Blending in

One part of STInt is learning a new culture. We are visitors, outsiders coming in, so it is our job to respect cultural norms and embrace them wholeheartedly! It's both exciting and stressful to learn the idiosyncrasies of another culture. I do have a bit of a head start in Japan because I'm naturally on the quieter side and generally pretty aware of my surroundings. This gives me a little more grace because language is still a huge brick wall in my face (hey, that rhymed!)

Anyways, all that to say my team and I are slowly getting the hang of this Japan thing and finding our place in Japanese society, even to the point of blending in quite literally with our surroundings...

All pictures were taken by my teammate Christine who loves polka dots, Totoro, pens, and things that match. You can check out her blog at http://christineharada.tumblr.com

Nichi-dai, a lesson in faith

Yesterday my team and I prayer-walked Nichi-dai, Nihon University, or 日本大学 for those of you who read Japanese. This is one of the three campuses I will be doing ministry on this year. It is the largest university in Japan, boasting almost 70,000 undergrad students alone.

Albert and I went into the Economics building to explore and pray over it. Now Nichi-dai is interesting because each department has its own building, and the buildings are set throughout Tokyo. We had a little confusion in figuring this out, so I entered our prayer time a little frazzled and discombobulated. The feel in the Economics building was very isolating, with lots of closed doors and small rooms. There were no public areas of gathering so I was not feeling very encouraged about doing ministry there.

I did pray against those feelings and Albert prayed that all the little nooks and rooms we saw would one day house student-led bible studies. How cool that would be!

Leaving the building I definitely had a poor attitude. I was not feeling excited about ministry, and was dreading our first day of sharing. As always, God totally humbled me within minutes.

We met with a past STInter, Ariel, who had done ministry on Nichi-dai's campus in the past. While we were with him we ran into two students with whom he had formed relationships. They were both really excited to see him again and to meet us. After they left he said they were two of his team's best contacts. And we ran into both within the span of half an hour. Coincidence? I think not!

That was God's first reminder that he was in control and I was not trusting him. The second came from our team time sharing about what we had seen. Everyone else had had a much more positive experience, finding really good meeting areas and neat sights around the different campus buildings. And then Ariel told us about an English professor who had invited Ariel's team to come to his English class. Basically it was an open invitation to meet with students and talk with them. And as someone semi-familiar with campus ministry, these invitations are golden opportunities to share the gospel and very hard to come by. The icing on the cake of my lesson in faith was this professor was a graduate of UCLA, MY alma-mater.

I mean, really? I think I get the point now. 

All this brought to mind Hebrews 11, titled "Faith in Action" in the NIV. It shares story upon story of people of faith in the Bible. And "these were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, ⁴⁰ since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect." This verse stood out in particular because it is exactly what I was not doing at Nichi-dai.

I was not believing that God could use me to share his Gospel on this campus because so many obstacles seemed to be standing in my way. I did not believe He was big enough to overcome said obstacles and, by His spirit, transform students' lives forever. I was so fearful of what I was seeing in the present I didn't stop to think about God's promises, his faithfulness time and time again in my own life, to believe his perfect plan could prevail amidst the challenges. 

God really humbled me yesterday. He's going to need to humble me a lot more before this year is up. But I'm excited for those lessons because they mean drawing nearer to his will, gaining a greater compassion for his people, and a greater desire to truly follow after Jesus. 
 

Take me out to the ballgame

I checked something off the ol' bucket list on Wednesday night! My team and I went to a Japanese baseball game, choreographed cheers and warning whistles on foul balls included. It was quite the experience, everything I hoped for and more.

One of my teammates had a friend who was able to get us discounted tickets for the team her company owns. Because of this connection we were instant Rakuten Eagle fans. It worked out in our favor because they ended up winning 14-2. Not too shabby! And seven of the 14 were scored in the first inning. The real fans in the outfield stand when their team is up to bat and have personalized cheers for each player. Needless to say the first inning we were on our feet a very long time.

Following is a small taste of what Japan baseball is like...

We enjoyed trying to learn the cheers, constantly messing up the clapping and inserting fist pumps when there weren't supposed to be any. We amused ourselves by being the only people to yell "Charge" after the typical American cheer "do do da do do do" seemingly inserted as a mild tribute to America's pastime. We also almost caught a couple balls and made it on the big screen. And every time we scored the people around us would give us all high fives! What a night!

Tokyo Dome is home to the Giants, so of course the corner 7-Eleven is dedicated to them! For my NorCal friends :)

Our seats in the outfield

Jacob, Mark, and Christine

Kylan, Albert, Katie, and me

Mom taking pictures of her kids playing catch on the field

Creeper shot I took of the boys sitting in front of us, it was too good not to document!

All I can say now is go Eagles!

Waseda

Two years later and I'm actually returning to this place. When we left, I had the feeling 

God would bring  me back. Count on Him to make it a reality :)

Time to shower Waseda in prayer in person. Will you join me?

Biblical Church of Tokyo

Team with Karen Nakamura, JCCC staff at her church, Biblical Church of Tokyo

Homepage

 

From talking with Karen it sounds like they have a really neat relationship with the surrounding community. The building is quite large so they have floors set aside for a playroom for local children and even a gym in which a world-class power-lifter gives lessons as a ministry.There is also a wheelchair restoration ministry.

I think the highlight was singing How Great is Our God in English and Japanese and being able to follow the hiragana in the Japanese parts. It's an indescribably feeling to be part of worship that transcends language and culture. I think those moments are most what heaven is going to be like. If it is, I'm pretty stoked :)

Wanderings in Harajuku

Super embarrassing

Egoism re-defined

Huge clouds in Harajuku

Window display of one of many stores along our walk

Sowing Righteousness

Sow righteousness for yourselves,

reap the fruit of unfailing love,
and break up your unplowed ground; 

for it is time to seek the Lord,
until he comes and showers his righteousness on you.

Hosea 10:12

I've just started a journey through the minor prophets and am currently in Hosea. If you haven't read it before, I highly recommend it. What a story! It really puts God's abundant patience and grace towards us in perspective. Israel is constantly unfaithful to her first love and completely unrepentant. Instead of sowing righteousness they sow the wind and reap the whirlwind (8:7). It's quite aggravating to read until you realize WE are all Israel in God's eyes. We all refuse to turn from our idols and seek righteousness. We all go astray and don't want to acknowledge our sin.

This verse stood out to me this morning because it shares what we miss out on in our unrepentance. When we sow wind instead of righteousness we miss out on the harvest of God's unfailing love. We miss the chance to have HIS perfect righteousness showered on us. 

In the New Testament, Paul tells the Galatians that "the one to sow to please his sinful nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life." (Galatians 6:8). We have a choice to make, and God leaves it entirely to us. Sowing righteousness, sowing to please the Spirit, is hard. It means sacrifice, self-denial, always walking the narrow path. How much easier to just sow wind, nothing substantial, nothing hard. 

But sowing is always a means to an end. Farmers sow seeds in order to reap a plentiful harvest of crops. As believers we have to keep the end in mind. We sow righteousness in order to reap the joy of seeing God face to face one day. We make the sacrifices in order to one day reap the abundant gift of eternal life. And we should be faithful in tilling the ground of our hearts to make them more open and willing to seek the Lord's will in our lives.

Hosea told the Israelites that it was time to seek the Lord. The time is still here, it will always be here. I pray we are all able to better seek the Lord today, to sow righteousness and to look forward to an abundant harvest one day.