Day 8 - Visit to the mountains

Tuesday Sept 8th, 2009

Today we scheduled a day trip to the mountains, to visit brother Motoyuki Nomura.  Brother Nomura and his wife were missionaries to the Korean slums for many years and he has been preaching for many years here in Japan too.

We traveled about 4-5 hrs by car, Obata-san and Paul alternating driving. It was a beautiful day. Sun shining and fresh air.

All the way to Bethany home church of Christ we could see the mountains. We love to look at the awesome display of God's creation. We stopped several times just to stop and look at the scenery.

 

 

 

 

 

We stopped for lunch at Sukiya. They had really great Gyudon. Gyudon is a rice filled bowl topped with sautéed onions and beef, its great!

We were very excited to meet Nomura-san and his wife, because they gave us many dishes as gifts to start our new home here! So we were anxious to thank then with special gifts. While corresponding with the Nomura's through email. One of the first emails Paul responded to was to thank the Nomuras for the gifts they sent for our house. In the email Paul put a note carbon copying Obata-san and asking Obata-san to translate into Japanese if necessary.  Mr. Nomura graciously responded with an email. He told us that when he was young he took night classes at the local YMCA to learn English, but since the classes were during the night he could only understand English at night time, so he was glad to have received our email during the night so that Obata-san would not have to translate. Also he always referred to himself as an "old geezer bumpkin" After we read this we knew we had to meet this funny man. As we pulled up to their home they were waiting for us. It's so good to put a face with a name. They showed us around their home and the church (which is inside their home). They talked with us for a while, telling us how hard the work is in this area, and a bit about American Missionary history in Japan.

Moto (as he likes us to call him) says "the people in this local community are stubborn Buddhist, and will not listen to the Gospel." I think he has an especially tough area. It's an older community and they are so set apart from any big cities I think they are little more "set in their ways". Brother Nomura and Sister Nomura need lots of prayers to bring people seeking God to this church. After we took some pictures and had coffee and a delicious apple pastry, we decided to head home. It took us about 4 hrs to get there. Again the drive home was beautiful. We went a different way home. Nomura-san showed Obata-san a secret way. It took an hour off of our time home! So with a little extra time we stopped at an electronics store. Yamada Denki! (or in English Yamada Electric)  Its kind of like a big Best buy, but this one also sold a few food items and house wares. Pretty cool. We thought electronics would be a little cheaper here, but not so. We did find some ink cartridges for a printer/fax/scanner someone gave us. And we found Heinz ketchup. Yeah! The ketchup here is not the same. I think we use more sugar in ketchup in the US. Big surprise,  I think we use more sugar than any other country, but I have only visited 3 countries so far, so I might be wrong.

Videos of our first Sunday Worship with the Haruna Church

Well I thought you all might like to see a little of the worship service here in Haruna so we recorded the service and here are a few parts.

This first video is of Brother Obata leading the old hymn favorite of “I surrender all” (in Japanese of course)

The next one is the whole of my first Japanese sermon. It was rough up there but exciting as well to finally be in Japan speaking to the church there. I had to read most of my sermon/introduction because I wanted to say exactly how I felt and not be limited to my limited use of the language. I talk for about 5 min. introducing us and then I moved into the lesson about 1 Corinthians 12, which Obata-san was very kind to read for me. Then I wrapped up with the application and a thank you. At the end they clapped for me which I guess they only do for a special speech like this introduction one for me. In Japan no one talks to you at all after the service about what you said or gives you any encouragement. I have yet to understand if this is cultural or just the local custom. At first I thought I had not spoken clearly or was not understood because no one said a word to me after the service. I later asked Obata-san about this and he said they don’t talk to you about your message here. They just kind of soak it in. He said when he preached a few times in the states so many people came up to talk to him and encourage him. He was so encouraged he told me. I told him that when I could understand better what his sermons were about I would encourage him myself. This video is a little long, about 10 and a half min.

The last video is the Lord’s supper. I just wanted to show that all over the world people are worshipping God in a very similar way!

Well I hope you enjoyed those!

-Paul

Day 7 - Our day off and work on the house

Monday Sept, 7th 2009

What a beautiful morning. It’s our first official day off and we started with our usual walk, we saw a couple of large double blade helicopters headed towards the mountains. Not sure where they were going. Again we went a little too far and got a little lost, so we had to back track until we recognized a path to get home. Oh well, more exercise for today. On our walk we passed a couple of cow farms and many rice fields. The farms and fields here are so much smaller than in America. It probably plays a big part of why the food is so expensive.

