Miku (see above in the praise points), that God may open up her heart to the Gospel and that she may pursue Him

- That the team will have enough energy to cycle around and that their work may be effective

- For good teamwork, as it is very easy to get frustrated when working with a team for so long, even within Christian circles

Thanks so much for keeping up to date and for being patient with the super long post! :D

J's tuesday night update

Don't forget to check out Alen dancing in the post below =)

Alen dances too

Yes, we got Alen on camera too! =P

Videos

The videos are coming out really bad and posting them on youtube doesn't help either..... if you want to see them in better quality try facebook. My friends which includes the team, and the friends of my friends can all see them so that might be a better option.

The Proof - Episode III

ALL IN - except me I was quite content with videotaping



I just noticed watching it again, the staff in the background must have been thinking "What the heck?!" - Classic Japanese no-comment pose :D

Sorry about the video quality there isn't much I can do Blogger does its own editing and that really stuffs it up :(

The Proof - Episode II

So basically a slow song came up and everyone ran away except for Harry and another Japanese patron whose hands the lady was holding.....so funny



Sorry about the video quality there isn't much I can do Blogger does its own editing and that really stuffs it up :(

The Proof - Episode I

So here is the first video of our Jazz night to celebrate Fiona's officially older than me day aka Birthday. Happy Birthday Fi!



If at the end you pay attention to who Harry is holding onto Episode II makes so much more sense lol

Sorry about the video quality there isn't much I can do Blogger does its own editing and that really stuffs it up :(

J's vlog on Fi's birthday with Kev and Harry-chan

This is Alen editing - the song was 'Louis Armstrong - When The Saints Go Marching In'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyLjbMBpGDA

[J edit] - =O can't believe you would edit my post! =P

Awesomeness

Hello supporters and ppl interested in our mission. Kevin here, updating the blog at 2-3 in the morning. This is our latest night so far, but anyway.

We've been having an awesome time meeting Christian students at many different universities, joining in their bible studies and 'block' (group of uni's that Staffworkers look after) prayer meetings. It's really encouraging to hear and see the faith of the uni Christian students here, especially the leaders and staffworkers who do a lot for the students they look after.

I'll try and continue on from where Fi left off - keep in mind that we've been visiting more than 1 uni group or block at any one time in small teams.
Thursday morning Kat, Fi and I left for the KGK office in Ochanomizu (water of the tea :p) to help with making testimony booklets which contained testimonies as a result of the national conference held earlier in the year - Alen joined us later at the office. The pages were already laid out around the table folded in 2 sets, so we just needed to keep on adding outer layers to the inside ones till we put on the cover, which was a very efficient way of doing it (sorry, was too busy doing it to take a photo!). Then helped a bit with stapling them, though it seemed like they did most of the work and we only helped out a bit. We started pretty late so I got plenty of sleep, but still fell asleep at the office waiting to leave (Fi and Alen left earlier because they had to travel a lot further).

Kat and I went with Makiko (the staffworker mainly looking after us and organising our schedule who speaks really good english and translates really well) to Risshou university, which looks awesome as the building is really new. We learnt that this was the 2nd time a KGK meeting was held there (I think), and it is actually a buddhist university (with funding from temples and a seminary), so like the other university's we've visited KGK isn't an official group at the uni, though thanks to God they are all able to meet and even sing songs! It ended up being an all girls bible study, which was a first for me, but ended up being the bible study I enjoyed the most. We looked at the story of the Samaritan woman at the well, and opened up with a question about how we deal with the loss after a breakup (I gave a hypothetical answer). We looked at the story from the perspective of the woman then Jesus, especially discussing their feelings, which is not normally something we look at in bible studies in Australia. I found it really insightful hearing the perspective of the girls, even the non-Christian one. She even called Jesus Iesu-san because that's how her philosophy teacher talks about Jesus. The girls were from different universities but the leader keeps up with them and is training them up to run bible studies on their own campuses, which I find pretty amazing. Ended up eating Sizzeriya (cheap Italian food) for the 3rd time, but had interesting conversations about Christianity in Australia and Japan, especially with the lack of guys in the church, which is especially hard for the Christian girls in Japan since there's so few Christians their age. So people in Australia, perhaps we shouldn't be so picky! Another late night but also had a sleep in the next day.

