Dead Pan!

So, it's 8pm here and I am yawning so much and am soooo tired. What a long day it's been-- and it's been a shorter than usual day (ok, by an hour)...

Although, some of us have been known to get home from Saturdays and be in bed at 8.

Anyway, Thursday, I went back to my regular schedule... We prayer walked through Machida and then went to our Japanese classes. It was raining though and a bit chilly... Rain here is like constant drizzle... but more than drizzle... And it doesn't stop.

However, today and tomorrow it will be nice... I'm still hoping to make it to like 70. Because lately it's been like 55-60.

Enough about the weather... I had a good time in a planning meeting for May with Debbie. We planned out the basic weekly schedule for the team and what outreaches we'll do when and if and what we'll do for special events for the Fuse. So, May should be busy, but one thing especially is that I'm going to try to take care of how much I do... because I don't want to over run myself since I'll be starting school in a few weeks.

Friday we had a special event of 12 hours of prayer and worship. Some of the girls really had it on their heart to do that, and so we all put it together and some of us took hour-long slots to choose a topic of prayer and lead the prayer time in that. Not all of us were there for all of it, but it was a powerful time!

Today was obviously the Fuse meeting and I had the opportunity to speak. I was asked to share my testimony and make it into a message also, and let it be appropriate for people who've never ever heard the Gospel (or about Jesus), appropriate for new believers and challenging for those who have been believers for a while. And we try to take 20-30 minutes sharing, but not more, and keep in mind, you have a translator... :D

But I think it met all those requirements and I worked really hard at re-phrasing what I was saying a million times in preparation to get it just right. We also had a lot of new people, so I was glad to have the opportunity to share the Gospel with them for the first time. In Japan, I don't think that altar calls are really done... and I think that's because it would just be weird in Japan. But through conversations that we have afterward, we can tell where someone is heading and help them along if they're really interesting in being a friend of Jesus.

A couple of weeks ago, Ma-kun, who is a friend of a guy who goes to the "sister-church" of the Fuse, Noborito Ekklesia, here in our neck of the woods... and Ma-kun has been going to both the church and the Fuse, but he wasn't ready to receive it yet though he was very open. He recently decided to follow Jesus, and boy can you really see the difference. He's definitely a changed man. Mark was saying that Ma-kun went to his life group (discipleship group), and when reading some of the verses from the Bible, he was just about ready to cry from them. You can really see a new life in him and joy, love and hope that he didn't have before.

That's very exciting-- and we're expecting more of those stories!!

Last week, after we went bowling, we wanted to take a group picture and so we stopped three guys and asked them to take a pic. They were really cool about it, and funny too, and so we invited them to the Fuse (not because they were funny :). Anyway, this week they came!! And one of the guys, actually- the one who took the picture, seemed like he was really touched by today and felt really good... So, those kinds of expressions you want to hear, and I think he was really sincere in it. We're excited to have them all be a new part of the community!!

Also, today, we were headed back from lunch and Hannah and I stopped to talk to a few girls that we saw standing and give them flyers and invite them to the Fuse. Later, there were two girls walking behind us and so we stopped and turned around and gave them invitations... and they came! I know I shouldn't be surprised, because that's what it's about... but we do give out a lot of flyers and many other ones also don't bother to take them... so to see some people that we gave them out to show up that same afternoon was really cool! May they come back!!

Well, I don't have any funny stories lately... though I am putting together an album of "bad translations" and just other funny things you see in Japan. Here you see SO many weird things and people dressed weird, and it's just so amusing and endearing to me... For instance, I was thinking about that this evening when I went to the convenience store (there's one located just about every other block)... a guy came in with it looked like a scuba-driving suit from the top half of his body (including the "hoodie" of it) and basketball shorts on bottom and like super-spandex and lined pants underneath... I couldn't focus too much on it, because it would have been rude to stare... but I was like, OH Japan.

I really need to figure out how the Japanese are soooo good at "dead pan" face. They're super good at controlling their own features so that you don't know what they think or feel about something when you say it, but they can also read other people's faces really well...

That's a huge difference from Mexico where everyone is so expressive.

Anyway... I'm going to bed now... or at least to chill out and read and fall asleep. The thought of a good night's sleep makes me happy right now. :)

G'night ya'll.