Today I made an excellent lunch today. It was excellent because I used all of my kitchen appliances to make lunch. I used the toaster for chicken nuggets, the convection oven for potato wedges (I still can’t read the buttons on the machines; I just punch buttons till it looks right. I turned it on and it started flashing, not sparking, but it flashes until it gets to the right temperature. At least that’s what I told myself. And I used the stove to reheat Mac and Cheese (I fried it in a pan). Well I was proud of myself for not blowing up the convection oven. Paul was taking a nap and I didn’t want to wake him yet. It was scary to use. I really don’t even know where the stop button was. But I told myself if it started acting funny I would just unplug it. After lunch we were really hot in our house, and we ventured to open the windows. Well today its clean air. Thank you Lord!

We worked all day on organizing the house, unpacking the last of our boxes and putting together the few things we bought at Cainz Home store the other day. It was a very productive day. We had a small friend that decided to hang out with us all day by the window. So far we havn't see very many unsual bugs. Although there are some places where the spiders get together to build these giant webs. If we can get a good pic, we'll post it soon. Paul once saw a huge dragonfly in the restroom at a rest stop on the highway, he said he was as big as a sparrow, but he wasn't fast enough for a picture. We were very thankful to be able to enjoy a beautiful day at home.

We made our usual trip into town to get a few things. One thing we wanted was more cereal. The cereal boxes here are so small. Overall a very relaxing day. At times the differences here can be overwhelming, but we are thankful that we don't have to rely on ourselves for peace, but the creator of universe takes care of us. Keep praying for us please!

Day 6 - First Sunday Worship

Sunday Sept, 6th 2009

We got up around 6:30am. So we had plenty of time to get ready for church. Services don’t start until 10:30am. We made some coffee and Paul loves to show off how small everything is in Japan. Here is a normal sized coffee cup.

After a nice breakfast we were off to a morning walk. Nice and cool. We got ready for our first big introduction to the church members. Paul was really nervous about talking to the congregation in Japanese, but I knew he would do fine. He practiced his talk a few more times and then we walked to the building. I thought it would be ok to walk in my heels to the church, but I was walking so slow, and I really thought I was going to twist an ankle. It was a different walk to the church with these shoes. Next week I’ll use other shoes to walk then change.

This morning we had 15 people. WOW! Praise the Lord! Most Sundays they average about 5-10. Most weren’t Christians, so this will be a great start for us. Obata-san started off and introduced us and sang a couple of songs. It was beautiful! We sang in Japanese this morning, but they have English hymn books as well. At first I started off singing in English, but it was fairly easy to sing along in Japanese also. What an amazing experience. I had to try very hard to keep the tears back. Seeing Obata-san singing his heart out for this congregation inspired me even more to want to be the very best help we can be. He works so hard. I pray that we can show the people in Haruna Christ Jesus our Lord! Here's a picture of all the people there that day!

Then Paul got up to speak. I know he wouldn’t say so, but he did a great job. He spoke on 1 Corinthians 12:12-27, about how we are one body with many parts and that all the parts were needed. He also emphasized that we were there to work alongside the body and not to take over the work there. The Lord was helping his words to flow and touch the people hearts. It is truly a gift to us to be here.

After the service the congregation had prepared for us a very nice meal. They made little sandwiches, fruit, small meat patties, sushi rice, and potato salad. Everything was delicious.

After lunch Rieko and Ryosuke (2 people from the church) took us cell phone shopping. We went to AU one of two carriers in Japan. We spent about 2 hours there talking to them and explaining to them our situation about not having our Alien Registration cards yet. In the end we were approved! After about another hour we picked our phones and we thought we were good to go, but they came back and told us they didn't have the phone Paul picked out and mine only came in crazy pink. So I was ok with pink. not my first choice, but not problem. Then we had to figure out what Paul wanted. It was hilarious. He could either choose a hot pink phone like mine or a shiny gold phone(not the model he wanted). It was like a golden chrome color like C3Po's body from Star Wars. It was way too flashy, especially for a missionary! Or his other choice would be to buy the next model up which would be about $300.oo. The young lady helping us was very nice and she thought for awhile and decided to call one of the cell phone companies to see if they had another color they could send. YEAH. They had a blue/black phone they would send for Paul. He was very excited about this. He really didn't want to have to carry a pink or even a flashy gold phone. In the end he was a happy boy. Thanks to Rieko and Ryosuke we were able to get a phone! We hope to continue our friendship with them and they were very kind to spend so much time translating. Apart from Obata-san, Rieko is the only member of the congregation who speaks English. She teaches at a local high-school for all girls.