Friday
We had most of the day off, so slept in and had a meeting, sharing about our different experiences and praying for one another. Lisa had a headache so she went back to bed. We then looked at Luke ... using Kat's method - thinking about the original audience, what particular things they would've noticed and what twist there is in the parable. Was quite difficult, but ended up with the idea that as disciples of Jesus we need to examine ourselves and make sure that we keep ourselves spiritually strong and acting more like Jesus before we help others do so.

Kat, Fi, J and I headed out for lunch - ended up eating at KFC since my church friends wanted me to see if there were no bones in the chicken here. The spicy chicken is not spicy but better than in Australia but there ARE still bones in the chicken here. I'm not sure if they were joking... anyway, it was good chicken. We then headed to the markets, and ate some interesting food like green tea icecream and chestnut cake (bit like moon cake texture). Wasn't fun for me since my raincoat got condensation on the inside so I felt wet. Quickly bought some onigiri and melon-pan (melon shaped bread) for Lisa, before going back to hostel then heading out to the station.

We rode the trains for nearly an hour to Tobe, next to Yokohama for the Bay block prayer meeting. It was awesome to see so many Christian students there (though they were from a lot of universities). One student (a quite eccentric and cool girl) shared how tough it is being the only Christian at her university. We shared a bit about AFES and Credo, with Alen translating for me, then heard a message about the dispersion and Barnabas, which was very encouraging about God working through ordinary and individual Christians in new places far from their homes where it wouldn't be expected.

Anyway, I better not continue rambling on and get some much needed sleep. I've only just survived a day without falling asleep in the evening. Thanks so much for reading and supporting us!!

Praise points:
Thank God for the staffworkers Miyuki and Makiko who have been looking after us and translating constantly for us.
For the awesome Christian leaders here who put in so much effort to help other Christians even in different universities.
That we could get some much needed sleep-ins after late nights (not all of us)
For my kinda improving Japanese
That Lisa was able to get extra sleep and recover today

Prayer points:
That we would continue to improve our Japanese and communication
That we would be honouring and thankful to our homestay families Friday night
That God would sustain us - especially for Kat, Lisa and J who have been unwell at some point in time - I think J still has a bit of a migraine from lack of sleep.
That we can be an encouragement to the Christians here in Japan

J's ninja vlog no.2 about KFC

another ninja post, sorry about the aspect ratio! too much effort to fix....

and we didn't end up meeting aki for dinner, check out Kev's post =)

"Do you sing songs to Jesus?"

From MyChestnutSoil

Fi here! I take random photos of japan fun - sometimes rain can be enjoyable. other times you've still forgotten to buy an umbrella despite it being the 5th day here. i think.

So 2 nights ago we were at the Ochanomizu Block Welcome Party which was super fun - we gave a presentation about AFES, they told us about KGK, we prayed for each other and sang 3 songs (all bilingual, which was awesome :) because we could sing along together as the body of Christ, knowing what we were singing even when we had no idea what we were singing.

One of the girls on my table, Megumi-san was able to chat to me in english, and she was asking me what Credo was like. She asked me what kind of songs we sing at Credo... and i was almost ashamed to say that we don't! It was such a cool thing to be able to worship with our brothers and sisters in Christ that it makes sense.

I think, though, that in Australia it would be very rare for *any* Christian student group to sing very much, let alone a bible study of 6 or so people! Yet, at 3 out of 4 meetings so far, groups of all sizes have sung - and loudly! They have KGK song books, even.

We've been splitting up into pairs and threes to visit bible study groups at lots of universities around Tokyo. So far I've been to International Christian University, which is green it would put USyd to Shame!

We also went to Tokyo Language University tonight.. I sometimes feel like we slow the ordinary bible studies down, with translation both ways. My Japanese is slowly getting better, remembering things I've learnt before or finding out new phrases, but its very tiring! Sometimes its hilarious getting mixed up in multiple languages but others it just feels like really hard work (taihen ne!)

