Janinja

Well, as some of you might have heard, last week, one of my teachers chose kanji for my name. Kanji have meaning and readings/pronunciations (yes, plural. Some kanji have multiple readings depending on how they're used/combined, etc.). I tried to talk Kengo into picking out kanji for my name a while ago, but he had a hard time finding some... as "Ja" kanji tend to have not so many good meanings. Anyway, Mori-sensei comes in last Thursday morning and goes,

Does anyone know what this means? 忍者

Ninja, some answered.

And flipped around? 者忍 Ja-nin. There ya go, Janine, kanji for your name. (Ok, not an exact translation from Japanese...)

者 is a kanji for someone/person and is usually pronounced sha, but can be ja. And 忍 means endure, bear, put up with and can also mean spy, sneak, etc. So, there ya go. I'm a person who puts up with a lot. :)

Sunday I had another opportunity to speak at FUSE. Mark asked me to speak once a month, and this time, since we're doing a series on leadership, he asked me to speak on humility/servant leadership. I was really surprised how the message came together as I gathered all my random notes I had been taking...

But, once again, while speaking, it was SO hard to read people. I wasn't sure if they were upset, angry, bored to death or what. I felt a bit like "ehh.." afterward, but I ended up getting a lot of good feedback that had provoked people to thought. Mark later said it went well too, and I was like really? I wasn't very sure. But he said he heard a lot of good feedback too from the people he talked to. All I know is that I was praying while I was giving the message, "Oh Lord, help me..."

Maybe that's my cry everyday...