So we headed back to the church. Services would start back at 7:00pm. Evening services started and we sang songs to begin. Half way through singing Obata-san invited Paul to lead us in singing an English version of Amazing Grace. You have to be flexible to be a missionary! So he lead it and did a great job for his first time in Japan! In the middle of the song two women showed up and joined us in singing. Obata-san gave a short sermon and then we closed the services with a prayer. We went and met the two nice ladies that joined us. One of them, Kieko, had known Rieko for over 10 years. The other one, Junko, said her favorite song was Amazing Grace and she was very moved that we were actually singing it. Neither one are Christians yet but we are praying! After talking for a while over tea we parted ways and they said they would like to come back to sing with us again.

It was a beautiful service and we were so happy to be a part of it. To see God's people praising the same God in another part of the world is amazing.

Day 5 - Meeting the Neighbors

Saturday Sept, 5th 2009

Today we slept in a little later than we had been. But we still took our morning walk. We walked for about an hour today and ended with a little running. We took a couple of new paths, and we didn’t get lost! The neighborhood is starting to be a little more familiar. Most of the area is small rice fields, houses, and a few dairy farms are scattered about. We on the side of hill of sorts and all the houses and road are packed together. After our run and lunch Paul worked on his talk for tomorrow. Tomorrow he will give his first address to our new congregation! Obata-san has requested that it be an introduction of ourselves and also a short message from the Bible. The hardest part is Obata-san has requested that it all be in Japanese! So much for easing into the language! No, just kidding, Brother Obata has committed to help Paul translate it after he writes it in English.

After Paul finished we wrapped all of the Kansas souvenirs we brought as gifts and went to the Obatas’ house.

While we were there we met Mrs. Hosoya and she gave us a few of the vegetables that she grows, along with a bunch of big purple grapes. Then a Mrs. Obata (some relation by marriage to our supervisors' family) came by with some Japanese Pears, (Nashi in Japanese) delicious! Her family is one of the biggest fireworks manufacturers and they do firework shows also. We sat around and listened to them speak Japanese (not understanding very much yet).
Paul then worked with Obata-san to finish his greeting and devotional for the congregation tomorrow. They got it all translated and ready to go. And Paul had to sit there and sound out the whole speech in Japanese in front of Obata-san so that he could check Paul's pronunciation.

This is what Paul said about the experience, "That was one of the most humbling experiences of my life. To have to sit there and sound out those words like a kindergartner in front on my new boss was so rough. I had never read it before, and I felt foolish most of the time thinking that Obata-san must be terribly disappointed with my reading skills. But, he was very supportive and stuck with me through 5 pages of this translation. God humbled me greatly today, and if this is the biggest price I have to pay to minister to these people then I will be very fortunate indeed. So much for foolish pride. "

I worked on the internet as much as I could, between the guests that arrived. After Paul and Obata-san were finished, Shimakata-san came by. He is a really interesting man. He is a post-man, a Buddhist, and has provided the Haruna church of Christ with fresh flowers from his personal garden,

every Sunday for the past 5 years. Now that’s a good neighbor. Paul asked him in Japanese to “please come to church with us.” He just chuckled at us. We will be praying for this relationship to develop and maybe he will give us an answer next time we ask. He is very generous to the Obatas and brings them fresh vegetables as well very often.

Later that evening we went on our first door-knocking to all of our neighbors in Comfort Town (the name of our little housing division). We had a small gift to give each house, a small package of Kansas postcards, 6 houses total. A few people weren’t home so we left it in their mail box. It was interesting to see their reactions. Most of the adults aren’t too interested in looking at us, but the kids can’t stop looking at us. Paul is so tall and my blonde hair must be very different for them. It’s funny to see the kids reactions. One young girl named Mima, who was in kindergarten was very cute and was with her mom. They are our next door neighbors and we hope to develop our relationship as our language skills get better.

That was the end of a long fruitful day and tomorrow we meet the congregation!

Day 4 - Haruna Driving and Fun

Friday Sept, 4th 2009

Today was a little rainy again. But that just means it will be cooler in the afternoon. Buta-san (the pig smell) is very strong today. :( We started the morning off with a nice walk around our neighborhood and through town. We are slowly learning more of the streets. It’s difficult here, because they don’t use street names on small roads, only on the few main roads. After our walk we went to Obata- san’s house. We talked with Steve & Debbie Carrell (American missionaries from Indiana here in Japan in the Matsudo area) on Skype for awhile. They gave us more advice on a few things we needed. Later we went to town to see about another option for getting our Alien Registration card sooner than next month.