I know this isn't really in any sort of order, but its starting to get a little jumbled in my head. Here's a rundown of today, 16/6/10:

- early-ish morning, its a hot and humid day (mushi atsukai!) (there's a reason everything is soooo green. I think maybe greener than England).

- went to help at a chapel+food type thing being run by one particular church, but with volunteers from many churches in the area

- down by the river, each wednesday about 150-300 homeless people (mostly men) sit in neat rows for a short chapel service with a couple of songs and a message, followed by food/lunch

- the pastor of a church from Chiba (i think) came to give the message, about the story of the prodigal son

- then we handed out kareraisu to each of the rows. volunteers spend most of tuesday making the food (curry and rice today) and the men start cooking the rice from 5:30am on wednesday morning

- we help clean up. 2 KGK students are with us, Marina-chan and Moto-kun

-we head back to the KGK office and hang out, and meet, then head to our evening bible studies.

so much student ministry happens at night! 3 nights in a row with prayer meetings for the block (like... area/division in Tokyo because there are so many universities) and bible studies. We sleep in (a little) and stay out late. Kevin and I didn't get home (back to the hostel) til after 11:30pm! We were out having dinner with KGK students after prayer meeting and the train home took about an hour.

I need to get to sleep now, so here are some prayer points:

- pray that we would be able to get enough rest and sleep soundly when we do.

- pray that we would be focussed on being where we are and concentrating/being involved despite language barriers sometimes being overwhelming.

- that Alen would be able to finish his assignment so he can join us for as much as possible without being stressed out

- for those who are carrying most of the language burden for us - Lisa, and the KGK staffworkers who are patient and tireless in their translating both ways for us!

Praise!

- Kat is feeling better

- personally, i've been able to understand more Japanese than I expected to. praise God for clear thinking (mostly) and remembering things i used to know

- we have an awesome hostel in a mostly convenient location for a reasonable price that is sparkly clean, on a clean and safe street and pretty much is everything we never knew we wanted. praise God for his provision!

Over and out! Fi

ps. more photos coming on facebook.

KGK day two :)

Hey support team :)

Kat DC here

Today started off with the looooongest sleep in so far :D (atleast for Fi, Kev and I who were going to International Christian University and didn't have to meet Miyuki until 1:30pm :)

Then after a brief trip to the first department store we've seen (you could buy bikes and stationary and so much more! and we only go to the first level) because we'd arrived early, we met Miyuki and headed to ICU. KGK has a club room in their club building there, all of the clubs do, and in there 11 of us met for fellowship. We started with singing a song together (which they sung in English to accommodate us!), then opened 1 Corinthians 5 together and shared our thoughts. It was so great to open the Word with brothers and sisters from another culture, and, thanks to three of the members who could speak English, have fellowship bi-lingually!

After this we headed back to MushashiSakai hoping to spend our free time in the department store, buying postcards and gifts, but on the way there I got more and more sick to the point where I had to say to Fi that we needed to find a place to sit like nowwww

that was a challenge

there aren't really places to sit in Japan it seems

so we perched on a wall like the Gaijin (foreigners) we are

at this point, i was not loving Japan I'll tell you

We split ways, which meant I missed out on the prayer meeting tonight :(

And I was not looking forward to catching the train for almost an hour home while feeling so so sick

But then, in Asakusa station (when i finally made it there, took me longer than an hour with all of the stops to sit down and try to stop being nauseous) it all hit me and was going to uh come up (to be lovely) so i just knelt beside a wall where there was a drain, feeling terrible and like I was the most horrible Gaijin ever! Then this lovely lady came to see if I was ok. It was obvious that neither of us spoke the other person's language, so she just rubbed my back until I was done being sick, and could get up.

THEN the dude in the uniform at the station came over and offered me a sick bay sort of thing to lay down in

AND another tourist came over to offer to buy me water or something

I was wondering as I walked away feeling very loved, whether this would happen in Sydney, or whether someone would assume that I was just homeless, or drunk, or not worth their time.

Anyways, there's my day for you!

