Saturday 01-12-07

Woah I’m getting sleep deprived. ☺ Wednesday we had a day at Nanzan university, which is actually a Catholic university. Second and Forth years, I think, have to take “Bible Classes” as part of the curriculum! But as with most places like that, only some of the students are actually believers. We arrived there at around 11:00 and did some praying and met some of the students. Student Impact is actually a registered club on campus so we had a lot more freedom than we do at Gaidai. I went out with one of the students, Yosuko, to do a “Christmas Quiz” and give out invitations (as well as Christmas CD’s with candy canes taped to them) to our Christmas party next week.

We talked to one girl, who was still at high school – and just chilling on campus while not studying – who knew where Santa came from but struggled when it came to knowing about Jesus. Then we talked to another girl, who did know more about Jesus (being a uni student and having done Jesus101 classes) but when I asked her “Why do we remember a day when someone was born?” she answered; “Japanese people don’t, but Christian people do.”

So I asked, “Why do they remember? Why is it important do you think?” and she answered, “I don’t know, isn’t that just part of culture?”. So Yasuyo and I ended up inviting her to lunch with us and the other Student Impact Students and she came along and had a fairly good time. I hope she comes back next week and continues to wonder why we have Jesus.

Also at lunch, I was chilling by the door and a girl came in and said “do you come from Griffith?” And I was like “yep!” and she said “I met you!” and I said “I know! You never returned my emails!” It was Ayumi who I had met at the start of 2006. She had come to Griffith as an overseas student for a year of study. She had only just become Christian and had told Shubo that she was worried about coming to Australia, so he told Joyce and she had emailed Scott Adamson who had forwarded it on to me. I met Ayumi and she had come to bible study, but it was too fast for her and she never came back. I had emailed and said “it’s cool, lets just meet up!” but I never got a reply.

Now she was so surprised. Hehehehe it was funny. She’s still hanging out with Christians (in Australia she hung out with a lot of Korean Christians), but her own faith is pretty shaky.

After lunch, we had “Australian games” where we pushed the chairs and tables aside and played a around of fruit salad. After that, we did some name games and a new game that Andy and George knew called “Signs”. After about an hour of game playing, we wrapped up and started heading out. Wai Ling was spending time with Pamela, so us Megumi-ans were free! We really wanted to do something different, but ended up just hanging out at Nanzan for a while playing Hackysack with random passers by.

It’s sort of a shame we aren’t at Nanzan for more than a day, because we could really encourage the believers there, but as it is, we have our hands full encouraging Christians at Gaidai and Aichiu.

We headed back home on the train and the boys went off to have dinner at their place and the girls and I had a fun relax night together. Shiho and Esther came round and we ate instant Ramen, and just chilled for a while, then all got up and walked down to the convince store to get ice cream. Yum. Then I called my homestay mum and Michiko. I got through to my homestay mum and had a quick chat with her ☺ I miss her so much. I can’t wait to see them. Michiko I got an answering machine for, so I just left a random muddled Japanese message. ☺

When we got back home we stayed up for a while playing Take Two and then hit the sack. Thursday, we had a lot of cycling to do.

We rode to Gaidai in the morning and hung out there for most of the day. I came off my bike riding to uni. There is a patch of gravel when you come down a slope and I was in the wrong gear and off balance so I fell off. My knee is now blue and sore, but otherwise ok! The day was spent meeting up with Students and chilling out. I feel like something significant might have happened, but I can’t remember now :P woe is me. Oh wait – I’ve got it. It was Kaji’s birthday, so Jody and Pamela organised a cake! ☺ The boys were meeting Kaji for lunch, and then Pamela rang and said “Kaji I’ve got something important to tell you about Ayumi” (his girl friend). So Kaji goes off to meet Pamela, and the boys and Kaji’s friends all meet me with the cake and light the candles and seek in behind Kaji and start singing happy birthday.

He was so surprised it was excellent. Hooray!

When I was doing my quiet time though, I had a thought about the Students and the workers here. Pamela disciples 6 girls already, we have a huge handful of students who are so interested in the gospel, and are wanting to meet up and hear it. Jody says to Andy; “The harvest is plentiful and the workers are two.”

It’s so true. I was reading Matthews 9:38 and I was so struck – there is a huge harvest. There are so many wanting to know God! How can we send to them? How can we reach them with the good news?

“So pray to the Lord of the harvest. Ask him to send more workers into the field.”

It would be so terrible to see the seeds of God’s word falling here and starting to grow, but then being chocked by the thorns because there aren’t enough harvest workers to care for them!

Anyway, after chilling at Gaidai, we rode our bikes to Fujigaoka Station and caught the bus from there to Aichui for English Class. The ride to Fujigaoka was pretty long, but it was all down hill so we made good time. ☺ hooray! When we got there though – there was no where to park bikes! We called Jody, because he said he knew a secret spot, but he said it was only for certain hours. Bummer. What to do. Luckily – God was watching out for us, and we noticed a sign that said “Church 320m”. So we figured – lets go park at the church!