Obata-san let Paul drive today! Paul was very excited about this. I was just waiting to see who freaked out first between the three of us. Paul did fine, no mistakes. Although he was very careful. We went back to the city office and they were able to give us a form that would allow us to give our alien registration number to receive a cell phone and internet. YEAH!!!! We will be connected to the world soon. It’s been very difficult not talking to family and friends back home. We’ve had very limited internet access, and when we do get connected it’s late at night in the U.S. I was getting very hungry. So for a fast late lunch we went to …McDonald's. Yay! Well at least we waited 4whole days before we caved in!It was really good. Not too different than home. The mayonnaise has a little soy sauce flavor to it, but not too bad. And the French Fries tasted exactly the same. We better stay away from McDonald’s or we won’t be losing any weight.

So after we filled our bellies with greasy food we went to NTT (the best fiber optic service) to see if our new forms will let us sign up for service. With the help of Obata-san we managed to get all the paperwork filled out and internet is on its way.

Only one more week to wait, we can handle that. We were so tired after trying to follow the conversation, we had to go home and rest for awhile. So after a little rest we decide to go on an adventure by ourselves at night with the van. Remember we don’t have cell phones yet…

Well we really wanted to go to the grocery store by ourselves. It was kind of hard with so many people the first time, so off we went. Also it gets dark here around 6:00pm. We started out pretty good. Then we start looking around and everything looks familiar to one of us but not both of us. So we keep telling each other ”that looks right”, “no turn here”. Well after about an hour we decided where we were didn’t look familiar to either of us. So we kept driving tell we found highway 29 that’s all we could agree on. 29 is the main road through Haruna. We were headed to Central Takasaki. OOPS! Well it must have been a little before 8:00pm when we found Beisia (ryhmes with Asia) the grocery store. Whew. We were triumphant! We shopped a little and bought some excellent bread. So, homeward bound. Uhh, which way did we come? It’s really funny, because in the U.S. Paul could never remember how to get home from a new place. I always remembered. In Japan we are totally opposite. I’m the one always backwards and going the wrong way and now that we are on the other side of the planet Paul’s sense of direction is always correct. I think it’s God’s way of showing us how we work together no matter where we are. Well we finally made it home and in bed around 10:00pm which is late for us here. Oyasumi nasai! (Good Night!)

Day 3 - Another full day in Japan

Thursday Sept 3rd, 2009

Well we made it through the night in our house alone. We woke up this morning about 5:00am and got out of bed around 6:00am. We had breakfast. Kellogg's Special K. Look at how small the box is. (Sorry Alex! Cereal selection here is very limited.) This is a normal size to buy. No extra large family size here.

So far this is an absolutely wonderful house, except for the pig farm across the road. The smell is very bad some days, and we never know when we open the door what air we will experience. We decided to name the smell Buta-san, which means Mr. Pig. That way we let each other know if we smell the farm and we can hold our breath when we are out side. Every other farm smells better than a pig farm. At least that's what we think right now. :)

We are still trying to adapt to the time change. At first we thought it would be ok since we are sleeping on Japan time, but we are feeling the weight of change. We got up today and went on a walk around our neighborhood. It was a little rainy, but beautiful. so many little roads, we were afraid to get lost. we made it to the main street and back. On our walk home we met one of the neighbors, Shimakata-san. He was very nice and very patient to try and talk to us in Japannese. I thought Paul did very well talking to him. Shimakata-san is a great neighbor to Obata-san.

Today we went to town to see about getting our alien registration cards. (Don't want to be an illegal alien!)We filled out all the forms and found out that it would take 1 month to get. EEEEK! That means we have to wait 1 month to get a cell phone, Internet, or a bank account. Oh well we will have to wait. We also ordered our Hanko, a circular Japanese stamp like a signature. Everyone has one here for legal documents and we will need one so that we can sign important documents and get a Japanese Bank account.

Then we stopped by one of Obata-san's friend's businesses. Mr. Hirokami and his company built the building for Haruna church of Christ. He also gave Obata-san a very large discount to build it. We sat and talked (well Obata-san talked, we listened) with him next door at his wife's coffee shop. The coffee was excellent. We have met so many nice people and the friendships that are made between neighbors is amazing.

We also had sushi for lunch today from Beisia, the supermarket in town.

This evening we went to the home store in Maebashi and purchased a lot of things we wanted for our house. We needs things for storage and a few more cooking supplies. On our way home Rumiko-san wanted to stop at the $1.oo store. In Japan, it is called the Hyaku En (100 Yen) store. Yay! Lots of good thing to buy there. We bought a few good things and some paper to wrap our gifts that we brought from Kansas. There are lots of good people to thank for their generosity.

It was another long ay. and we went to bed early.

