I am sorry that I have not made a new post in so long. Many of my readers had to reschedule lessons in week 3, so I was feeling a bit discouraged because of the slow pace. But I am happy to say that 2 new readers have signed up and so I have been very busy working this week! God continues to send us people who are interested in studying the Bible, and that is very encouraging to the whole team :)
I made this blog because I want you, my family and friends, to know what we are doing here. So, in this post, I wanted each of the team members to write a little bit about the project and how our past week has gone. We each have different readers, so I thought you might like to hear Ian, Sarah, and Jeanette's perspectives as well as my own. After that, I put up some pictures from the party this week. Enjoy!
Marabeth:
This week I have had about 5 hours of reading sessions a day. This is a good amount, because when you add in laundry and eating and English Bible Class, it keeps me very busy. After 3 weeks, I feel like my readers are now good friends. We have good conversations, and they always ask complicated questions! Itosan said to me yesterday, "I think that sin, forgiveness, and faith are very important to understand in order to follow Jesus. I used to understand just a little bit, but you are helping me to expand my understanding." My readers are beginning to give me little gifts every time they come. Daisuke gave me a yummy peach drink, an apple juice, a pen with a fireman on top (he is a fireman), and today he just dropped by unannounced with sandwiches for lunch! Norie brought me a CD that she loves and asked me to listen to it. She said, "I want to share the beauty of music with you." Noriko wants to take me to see Mishima (the city next to Numazu). Jeanette and Sarah are going to come too, and we are going to have "girl time". Koji told me, "you came at just the right time to help me learn." Already I am beginning to feel sad about leaving. 6 weeks is not enough time! I feel strongly that God has sent me here, and I am thankful for all that He is doing in this church.
Ian:
This week was a teensy bit slow for me because several of my readers needed to cancel, but I was happy to have several readers come back from vacation to read with me again! I've begun to help Shinozaki-san's older son with his English, which is a slow process, but easy in a way because he already knows the stories that we are studying. One of my readers is a military officer in the Japanese army, and he came back this week after being sick last week. I really feel that he is genuinely interested in the Bible and Jesus, but he has a lot of other things in his life getting in the way. I'm also reading with several college-aged girls who are quite fun, if a bit shy. It's nice getting to know some people from halfway around the world who are the same age as me. My favorite event for the week was our weekly LST party. This week we divided our readers up into teams and gave them buckets full of themed items with which they had to make a commercial. The results were fantastic. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, and the silly nature of the activity really helped to bring people out of their shells for a little while.
Sarah:
My week has been amazing! It seems that every reading session I have turns into a great conversation about Jesus. Last year I had readers who were only interested in English and when I tried to talk to them about Jesus they would quickly change the subject. This year is completely different! All my readers ask amazing questions about the Bible stories they are reading. For example, Sachiko, one of my readers, and I were reading the story of when Jesus calls Levi to follow him. Jesus later explains that he did not come for the good people but he came so that the bad people could change their hearts and lives. When I asked Sachiko what she thought of the story, she said that she thinks she is like the bad person in the story. She then proceeded to explain in her broken English way that I was like Jesus in the story. I could have chosen an easy summer but instead I chose to come to Japan. I explained to her that I loved going to Japan and I loved the opportunity to help people practice their English. Sachiko quickly corrected me saying that I did not come just for the English, but I came so that people could read the Bible and learn about Jesus. She then smile and said, "Thank you for teaching me about Jesus". That is just one example of the many great faith conversations I have had this week. I feel God softening the hearts of several of my readers and my prayer is that their curiosity will continue even after I leave.
Jeanette:
These past few weeks in Numazu have been such an amazing experience for me! In the past I have only been able to do 3 week projects, but this year, I'll be here for 6 weeks and I truly believe it's a miracle and a wonderful gift and opportunity that God has given me. Since I have common interests with all of my readers, it has been easy to develop friendships quickly :-)
This past week one of my readers who teaches flower arranging invited me to her home for a private lesson. When we arrived at her apartment, I met her daughter and we had a nice visit over tea and cakes and had a fun time making a beautiful rose bouquet. After that, the mother told me how much she has enjoyed her LST sessions and that she feels the Bible lessons have been "so good for her" and that "she thinks they would also be good for her daughter". She asked if her daughter could also start reading the Bible, so she signed up for LST and started reading with Marabeth the very next morning!
Another one of my new readers is a friend of one of Marabeth's readers. This friend told her about LST and so she signed up, even though she had already missed the first 2 weeks of the project. This lady is an English teacher and she attended a Christian college when she was younger. There she attended the daily chapel services where she heard scriptures read and she 'enjoyed singing the hymns'. She also said that one of her favorite English professors was a Christian and that one of her good friends is a Christian. So not only is her English very good and she has a good understanding of what she's reading, she also is very receptive to Christianity and what she is reading about Jesus in her Luke workbook. Even though we have only had a few reading sessions together, she has already come so far in her understanding of who Jesus is!
These are just a few examples of what amazing things God is doing in Numazu!
These are my favorite Japanese flowers. I don't know their name, but I think they are beautiful!
They had to use all of the props in their bucket, and so Takahashi-san said that a hair clip was not only good for hair, but for plugging your nose to go underwater. We all cracked up when he put it on his nose and pretended to catch a fish!
Things went really wrong when a gun got thrown into the prop bucket. All of a sudden Eric, the American tourist was in danger of being shot! Fumio was quite the terrorist... :o
The "hair salon" commercial team. This team won. Shinozaki-san pretended to be a woman and it was completely hilarious!
They had to advertise a travel agency!
They were trying to sell laundry detergent. It was funny because Nobuki pretended he had accidentally wet his pants and needed to get the stains out!
This team had a little trouble... they were trying to advertise balloons, but their commercial didn't make a lot of sense. I think they still had fun, though!
Thanks for reading my blog! Next time I am going to write about Sarah Andrews, the missionary who founded this church and her work in Japan. I found a book about her, and it was very interesting, so I want to share what I learned!
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