We rode our bikes down and stood outside debating what to do and Shiho, Cecilia and I ended up going in and asking. This little old Japanese lady came out and so Shiho said “Hi we are missionaries (in Japanese) and we were wondering if we could park our bikes here?”. The little old Japanese lady went to go check with the priest, and soon enough a western lady came out.

She introduced herself as Wendy, not the priest but the person in charge for now. So I took over and said “Hi we are here from Australia we work with Student Life which is part of Campus Crusade.” As soon as I did the name drop, she was like “oh Campus Crusade? They were at my uni in Canada!” So she came out and met everyone else and said we could park our bikes there and if anyone got in trouble for it, it would be her. Such a blessing. ☺

So we walked back to the station and caught the bus with Jody (who was recovering well from his broken back incident) and Pamela to Aichiu. English Club was really fun, we played the zombie name game and then charades and just chatted to the students. After wards, we all went out to Yakiniku together. It was really cool be hanging out with students. Everyone was really open and happy to be there. I was at a table with Ibuki, Midori (girl) and Humie (boy), and the first thing Humie asked me was “Why are you here?”. Yay for the opportunity to share about Christianity!

We got talking and Midori said she was Catholic. When she explained though, she said “my mum is catholic and I go to church with her” so it’s not that she has a relationship with Jesus, but that she just goes to church. Ahh – how similar is the situation in Australia! It was really tough to explain to her, (as it is in Australia!), because she though that catholic and Christian are 2 different things, when we were trying to say “going to church” and “knowing Jesus” are two different things.

Humie on the other hand, had gone to a Buddhist school and his family, it sounded like, were fairly strong in the belief. He was surprised when Ibuki told him she was Christian too. Exciting days. Later on, Ibuki was having a really in depth conversation with Midori about the Catholic/Christian debate, so I just kept Humie distracted and not interrupting them as they talked.

The yakiniku was really delicious. They bought out meat and we cooked it over a grill. Then they bought out kimchi, pickled stuff, radish, rice and miso soup as well. They also had onion, corn and capsicum to cook with the meat. It was so great!

Almost everyone had a spiritual conversation that night. Wai Ling and Shiho shared a Knowing God Personally book with Miku. George and Esther both had KGP action as well, though on a lesser scale.

Just before we were about to go, Yukina saw Andy’s shirt, which had the sentence: “Who do you say I am?” in Greek in the shape of a question mark on it and asked him about it. I came in just in time to do some handy translating (:P) because Andy’s explanation was “This was a question Jesus asked his disciples when he was on earth”. So we did a bit of back ground about Jesus and who he was and who the disciples answered that he was.

And then Andy asked me, and I said, “Jesus is God, he is my saviour.” Andy says “What does that mean?” I replied, “That I will have eternal life.” Andy says: “Does that mean if I stab you now you won’t die?” So I say “Nope, I will die, by my soul, or my spirit, will live forever with God, because Jesus is my Lord.”

Everyone pauses while we think about this. Then I ask Andy “How about you Andy? Who do you think Jesus is?” and Andy says “I’d have to agree with you. He is my saviour and Lord.”

Then we pause again and turn to Yukina. “What do you think Yukina?” I asked, “Who do you think Jesus is?”

Yukina replies with, “I’m not sure, but I think I need to know.” She said she knew Ibuki went to church and said she might ask to go with her some time. We encouraged her to do so and then later on saw her ask Ibuki to tell her more about Christianity.

So many great conversations that night – praise God!!

Also, after we left Yakiniku, after being there for over 3 hours, a bunch of us went to karaoke. It was me, George, Andy, Shimpei, Nobu and Daisuke and Ibuki came late, after dropping Jody home. I was the only girl for a while but it was fun. We stayed out until 12:30 then had a nice night ride home. It’s good riding with the guys because I can keep up, and that late at night, we had the road to ourselves pretty much, so we were riding next to each other and chatting, and George was practicing riding with no hands, so was Andy (in between practicing Air Guitar).

When I got home at 1:15, Shiho was in our room practicing with Cecilia – they had decided to pull together a spice girls act for the live event on Friday. I smelt really bad from the smoke (no one smoked but you can in the Karaoke rooms, so it was there from the previous people) as well as the riding home and a long day, but I watched the girls give me a preview – so funny.

I hit the sack at about 2:00am and slept in until 8, I wanted to sleep more (and should have) but I thought we had to be on campus at 10:30, so I left at about 5 to 10. George was on campus at 10:35, and everyone else was late. The girls didn’t make it till 11:15 (despite the E-Team having a meeting) and Andy didn’t get up till 10, and wasn't there till 11:30. *sigh* I was so sleepy.

Lunch time, I sat at a table with 2 of Sachie’s friends, Ayumi and Shizue, who were both really cute, as well as Pamela and Sachie. Ayumi said she liked to read books about life so Pamela used that to say “have you ever read the bible? It’s a book about life.”

And into the spiritual stuff we go! Both Ayumi and Shizue were really open to hearing more, and after a bit, I shared Romans 8 with them “nothing can separate us from the love of God!” Then we talked about how if we rely on people, they can often let you down, but when it comes to God we know he’s always there.

