We celebrated Kyle’s birthday today (Friday). It was a lot of fun! In honor of the occasion we went and bought iron on letters and made him a tee-shirt with his “japanese name” on it. We started the trend of creating new names with Chad when we renamed him “Chado”in order for ease of pronounciation for our japanese friends. For lack of a cleverer name we decided on “Kyroo” for Kyle. This tranlates over to “frog” in English and is no relfection on Kyle’s character but it sounded cool so we stuck with it. So now Chado and Kyroo both have memorial teeshirts to remember celebrating their birthdays in Japan. Chado’s shirt has a varity of uses, but you can ask him about that:)

After the kids program we spent a lot of time just hanging out with the parents and kids that stuck around. Chado has now solidified his teeny bopper idol status in Japan as he had several of the preteen girls flocking around him, chasing him and staring googly eyed at him as he played the guitar. Next time he visits Japan we will need some type of body guard entourage because he is so popular!

The ladies got to try out authentic Kimonos  and we have pictures! Be sure to check out the picture site on Facebook to see how great they looked!

On Saturday the guys gave the ladies the day off and we taught the language class. It was definently a new experince for us! The ladies had deon so awesome all week we just treid to get by. We had a great time later as we conversed and shared about our famlies in one-on-one conversations. This continued through lunch as we got to share about God with several unchurched ladies. God worked through the language barrier and make the time very special to us!

Saturday night the church had a massive barbeque for us! We never lacked for food the entire trip and the barbeque was no exception. We had the Japanese version of Hotdogs, several other Japanese foods, and even some Korean barbeque! We finished it all off with smores, a multinational universal snack. The misquitos came out and had their fill also, they seem to like forgeiners and consider them some kind of delacacy.

“Think left.” is what Rich had told us in our training before we came here. When we first got here and were loading up in the car, we told one of our team members to go sit up front. When he walked over to the right side of the car to get in, we didn’t think much of it until we saw the steering wheel there. It still catches us by surprise when we see a little kid sitting in the left “passenger” seat of the car. We always do a double take because it still looks like the kid is driving. We found out that there is actually a real reason why the Japanese drive on the left. The Shogun (by the way, they have deep roots here in Nagoya) and the Samurai always carried their swords on their left hip. Had they been walking on the right side of the road, their swords would have bumped into one another as they passed one another. To avoid this, they started walking on the left side of the street, a system they still use till today.

As previous posts have mentioned, the people here in Nagoya have been absolutely awesome. We cannot say enough how we have been blessed by them. At the beginning of the week, we did have some difficulty keeping track on their names. They were gracious enough to wear name tags with their names in English for us, but so many of the ladies have names that end with “ko”. For example, there is a Mariko, Mitsuko, Kazuko, Yamiko, and the list goes on and on. And as a sign of respect, we have to add “san” at the end of their names. The men and older ladies are called by their last names followed by san but the ladies are called by their first names followed by san. Also, little kids are obviously called by their first name but followed by “chan”. It’s now Sunday here, and I think most of us have finally got it ironed out.

On the other hand, some of our team members have new names as well. The people here have had an easy time with some names such as Grace, Tiffany, Josh, and Natalie, but others are proving to be not as easy. The “ch” sound, “th” sound, and hard consonant ending are proving to be tongue twisters for the Japanese. Chad has officially become Chado as it is hard for native Japanese speakers to end a word with the hard d phoneme. They were trying so hard to call him Chad, but since our team has taken to calling him Chado, I think they are comfortable with it now. Whenever Ethan is introduced, he is referred to the Tom Cruise character in Mission Impossible and actor Ethan Hawk. But it’s still E-tan or E-den. Kyle is now a frog because his pronounced in Japanese is Ky-ee-roo, a frog. Now all of you have learned a Japanese word!

OK, so, when going to a foreign country, we have to expect the toilet system to be a bit different, right? First of all, they still use squatting toilets here. We are thankful that it is made out of porcelain and not just a hole in the ground. They do have what is called a western toilet which is what our toilets look like for the most part. But they had interesting parts to them. Most of the newer ones, especially in the homes have a bidet seat attached to them. I know that some of you have seen them in the states, but for the most part, it is a new thing for the majority of our team. I can understand using them in the privacy of your own home, but I’m still unsure about using them in the airport restroom. The most interesting part though is the water spout on the top of the toilet tank. Since the Japanese conserve as much space as possible, the water line is attached to this spout which in turn fills the tank for the next flush. Instead of having a separate sink, you are to use this water spout to wash your hands. When it comes down to it, I guess it really doesn’t matter how clean the water that you are flushing with is. We have noticed that some homes actually put a little plastic flower piece over the drain in the tank if they do not want you to use the spout.

Wow, the list can go on and on, but the biggest thing we are experiencing is God’s faithfulness, even in the smallest things. Thank you for your ongoing prayer support. We miss all of you, especially here on a Sunday and we’ll see you next Sunday!

We continue to prayer walk around the neighborhood. We are finding out more and more how extremely important this is. Every year the Buddhist temples carry their gods around each neighborhood and dedicate the neighborhood to their protection. The people take part in this event and join the praying and parading. These neighborhoods and the people in the have literally been dedicated to false gods, demonic forces. Please continue to pray for protection for us as we claim them for Jesus!

