Japanese Hair

So, today I met this guy, Baki, who, to me, looks like he's 15, right? He's 30.

I also tried to tell this kid Yuto (who actually is 15, and turning 16 next week) that he has cool hair. I made the motion with my hand to describe his hair. We had a bit of a language barrier. He turned to Mark, who was with us, and said, did she just call me crazy?

Apparently, whatever I did made it look like I was calling him crazy.

But he did have cool hair! As as a statement, Japanese guys in general have really cool hair. Kengo, who plays guitar with us, and met Jesus a year ago, has awesome hair! We girls often have the conversation of how he gets it to stand like that.

Anyway, enough of hair. Today was a really long day. I did good sleeping though! We left for Machida, the location of the church plant, in the morning, carrying a few things with us on the train. When we got to the cafe style place (think dimly lit, black walls-coffee house) where the Fuse meeting (the name of the church plant) takes place. We dropped off the stuff, including our coats because it was be-u-ti-ful weather. After praying for a few minutes, we proceeded to walk for 2 hours around the area, handing out flyers, and talking with whomever we could.

Now, there are a lot of people who pass out flyers, and it's crazy how many there are. But- we have good flyers that catch attention, and we aim for college age people (though, like you might have noticed, it's hard to guess age)... anyone who's into music and whoever else. So, we did that and then came back to quickly go over who was doing what (set up, greeting, going to the train station to pass out a few more flyers), etc. etc.

Honestly, I wasn't of much help, because it was my first time and I didn't know what to do or how to do it. But, I observed and chatted as much as I could with some of the people, like Yuto. Oh, and I did go up to the entrance with Tatsu, a college age student who is Japanese but spent quite a bit of time in Hawaii. He speaks good English and taught me a few things like how to say the day before yesterday, yesterday, today, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. Granted, I learned them a couple of weeks ago, but it was helpful! Mark says he's really good with helping the non-Japanese speakers with their language skills, and he also does translation for various things going on during the meeting.

So, anywho, they had worship which was really, really good-- They play awesome! It was neat to sing the songs both in English and Japanese (though I have to say that I probably know them better in Spanish). But nonetheless, it was cool. After that, Debbie, a young lady who's been here since last May (her fam are missionaries in Brazil), gave the message about perseverance. It was a very good message, and it was relevant to the new believers as well as evangelistic, and it was encouragement even for mature believers. She did an excellent job!

What's cool about the Fuse and the set-up of it is that after the message- we split up into what's called super-small groups. I guess that everyone just makes sure that there's an English and a Japanese speaker and a leader (one of the helpers with the Fuse) in each small group of 4 to 5. We sit down and talk about something relevant to the message and what's practical. For instance, today's message was about perseverance- and today's question kinda was do you have a goal that you're working toward and how can we support you in that?

Of course, that's more of like an ice-breaker, but it gives you a chance to talk about the message and encourage newcomers to fill out the response card (with contact info so we can contact them in the next couple of days). This way, they don't just leave and log that out of their memory. But we have the opportunity to really think about the message, see where they are and what they understand, and then it will stick with them.

It's really cool!

So, in my group were Yuiko (the main leader of the Fuse, with her husband, Mark) and a girl from China named Kin-chan. She's been coming for 4 weeks (and is attending Yuiko's "life group"), and she was encouraged to know that other people go through periods of searching for the purpose of their life. We all prayed together before we left, and I prayed for her that she would find the purpose of her life (obviously, in Christ!), and thank God that we weren't created without purpose. Yuiko also prayed, and then Kin-chan prayed, and it was so cute because I could kinda see that she was wringing her fingers while she prayed. She prayed for me that I'd be able to learn Japanese quickly so that I could communicate with people, and afterward, she told Yuiko that it was the first time she'd ever prayed out loud. Yuiko told me then that I was the first person that she prayed for. I was like, wow!

I hope she will come to a saving knowledge of Christ and a relationship with Him very soon! I'm sure she will.

Anyhow, then we all went out to dinner and chatted around. We had fun coming home, and though it was only 7:15 (granted, we left at 10:30am), it felt like it was 9! I came home to continue the process of unpacking and organizing myself. Now today, it was warm and windy and was blowing things around, right? Well, all of a sudden, it sounds like someone is violently shaking the window right next to where I'm sitting. It certainly startled me. I sent a couple of messages asking people if they knew why this was going on. After a while, I got an answer that it was the storm windows. So, I opened my window took them out and laid them on the ground. Now the wind has settled down, but man, it sounded pretty crazy and rackety.

Alright, that was my today. Here are a few random notes that maybe you'd like to know:

-Tomorrow, apparently the missionary girls get together with Yuiko (who is beautiful, by the way) and have a "life group" (which is like a discipleship group). I love that we all get together a lot, and pray a lot! That's awesome. Afterward, I'll have a meeting with Mark and Yuiko to kinda get more orientated, and I think we'll be talking more about some scheduling and some of the things that I'll be involved in or in charge of. And in the evening is church-- at the Noborito church... it's a bilingual service, and the one that I attended when I visited here the last time.

-I'll meet my English student this Friday, and I think I'll go meet the guy in charge at the YMCA, where I'll be teaching a class starting in a couple of weeks.

-Apparently, this is a really good time that I came. Everyone just left on break for a couple of weeks, so things are kinda calm and relaxed, so I'm not falling right into the middle of things, but I have time to get oriented right before things start to pick up.

-I've been listening a lot, reading everything I can on the signs that I go by, and eavesdropping a lot. I'm always excited when I can piece together what they're saying and answer questions. Granted, I'm far off, but I understand a WHOLE lot more than I did last year and it will come. Even Kin-chan asked Yuiko if I'd studied beforehand because she saw that I was understanding and I'd ask Yuiko if she'd asked such and such before Yuiko translated for me. So, I'm pleased with that, because that is a goal that I'll be working hard toward!

** Note: I'll try not to make these posts so long in the future, but there's a lot to talk about right now! :) Hope you're enjoying!