Day 49 Preachers meeting in Yokota

Monday October 19th 2009

Today was our monthly preachers meeting. Obata-san, Paul and I went to Yokota. This was our first time to see the new Yokota building. They recently build it, because they growing! There is an American Air force base right across the street from the building, so they stay busy with a Japanese service and an English service to meet everyone’s needs. This meeting I (Stacey) went along as well ,at Obata-san’s request, to try and encourage the women to start a preacher’s wives meeting too. In Japan the women get very busy with hospitality.  Obata-san wants to try to get more women involved too in spiritual growth. There was only one woman at this meeting. She is the wife of the preacher of Yokota. And again she was so busy serving the men during the meeting we really didn't get a chance to talk a lot. When we did it was nice to learn more about the role of women in the Japanese church culture. We will continue to try to bring more people together for the Glory of God. The Christians are so few and far between we think it’s important to keep a strong bond of encouragement between everyone, men and women.

After the meeting we all went to this awesome restaurant for lunch. They served us a very traditional Japanese meal. It’s not usually a meal served daily in a Japanese home, but its a meal that all Japanese enjoy. I guess it would be compared to a steak meal in America. Its a traditional American meal, but not frequently served in a home, except maybe on special occasions. It was fun and we enjoyed trying a few new foods and seeing the atmosphere of the restaurant. And it was good for Paul to talk with some of the other preacher’s and get a feel for what their congregations are like.