>>Japan Summer 2004<<

9:26pm JST

Yesterday ended with Ito-sensei (our pastor) picking us up at the train station with his wife and some of the other church members. They gave us a tour of our very cool Japanese house (complete with Narnia-like secret stairway) and then took us to dinner - Western-style dinner :) I rode in the front seat of Ito-sensei's Honda Accord (the driver is on the right in Japan) and it felt funny :) At dinner we all had cheese pizzas... and they all asked us what kind of food we liked and what we didn't like, as well as what kind of Japanese foods we had tried. After dinner they dropped us off at the house and we bummed around for a bit, unpacked, and went to bed...

This morning I got out of bed around 7 after 1st waking up (wide awake again) around 5:30. We got ready for the day and a bunch of folks came over around 9:30 (Ito-sensei at 10) and we went over our schedule for the summer, and planned the timing of our coffeehouses and cooking/craft classes, as well as all the different English classes we'd teach over the summer. We told them all the things we had brought and prepared for as well as the two testimonies each of us had (how we came to know Christ, and what Jesus was doing in our lives/teaching us lately) that we could give at church and various events. Afterward we walked around a bit and they took us to lunch at a little restaurant which had the coolest chocolate milk ever.

After the walk we split into 2 groups - my group (me, Jeri, and our translator Noriko) visited Kaminoyama castle and also drove around the city visiting folks' homes and touring the sights. Then both groups met up again and we all went grocery shopping, which brought out some bad attitudes and stress, and afterward had a good team meeting in the upstairs tatami room of our house which involved much prayer and discussion about a servant's heart and our attitudes in the whole situation.

Bedtime now...