Day 1 and Day 2 - Our first days in Japan

Tuesday Sept. 1st & Wednesday Sept. 2nd, 2009

We arrived in Narita airport about 4:00pm local time. We found our luggage, but we didn't know how to carry it to the van. After a long time of searching, Paul found a couple of nice workers and they helped us. I guess it's not usual for people to bring 6 boxes, 3 large suitcases and 3 personal bags. Oops! Obata-san (our supervisor) and Rumiko-san (his wife) met us at the airport to take us home. We had so much luggage at first sight Obata-san decided to sent Rumiko home on the train, because we might not have enough room in the van. After using 4 airport carts and 3 trips we fit it all in the van thanks to Paul's superior Tetris skills. On our way out Paul had to exchange all of our dollars to Yen. Yay!

We stopped at a little restaurant and had dinner, OK our first big test for food... it was delicious. We had sweet and sour pork, and Gyoza, or what we call pot stickers. Obata-san, noting Paul's size ordered much too much food and we had to get a to get a to go box. Lunch tomorrow!

We then drove to the Tachikawa church where Dwight and Josephine Albright met us and greeted us with a warm hello. We stayed the night and left the next morning after breakfast. It was cloudy all the way to Haruna. on our way home we stopped at Bic Camera to buy a hair dryer and an iron. The prices were very high, but Paul found a closeout model of a iron that was cheap, (only $50! , cheap huh?) After that we stopped to look at cell phones. We couldn't start any services until we had our Alien registration cards. So home we went.

We arrived at our little house. what a blessing it is to us to have such a beautiful and large house to live in while in Japan. We were so thankful to all the many friends of Obata-san that gave us so many beautiful things to use for our house.

We met Rumiko at the church building (beautiful) for lunch and met one of the members Lee-san. It was very exciting to be experiencing what has only been seen in pictures. Later that evening we met Rieko-san, one of the member of the Haruna church of Christ. She is one of 2 who speak English very well, Obata-san is the other. She teaches English in a top high school in Takasaki. She went with us on our first trip to the grocery store. It was crazy. We couldn't read a thing. :) There is so much Kanji (word picture) in everything it was frustrating. Well we left with a few things, but we would need to figure out our eating situation soon. It was hard, because we didn't know how to cook a lot of foods, or if we had the correct utensils and appliances to cook them. So I think we left with eggs, cheese, English muffins, strawberry jam, and a frying pan. Hmmmm. I wonder what we were going to have for breakfast, lunch and dinner the next day. We soon figured a few more things out and we went to sleep around 8:00pm local

time. (Jet lag is so good for early bedtimes!)

Summary - Blog Begin, Our adventure so far.

Well we made it to Japan! What amazing experience so far. We have seen God work in so many ways these last few months. Well let me start at the beginning.

We were approached by Derin & Amanda Dopps about a year ago. They were looking at starting a team to go to Japan and spread God's Word. Excited by the Dopps enthusiasm we started to plan a survey trip to Japan for the next fall 2009. And the process started. We took a Japanese-language night course at WSU with Derin. We attended the Global Missions conference with the Northside Mission Oversight Team (MOT) team. And the more we looked into this opportunity the more we saw God all around us. We were hesitant at first to see God working so personally in our lives, but we look back and can't deny it.

The months rolled by and we had the wonderful opportunity of hosting Jonathan Hanagen while he was on his furlough to the U.S. We got to pick his brain a little about his work in Caracas, Venezuela. What a encouragement. Jonathan is an amazing person and we love him for the good kind words he left us with. After Jonathan left to go to Oklahoma to visit another supporting congregation, Memorial Road church of Christ, we got a phone call. Jonathan was staying at the director of the HIM program's house, Clyde Antwine. He wanted to know how interested we were in going to Japan. We were on our way to a wedding in Chicago, so we had a lot of time to talk on the road. In the last few months the HIM program had just received a request for HIM workers from a small congregation in Haruna, Japan. I remember the look of excitement/trepidation on Paul's face as he told me why Jonathan was calling. So after all the details were discussed we had some time to think.

Ok, this 2 week survey trip was turning into a 2 year mission trip. Well after a few days of thinking and praying we decided to pursue this request and apply to be HIM workers. So after being accepted into the program we joined the other workers and over the next 10 months preparations began. We enrolled in another Japanese class at WSU and drove to Edmund, OK for HIM training classes every Wednesday night until May. We found a couple of awesome young men to rent our house, bought plane tickets, sold our cars, and quit our jobs. The Lord was helping us all along the way. Every obstacle we came to, was taken quickly away and with a better outcome than we anticipated. Thanks to all of our wonderful family and friends we raised enough money to be able to work full time in Haruna for 2 years. And so the adventure begins! What will God do with 2 lowly people in Japan, serving him for the kingdom? :)

-Stacey