Where to even start?! We have been in Japan for 5 weeks now and it has been amazing! The first month was spent in Chiba at Narashino Church! We were staying with the Wong Kam's - Masako & Cyril, Joshua (14), Danny (11), and Mikey (7). We loved their family! We helped teach english classes, passed out tracks, did lots of street evangelism and really got to know the people in the church and around in the community. A lot of socializing happened through the english classes and all the events that were held at the church. Masako and Cyril blessed us so much with tons of opportunities and tons of events like Christmas parties, getting together with the church and English students to go ice-skating, and learning calligraphy!
Narashino Church, some english students and "the Hawaii team"!
I want to give a shout out to Josh! Josh is their 14 year old son and he is amazing, to say the least! Josh helped us out SO much with translating and talking to any and everybody! We'd be trying to have a conversation with a church member and over and over again we'd call Josh over to help us and without even a complaint he would run over to translate! And this happened a ton of times! He's so patient with us and so eager to help us out - even though he doesn't necessarily enjoy translating. On off days we'd go to the mall and Josh would follow me around as I looked for souvenirs and he'd translate anything I needed.. and he hates shopping. But he did it eagerly and happily! On some Sunday's he'd translate the whole sermon or he'd translate our testimonies! The whole Wong Kam family is so very servant-hearted and it showed everyday!
One day before Christmas we were all out caroling and Holly stopped by Mister Donut - we were there quite frequently haha - to get a couple donuts for the Wong Kam boys. While she was in there she met an employee named Kai. He served her donuts and she noticed that he spoke really good English! So after a quick conversation she asked him if he wanted to come to our Christmas party we were having. She came out and told us about it and that she invited him but we had no idea if he would actually come. We just hoped he would cause we really wanted to get to know more people outside of the church. Well on Sunday after church we hear there is a guy here for Holly and come to find out it's Kai! We were very surprised yet very excited! He ended up staying the whole day until about 10pm when we were done watching Batman Begins! We were so excited that he felt that comfortable with us.. so comfortable that he actually fell asleep while watching the movie =p. After that night, he kept coming to all the events that we had! We also went and visited him at Mister Donut whenever we could! After meeting him one time we found out that he's obsessed with Disneyland and now he's going to come with us when we go back to Chiba for debrief! The Friday we were leaving for Ishinomaki he came by to say goodbye and visit for a little while. He brought us Hi-Chews! It didn't take him long to find out we LOVE Hi-Chews! : ) We kept telling him, "you know us too well!" Kai got to hear a couple of our testimonies and got to know Masako and now she has that connection with him! We are praying for Kai and cannot wait to see him when we return to Chiba!
Kathryn & Kai
Two different times during our stay in Chiba we went to Shibuya (which is Downtown Tokyo). One time we went on an off day and we did alot of site-seeing. The girls went to places like Forever 21 and H&M and the boys went to check out some of the arcades. The next time we went for the day and did street evangelism. We sang a couple of songs on the streets like Happy Day and Revelation Song and did the Glow Dance. Manga Anime (an-i-may) is huge in Japan and Masako had some Manga tracks for us to hand out. Everyone thinks that Danny is Japanese and we started to use that to our advantage! We would get him to walk in the crowd acting like he didn't know us and he would walk by us and take a track. Then that'd start a train reaction and people behind him would start taking them. We found that very amusing and very useful! So we kept doing that alot all the different times we'd pass out tracks or invitations. One time we even got him to record us singing acting like he didn't know us and one of the times this guy pulled out his camera and starting recording us too! I think that they started to feel more comfortable when they saw other people interacting with us.
One day we decided to go to Harajuku which is known for its fashion! And I mean, they are fashionable! Almost everyone in Japan sacrifices warmth for fashion. Some girls will wear shorts with tights just because it's the fad. Some won't even wear tights under their shorts!! In Harajuku the fashion was even more extreme. Girls would be wearing huge pink tutu's with their hair in pigtails on the side of their head. We even got laughed at a few times I think because we are obviously foreigners but also because we weren't dressed anything like they were. During our time there we prayed at both of the main temple/shrines! Alex has been so good at starting up conversations with random people and while we were there he started talking to this guy who teaches English in a Mormon school. He asked us where we were from and what we're doing here and he just kept on asking us questions. He asked us about Jesus, the Bible, the church, and more. He even got so specific and asked us the difference in the cross with Jesus on it and the cross without Jesus on it! It was so great getting to talk to him and we even got to pray for him! Needless to say, our time in Harajuki was great!
The Thursday before we left for Ishinomaki we had a farewell time with all the students we've been teaching. First we all had our last classes and we got them to make a picture frame out of construction paper and on it we'd put our picture and on the back we'd put a scripture verse we got from God specifically for them! Then Maggie did somewhat of an alter call for all the kids. She did that analogy with the clear water and then put food coloring in the water resembling sin and then put bleach in the water showing how Jesus makes us clean and perfect. Then everyone closed their eyes and Maggie asked if anyone wanted to accept Jesus into their hearts and MUCH to our surprise almost every single kid raised their hand! And their were about 20 kids there! We could not believe it! We were so excited and thanking Jesus! I pray they continue to grow closer to Jesus even while we are gone! I'm so thankful that they will still be taking English classes with Masako and she has the opportunity to answer any questions they may have and keep teaching them about Jesus! I love how God orchestrated that!
God has been blessing us so much! We got to experience a lot of the Japanese culture! We got to go to an official Japanese Tea Ceremony and we learned calligraphy! The girls got to put on kimonos and learn how to do Japanese flower arrangements! Along with that we had Japanese lessons about twice a week! Our teacher, Mari-sensei, is not a believer but we got to talk with her and minister to her a lot! She got to hear all of our testimonies throughout the month and was really moved! I am confident that in just a short about a time she will be a Follower! Masako is so patient with her and I can tell that Mari-sensei really trusts Masako which is such a blessing!
I feel like I've only talked about a fraction of each thing that happened while we were in Chiba but this is start! We have been so blessed by the Wong Kam's and we all very excited about seeing them again during debrief!
Love and miss y'all!
-Kathryn and the rest of the team!
No comments:
Post a Comment