Final thoughts on Japan

Greetings!  We've been back for a couple of days, and as I (Drew) combat jet lag and the inevitable head cold, I've spent time processing through our trip and reflecting on the things I've learned.  Here are some thoughts I wanted to share with you all:

1) Japan has stolen my heart.  This was unexpected, to say the least; I've been on missions before, and I've been impacted before, but nothing quite like this.  There was something incredibly refreshing about the people we met there; everyone was so welcoming and genuinely wanted to connect.  Even among the general population, there was a level of respect afforded to everyone which I've never seen (this was put into sharp focus after getting yelled at by an irate LA driver yesterday).  Whether for a week, a month, a year or more, whether as a tourist, a teacher or missionary, I plan on coming back.

2) Long term missions isn't as scary of a thought anymore.  Last year, coming back from Haiti, I was confronted with a frightening question:  would I be open to the idea of going somewhere long term on missions?  To be honest, it was something I didn't want to think about; I'm not someone who seeks adventure or change, and thinking about being away from everything and everyone I've known was extremely unsettling.  However, after seeing families like Seima's and Sean's (another mission family we met there) being obedient to the calling, it is no longer as daunting of a prospect (and has become more of a legitimate possibility).  I know there are many things that have to happen in order for me to actually go, but the idea of going somewhere for an extended period of time is something I'm a little more comfortable with.

3) I focus far too much on my weaknesses than my strengths.  I hate failing.  Like, really hate it.  I tend to avoid any activity that might lead to me not succeeding. In Japan, I was surrounded by it; I couldn't speak the language, I'm not used to working with small kids, and I dealt with physical issues throughout the week .  However, something Wilson and I talked about really stuck with me throughout the trip (and even back here in LA).  He had mentioned hearing a quote from one of our pastors which goes something like this:  if we focus on our weaknesses, we can improve them to the point where we might not fail as much, but in order to truly thrive we need to focus on the strengths and gifts God has given us. 

I love this, because oftentimes in our society, I feel like we tend to try to 'not fail' rather than succeed… to hedge our bets and play it safe rather than take a risk for a greater goal.  In addition, when our weaknesses shine through, we give room for God to show us His grace and power (as stated in 2 Corinthians 12:9).  I'm not saying that we should just be terrible people so God will be super strong, but I am saying that, if you are anything like me, you don't want any weaknesses, oftentimes focusing on removing them far more than developing your strengths, which leaves us all slightly above mediocre at everything (and good at nothing).  If we as a church focused on how we can serve vs. how we can't, if we chose to accept our shortcomings and let God work through them, how different would our communities look?

As you can see, lots of rambling thoughts up in my head.  Thank you to everyone for your prayers and your support.  This trip has been such an incredible blessing and challenge, and I hope that every one of you will have a similar experience somewhere, someday. Tokyo, until next time... Nos vemos.

More photos from Japan!

Yuki and Akari singing a song.  "And I'm so happy, so very happy..."
 

 Wilson and Atsushi leading craft time.

 Teaching the kids everyone's favorite Barney song (I wish I was kidding).
 

Yet another game of duck duck goose.

 A group photo from the onsen (Japanese spa). 

 Hand puppets (Akari, Rione, and Yuki)!  This photo is overloaded with cuteness.

 

 A picture of all the students at our English camp.

All the campers performing a song for their parents.

 A photo from Grace City Church, a PCA church that serves the Tokyo community.  It has experienced 50% growth since last year and is one of the largest (if not the largest) churches in the city (~120 or so members).

Teaching English words through repetition, flash cards, and repetition. (See what I did there?)

Leaving Japan (a post from Danielle)

As we get ready to pack up and head back home, I have so many thoughts running through my mind, so I will try to be concise. First, Tokyo is amazing. I haven't traveled a ton, but I believe this place will stick with me more than most.  More importantly, I believe God is moving here is a big way. 

Last night, we had the privilege of attending a "ladies night in" with some of the women from the Grace Harbor community. We showed up at an apartment where there about seven women (and about as many children) waiting for us. They served us dinner- all homemade Japanese food- and we all started talking and eating together.  We had already met all of the women that were there but last night provided an opportunity to get to know them better. We laughed a lot, as we tend to do, and some of our new Japanese friends even began joking with us about how loud Americans are. 