I did make it back to the hostel, and after sleeping away the afternoon I think I feel much better. Hopefully I won't have to miss out on tomorrow!! (serving at a chapel and lunch for the less fortunate then splitting up into two teams again to visit two KGK groups! YAY!)

In Him

Kat

J's update for the day

Hullo!

edit: okay so I ended up posting the vid from the airport...check it out somewhere in this blog.

Arrivals and Welcomes

We've arrived! Sorry for not blogging sooner. Other photos and videos will be up later but I really want to record for y'all the main points before I forget, everything is so hectic.

So I met up with the team late on saturday night at an Italian restaurant in Asakusa pretty much a stones throw from the temple's Thunder gate. Aki and Azusa had welcomed and taken them around already including buying groceries. Everyone looked fine, they hadn't slept much on the plane though. Harry was also there he was to leave on Sunday night. Speaking of nights, after returning to the hostel we had a team meeting where the basic flow was explained but alot of things were yet to be specifically decided. As a side note I find it worthy to mention that Harry broke a chair that both me we sitting on. It was fine with me just sitting on it but after about 30 minutes with his 25% extra weight it broke into pieces.

The next morning, the lack of sleep on the plane and abrupt change in weather had taken it's tall. The team set off with Azusa to Musashi-somewhere and met up with Aki to attend the church service where Aki was giving his testimony. Prior to that we had a chance to meet the pastor, Aki was explaining to the pastor about how they had just from Australia yesterday. The remark I caught was "ah, so that's why they have these faces", whatever the intonation I think it actually looked more in our favour that we came to church so early in the morning despite our fatigue. The pastor was indeed very happy to meet us, as well many members of the congregation who before or after came by to greet us, give us a bookmark, shake our hands, make small conversation. All of these things were just great examples of a serious commitment to welcoming despite language barrier.
After church we had lunch at Matsuya, which is basically fast Japanese food with the whole vending machine ticket buying system. Next up was Studio Ghibli Museum in Mitaka! We still had everyone with us as we entered Studio Ghibli Museum (Studio Ghibli makes high quality animated Japanese movies, such popular titles as Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle, most recently Ponyo). Throughout the Museum you get the feel of what kind of work is needed to produce animated films from the many animated and interactive things throughout the place. I think the most interesting for me was a machine that spun figures around in a circle super fast, in the dark and using stroke lights at a precise moments to illuminate the figures in such away creating the illusion of movement. When stopped it basically looks like a whole set of copies of the same figurine but in gradually different poses. Unfortunately, photos weren't allowed so I couldn't record this awesomeness. We also got to as part of our entry fee, watch a short animated film about mice sumo. Even though it was short seeing the attention to detail and quality of animation and just humour present in the film was really cool. After Studio Ghibli we went to buy some more groceries and also hit up a sushi train joint. What is cool about sushi train restaurants here is that the chefs are in the middle of the train and you can actually order from them if what you want is not on the train.
That night after bidding Aki and Azusa and Harry goodbye the team retired and they may have had a brief meeting but I went via home to the hostel to pickup some more stuff.

Finally, I come to what we did on Monday. First, slept in a precious hour more, I overindulged but still after breakfast we did some prep for the KGK meeting we were having tonight. Some people worked on powerpoints, some on counting money, others still on skits and brochures. We did this up until late lunch time and then set out for our meeting in Ochanomizu, which meants the water from tea. Firstly, we met up with Makiko-san, the KGK staffworker who was in charge of co-operating with us and organising what events and uniersity visits we would do with KGK. We first introduced ourselves and tried to give Makiko-san a better idea of how AFES rolls, how we worked with Credo in Australia and then Makiko-san explained the schedule in more detail to us. I have to say it's pretty rough we pretty much only have early mornings for breakfast, prep and meetings afternoon to late night is being somewhere and doing something. We spent the last and majority component brainstorming and planning out how we would conduct Australia night which is an event we'll be holding as an outreach. So far it looks like we'll be doing some bush dancing, eating damper and anzac biscuits, a skit on the prodigal son and a short message. After this meeting that went on for a fair few hours we had a bigger meeting with the Ochanomizu block. KGK is nationwide, divided in 9 areas and each area is made of any number of blocks of universities. On average you are looking at 1 staffworker for each area, the bigger areas around Tokyo and Osaka have 2. A far cry from Credo's 11 just for UTS. After a short program involving worship, introducing AFES and KGK to each other and some prayer for both the team was individually split up among 6 eating tables. It was here we got to really fellowship with our Christian siblings, the team's first real student interaction. Most Japanese around this age would have gone through 6 years of English study in school so they are really good, but on the other very self-conscious of the fact that they aren't perfect. On my table at least there seemed a few more shy ones, one obvious extravert and two that at least can at the very least sympathise enough to care for me by asking things to make me feel welcome. The genuine expression of interest and asking me things about myself despite my Japanese not being so great, I felt very welcome and reflected on how insensitive I was towards International students in Australia. I knew it might be difficult for them, but damn hard is the only truthful way to put it, studying abroad that is.

