It's a Small World After All

July 10, 2009St. Louis, MO -- So, this has been a slight whirlwind of a week... I've seen a lot of people... done a lot of things.

Yesterday I met with a girl that Alicia L. hooked me up with... who subbed at the same school Alicia was working at and they met and Alicia hooked us up. She was pretty cool and gave me a few tips and even a book called Living and Working in Japan. It's a pretty thick book, but I'll be digging through it in the next couple of weeks/months. Pretty cool!

And then last night, I spoke at a youth group at the Vineyard Church in SoCo. They had been talking about evangelism and missions and this Wednesday night was particularly dedicated to cross cultural missions. So, I talked about how to minister cross culturally-- because in truth, we have so many different cultures and races in St. Louis alone.

Did you know that in 2007, we had refugees come from Somalia, Iraq, Iran, Burma, Burundi, the Congo and other countries? We have so many Latin Americans, Bosnians and Asians and even Pacific Islanders right here in St. Louis. There is an opportunity for ALL of us to minister cross culturally... So, I talked about some of the basics... I mean, I only had a half hour. ;)

But basically, if you'll take the time to learn from them, to ask them questions and just try to see the world how they do, it's amazing the relationship you'll be able to develop with them.. likely their family and possibly the community as well. And if you keep humility and love in the equation, you'll be on a good path to being able to share the Gospel in a relevant, life changing way and be a cross cultural minister here in St. Louis.

It is after all, all about love. Letting God's love come through us, change us, compel us and overflow into the lives of those around us and in our influence sphere. I read an interesting blog today from a friend I made from a group who went down to Mexico while I was there. He was talking about how common "love" is and how we say it so much to everyone... so much that it becomes like the "hey, how are you? I'm fine, thank you..." It almost becomes trite (my comments)... and he talked a little about being cut off in traffic-- anyway, it's a quote that has made me ponder. Here's what the last sentence of that paragraph said-- "We say we love others a lot, but at the end of the day we love ourselves a lot, and tolerate others."And I thought... Ooohh. Ouch.

Today I also met to work on a video for making contacts.... what a lot of work it takes! (Thank you SO much!)And in the afternoon, I met with a contact that Kathy J. set me up with who lived in Japan for a year and who speaks Japanese... SO, I'll be learning Japanese with her, as a head start for moving to Japan and for starting language school.

In an odd turn of events-- she worked with the people I'll be working with and lived in the apartment that's right under where I'll be living! So, beside talking about Japanese (and I got another book to read called Polite Fictions... which kinda explains why the Japanese think Americans are rude and annoying and vice versa :) Anyway, just social differences.) we also talked about all the great people we know (good things!) and plans for the future and her coming visit to Japan in a few weeks.

What a small world it is after all!