About halfway through, I realized that none of the Japanese women at our dinner party are Christians right now.  Most of them had been at church on Sunday. It is incredible to me that they are invested enough in this Christian community to want to host a dinner for us. I had talked to one of them earlier this week and she told me she is very interested in Jesus. 

As we leave this city, I am going to be praying that these women will not only find community through grace harbor, but also place their lives in Jesus' hands.  

Pictures!

We are in the homestretch of our English camp; tomorrow is the last day, and the day after that we will host a carnival for all the kids and their families to come and play games, eat food and build relationships.  Definitely a lot to share, but in the meantime, here are some of those pictures we promised!

We visited the Asakusa temple (something of a tourist trap, but still pretty cool).  Our host Seima took us to a Japanese shave ice shop, which was pretty ridiculous.

You know what transcends languages and cultures? Games.  The children picked up the difference between "red light" and "green light" pretty quickly.  And yes, just like American kids, they take 10 extra steps after the red light is put up. 

Another game, this time using an elementary school PE classic:  the parachute!  Mayhem and hilarity ensued.

Sarah with one of our campers.  If you look in her hands, you'll see a small camera; she was constantly taking photos during the camp!  Amazing.  

The game the kids could play for hours (literally):  duck, duck, goose.

Hannah, one of our campers!  

After the English camp on Wednesday, Seima invited us with some of the faimlies to go visit a pretty famous Japanese spa.  This is Lee with one of our campers, Itsuke, on the boat ride there.

Some of the older boys showing off their hand puppet skillz.

Wilson, dressed in a traditional Japanese robe, known as a yukata.  We had to wear these while we were in the spa.  

Our team plus our amazing hosts! (From left to right:  Danielle, Martin, Sarah, Drew, Lee, Naoko, Itsushi, Wilson, Seima and Sean)

Alone in a crowd

In a city of 13+ million people, there is scarcely a place to stand or sit without another person close by in Tokyo.  However even with a multitude of people constantly surrounding each other, there is still a sense of loneliness and disconnection within the society.  Isolation has become the norm and one of the most troubling statistics is that the single person household became the largest category amongst all household types in 2010.  

When we accept Christ as our Lord our savior, not only do we build a personal relationship with our loving creator but we are inducted into God’s family.  Each member individually may be lacking and incomplete but blessed with gifts of the Spirit each serve a unique function in one body to further the kingdom of God. ref. Romans 12:4-8

Grace City Church, in the heart of Tokyo, started about 3 years ago and with a growing community of 100+ regular attendees is such a place that invites the lonely and disconnected (and those not so lonely or disconnected) into God’s family.  It’s consists of mostly of Tokyo locals but also foreigners living abroad and those committed to serving full time in Japan.  With our work this week at the English camp, we hope to support the Grace Harbor Project church plant members in building the sense of community necessary to start the 1^st of hopefully many sister churches starting in the Tokyo Harbor district.

One of the most memorable moments of this trip for me will be navigating Tokyo’s subway system with its trains, tunnels, and stairs along with the other PCC mission team members on the way to visit Grace City Church.  As we continued our journey hopping subway lines, we began picking up new friends along the way.  Atsushi, who left a steady job as an application specialist in a hospital to serve full time on the church plant team.  The Radke family, Sean and Lisa and their 3 kids, who moved from Indiana to work with the same team.  Yoco and Hiroa (sp) and their young children, regular church attendees whom the Spirit has begun to push toward the truth of the Gospel.  So we became quite a caravan sharing the weight of bags, kids, strollers, etc. on our journey.  A thought crossed my mind that it seemed like a small illustration of our Christian walk.  Not meant to be undertaken alone but shouldering each other’s burdens in pursuit of Christ.

English Camp has begun!

The last few days have been a whirlwind.  We have seen and experienced a lot in our few days here already. Today we started our English camp.  We all didn't quite know what to expect.  After meeting with Seima yesterday, we decided we needed to change up some of the material we had planned for the week.  At first I panicked a little bit trying to figure out what we were going to do but were able to spend some time thinking it through and came up with revised skits for the week that all tied into a theme.  God was at work even when we doubted.  This is a lesson that God continues to teach me (Sarah).  I want to do everything on my own but thankfully God intervenes and reminds me He needs to be in the center of everything.