After meeting and fellowship over dinner the team headed home and nothing more than sleep was on the Agenda.

Praise points:
- KGK made such a great effort to receive us and will continue to do so while co-operating with us
- It seems that a mission team from SIngapore is also coming here in one or two days in fact, and they have quite similar schedule to us so we will definitely get a chance to meet them, it's so encouraging to see Christian's from other countries missioning to the same country we are. A huge blessing to also able to meet said Christians and hear their story.
- Everyone has adjusted reasonably well to the change in climate, culturally too.
- For those student families that are taking us in to their homes and churches for a few days

Prayer points
- Please pray for rest and health, our sched is so packed we won't be cooking much and to keep us working diligently we really need to pace ourselves especially before we starting our biking/tracting later on.
- Pray that Harry would be able to join for as much important stuff as he can and that he would be encouraged by being able to see God's work being done here in Japan.
- Pray for spiritualy strength for the team, that we would continue to preach the Gospel to ourselves and continually be amazed by aspects of God's character and the salvation we have received. So that we may share this great news.
- Pray for great fellowship with KGK students and great outreach to those who are lost.

Chestnut Soil sends you greetings from Japan, thanking you for supporting us,

ybic - Alen

J's ninja vlog from the airport

Horhorhor how sneaky am I, posting a vlog from before BUT ON THE DATE WE RECORDED IT! Sorry it's late....=)

Less than 5 hours till fly off!

Hi everyone,

It's almost time to go!! Things have been a little hectic, getting packing all done, finishing internship on Wednesday, and doing other preparations. Just bought some last minute gifts and decorations for our Australia Night.

Sorry if I've sent you last minute emails, I really need to learn to put everything down, focus and plan ahead instead of forgetting then remembering. All of you are dearly loved! So yes, please pray that with all of our shortcomings and weaknesses, that we'll be helping one another and really relying on God for His strength. That we'll remember that we are taking part in His mission where He is at work and able to do far more than we could ever do or imagine.

Thank you all again for your support, it really reminds me that I belong to the body and family of Christ, and that on my own I cannot function properly. Please do send us emails or comments so we can keep up with you and know how we can pray for you too.

Love you all.
In Christ,
Kevin

J is almost finished for the semester!

Let me know if you prefer written posts instead.

Countdown: 4 days to go!

We leave for Japan in just four days! Between now and then we have assignments to hand in, exams to take, work to do and to-do lists to complete. Its so exciting to be so close to it.

Thank you for your support of us so far, both prayerfully and financially. We would love for you to keep praying for us over this week and for the rest of mission, so please, in the words of Paul to Timothy,

I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone—

for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men—the testimony given in its proper time. (1 Timothy 2: 1-6)

Please pray:

• that God would be going before us, smoothing out any bumps in arrangements and logistics that have been made
• That Alen and Harry would be able to join us however they are able, and that we would trust that God is powerful enough to use kings and rulers and university authorities for his purposes
• that we would finish our semesters and working weeks here well, and not be too distracted on what is to come and be well rested and ready to start mission
• that we would continue to be prayerful, depending on God's provision and grace for all that we need, and for the salvation of all people on earth including the Japanese.
• that we would budget well and that God would meet our finances would be enough
• that the exchange rate would improve before we transfer our funds to Japanese Yen