Ayumi seemed to be struggling and defending people, because she said “I like to believe in people” but Shizue said “I agree, you can be in a room of 100 people and feel alone, but if you have God, you can be alone, but not lonely.” We talked more about how God is always there, and I shared a bit of my testimony, and we encouraged Ayumi to try reading the bible. She said she was Buddhist, so I think that’s the struggle. She’s interested in Christianity, but she’s got the family background of Buddhism, so she’s stuck. Sachie shared that she was a Christian and both her friends were shocked. She was about to share her testimony (which is great because Sachie is only just learning to share her faith! Way to see a young Christian grow!) but they girls had to go to class!

They left but not before we invited them to the Friday Night Live event. Ayumi could make it, but Shizue had work. Luckily though, Shizue came back at the end of her class to see me, so she got my number. I should be meeting up with her next week. ☺

I was so amazed that God had given us such great contact with these 2 girls and such open hearts from both of them. Everyone else drifted away after lunch, but I waited at the table, because I wanted to take Esther through the KGP (because I found out she had never been shown how to use one) so that she would be able to practice with it. As I sat there and prayed and flicked through a few things, one of the girls at the table next too us (who had been listening in to our talk about the bible before) came up to me and asked if I was with a club on campus.

It was so surprising to see a shy Japanese person be so bold and ask! It turns out she has tried to read the bible, because she was interested in western things (she said) but she found it too hard. Her neighbour is a Christian, and the neighbours husband is studying to be a priest (they are both Japanese) and had told this girl, Yurie, about Christianity. I offered to meet up with her to look at the bible or talk about Christianity, and she was really enthusiastic about it.

Then Pamela and Kahori both came over and met her and we are going to meet up next week. So exciting! I can’t believe what a huge harvest there is here. These people just want to know about God!

The rest of the afternoon I took Esther through the KGP, it took about an hour, just going through it slowly with her and explaining how to use it. My voice (which was pretty raw after Karaoke) suffered for it, but I figured even if I did a bad performance at the Live, at least Esther would know how to use a KGP.

I went outside with George to play around with the hackysac for about a half hour. I’m getting a lot better, but I still need practice. Then we all headed off to Nishin for Friday Night Live!!

I was playing the piano for the Australia “Kookaburra Song”, as well as accompanying Kahori, singing “Hero” (which I only down loaded the Chords to the night before) and playing “Grace Like Rain” myself. Andy and George pulled together a rap/beatbox duo, Cecilia, Shiho and George formed the Spice Girls. Jody’s daughter and her friend played/sang “Porcelain Heart” by Barlow Girl (rock on!!) and Ibuki played Piano. It was a pretty good night – thankfully we had enough time to practice so everything went smoothly enough.

Some girls were making us brownies in the kitchen so I kept eating the dough with the chopsticks I had after my act. Yay chocolate again – no more worries about saving my voice.

When the final act was up (a guy from Jody’s church known as “the Fat Blue Man”) I was so drained and tired I just wanted to lie down, so I went out to the foyer and did just that. Pamela came out after a while and asked to pray for me and then we sat and talked for a bit.

After a while things wound down and everyone was just sitting around talking. I joined Jody’s kids (Amiee, Joel, Nathan and some other randoms) in hanging out. Andy joined to and we all walked to the convince store to get food for dinner. After the ride home I was dead. Sleep sleep sleep. Cecilia and I put on a load of washing and hit the sack.

This morning, I woke up to find I was lying on the phone, and after reading the time: 9:50, and forgetting the phone was on Melbourne time (so that’s only 7:50 here) C and I had a bit of a panic and thought we’d be late to breakfast. When we realised we slowed down and hung out the washing and took our time. The guys made us sasuages and pancakes for breakfast, and wai ling put together a fruit salad. We had a really slow morning, but I’m still pretty dead from everything.

Today is our retreat so I’m going to walk down to the local park and have a sit and a swing I think. I’m glad it’s time to just stop and regenerate. Cecilia says I was talking fluent Japanese in my sleep last night (which is probably why my voice is so raw – it never gets a rest).


Sunday 02-12-07

Yesterday was a good slow paced day. I’m still feeling pretty exhausted, but it’s ok. I don’t really want to talk at all, but I know eventually I’ll have to :P *sigh* I walked to a park yesterday, where there were some kids playing soccer and just spent some time with God. Then I came back home and did a few things, had a sleep and talked to Steve.

Dinner was giyousa made by Cecilia and Esther which was really nice. Andy ate like 2 bowls of rice. He’s figured out how he can pull himself up to the loft now too, so I won’t be going up there much any more.

Later on we did a debrief, and just talked about things that have happened and worked out more things for next week. I can’t believe the amazing things God has done so far. Just seeing people want to know about Jesus is more than amazing. Hooray!

Anyway this day is really short because now it’s 9:22 and I’m going to church soon! Ibuki is picking us up – she’s such a sweet heart. I hope we stay in contact after I go back.