We had such a great time with the kids and their moms.  We ended up having a lot of young kids (5 and younger) and not as many older kids.  They most enjoyed the games and crafts.  Who doesn't love a good game of red light/green light and a chance to make hand puppets!  It was so wonderful to see the kids running around and having a good time.  I really enjoyed meeting the moms.  They were all very sweet and even though there was a slight language barrier, we were able to communicate.  Drew mentioned in a previous blog post about the story of the mom in the community who had committed suicide.  When I heard that story I was very moved and my heart went out to other women in similar situations.  I was so glad we could in a small way support and care for the moms and their kids that came today.

I hope that through the work of Seima and his team that this whole community would feel love, support and a strong sense of community.  We are excited for tomorrow and a chance to be with the kids again.  I can't wait to see what God has in store for the rest of the week.  I do know that God is at work here and I pray that Grace Harbor church will be a refuge for this community.  Sema said today that he hopes in a 100 years that Japan will be known as a Christian nation as opposed to today where as little as .2% profess to be Christians.  I second that hope with Seima!

Get Christianity on the Menu

Greetings!  It is around 9pm over here in Japan, and the last couple of days have been a whirlwind.  There'll be more info later (as tomorrow we are starting our English camp and we are trying to combat the jet lag we've experienced over the last day or two), but I wanted to share something that really struck me today.

We met with Seima, our mission partner in Tokyo, who spent a little time talking about what is happening in Japan and how he came to serve here.  He told us that Japan often flies under the radar of countries in need of missionaries, mainly due to the notion that it is technologically and socially on par with other first-world countries.  Yet, less than .2% are professing Christians.  There are more than 20,000 suicides every year; people face ultra high societal expectations of success and oftentimes are lonely and without hope.  "Sometimes people choose to end their lives without even knowing that Christianity is an option," Seima told us.  "We just want to get Christianity on the menu."

For some reason, that thought lingered with me all throughout the day.  It's one thing to knowingly reject something; it's another to not know of its existence altogether.  He spoke of a story about a woman who recently jumped from one of the highrises in the community, a mother who not only committed suicide but also took the life of one of her children as well.  He asked us to imagine the depth of pain and loneliness she must have felt to get to that point, and told us that that was one of the reasons why they planted a church in the neighborhood.  Even if people reject the gospel, he wants them to be able to experience God's love and know that there is a community of people who will love and accept them.

Japan is fascinating and heartbreaking.  Some of the things I've seen here have blown my mind, and yet some of the things I've heard have killed me.  We will start our English camp tomorrow, and while it is meant for the kids, filled with games and skits and English flashcards, it is also an outreach to the mothers out there who have no community, whose husbands choose work over family because they feel pressured to, who might not know of all the options.  Our hope is that we can, in some small way, put Christianity on the menu for them.

Final preparations...

Hello and welcome to our team blog!  Hopefully, this will be a place for all of us to share not only what we are doing, but what we are learning and what our experience is like as well.  (Realistically, there might be few words and lots of pictures... but we shall see!)

Anyway, we leave for Japan tomorrow!  Craziness.  We just had a team dinner and I think all of us are feeling some combination of a) excitement, b) nervousness, and c) that nagging sense of being slightly unprepared.  I know that for me (Drew), there is definitely a lot more anxiety than excitement, mainly because it feels like there's a weight that comes with going on a trip like this... almost like it needs to be super amazing to justify all the time, energy and financial support people have poured into our team.  

But I am reminded that Christ did the only justifying work I will ever need to claim, and that instead of worrying about our lessons or last minute errands or even language differences, God wants me to be more Mary than Martha... to slow down and realize that the best use of my time is not in making preparations, but simply sitting before the Lord and communing with Him.  Oftentimes, I do the exact opposite; get all of the things I need to get done out of the way first, and then spend the last minutes of my day sleepily reading my Bible or praying/drifting off to sleep.  

So even though my mind tells me I have eleventy hundred things to do before we step on that plane, I'm going to go talk to the Lord for a bit.  If you would like to pray for us and our trip, here are some suggestions:

1) The safety and health of the team during the trip

2) Overall team unity

3) That we would be an encouragement to the people we are working with (and vice versa)

4) That we would be flexible and keep our focus on Christ, not on our plans or our notion of "success"

Drew