Ethan spoke to two different ladies groups today, sharing the parable of the Good Samaritan. This story is especially potent because the women of Japan seem to be buying into the self-help non-sense that states you first have to clean up yourself before you can help others. As Christians we understand that God meets us where we are at and continues to use us for His glory, despite ourselves! Please pray that the women’s hearts will be open to His word and find their true meaning in Christ.

We presented the gospel message to the kids tonight in skit form. The really cool thing was that the mothers of all the children sitting in the back continue to listen in on what we are saying. During the skit we observed the women of the church here in Nagoya leaning over and explaining the Cross to the unchurched mothers. What an awesome thing to know that this is highly likely the first time many of these kids and women have heard the Gospel!

Don’t forget to check out the photo pages link in the previous blogs

Please leave encouraging comments on the blog so that we can share them with the team and know that our people at home are following us!

We had a chance to visit another EFC church in West Nagoya today. It is a beautiful building with a congregation of over 100. They are also heavily involved with an English teaching ministry that is run by a missionary from the US. It was a fun visit and good to know that there is some sort of sister ministry of Nagoya EF that is new and thriving.

We didn’t have children’s program Wednesday evening so we had a little extra time to hang out with the people from our host church and relax. The men stayed late and helped with the Men’s Bible study. It was strange how the Japanese men thought that even though our guys had jobs in the secular world, that they were constantly surrounded by Christians. Jeff gave a message about Spiritual Warfare and Kyle and Brian followed up with a few things that God had laid on their hearts about work and family life. God molded it together pretty seamlessly. I’ll try to get one of those guys to write something about that Bible study in the Blog soon.

Please continue to pray for us as we still have very important ministry happening Sunday morning. This is where God brings everything together! Hopefully the kids will come back and the moms and dads will follow along! Also pray for Ethan as he preaches Sunday morning!

We love all you guys and miss being there to worship with you!

Be careful when you tell God you are unwilling to do something.  When you are a worship leader, there are certain Christian songs that you are expected to know, songs that never wear out their welcome or become dated, songs like “Amazing Grace” and “Shout To The Lord”.  There are other songs, however, that wear out their welcome pretty quickly, and other songs that you just never want to sing again.  Ever.
On the plane trip to Japan, several of us joked about being asked to sing some of these “golden oldie” worship songs.  Someone jokingly suggested that we sing “Shine, Jesus, Shine”, that grand anthem of praise that graced many churches in, I think, the eighties.  I quickly shot back that “Shine, Jesus, Shine” would be just about the last song ever strummed on my black Takamine guitar, fully intending that, if asked, I would rock a full-on ABBA medley before I ever played that song again.  Besides, I don’t even remember it!
Jump forward three days with me.  Pastor Ryo Itoh of the EV Free church in Nagoya has just asked me to play “Shine, Jesus Shine” for the fifth time, clearly oblivious to my plain discomfort, and to the fact that I do not even remember the song! No. Shine. Jesus. Shine.  I don’t know it anymore, since it has been nearly five years since I played it.
Since the song was becoming a running joke with the Japan mission team, I thought it would be funny if I actually did try to play it.  After all, there is no way I will be able to have it ready to play in a service!  Try to imagine my horror when I picked up my guitar to play, and had the song figured out again within about two minutes.  Pastor Ryo, also in the room, looked like an offensive tackle as he broke through the crowd to get to me.  He was delighted, and I had to just laugh.  Apparently God’s sense of humor is intact in Nagoya, Japan.
Many people in the Bible brought their excuses to God.  Moses was no public speaker (Exodus 3), David was the least, and Simon Peter was a sinful man (Luke 5).  I don’t ever really want to play “Shine, Jesus Shine” again, but I do want to obey God, whatever he asks me to do.

“Shine, Jesus, shine, fill this land with the Father’s glory….Send forth Your Word, Lord, and let there be light.”

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Please leave comments so we know you are there and praying for us!

Day 2:

Our first day of ministry in Japan was exciting and Surprising! We started off the morning gathering together for breakfast at the church. Talk about a plethora of food! The hospitality here is amazing. The people of the church have gone all out to make us feel at home and we all ate like Sumo Wrestlers in training! After breakfast we meet upstairs for a morning devotional where Pastor Itoh read to us from Luke 5. We discussed the upcoming full day and spent some time praying to prepare our hearts to minister to the Japanese people we would encounter.

The day started off with our ladies leading an English class for Japanese speaking women. The diligently worked their group through the story of Creation in Genesis 1, sharing who God is with people and having them practice speaking about who God is. Meanwhile the Children’s Ministry team was expecting to run a Youth Ministry program for some of the local students at the same time. It turns out that because of a miscommunication in timing, no youth came for the program.

As this was a tad disappointing, our team remained unphased and followed the prompting of the Holy Spirit to perform a prayer walk around the church. This was truly a time of blessing that we plan to continue throughout the week. During the prayer walk we focused on the verses found in Psalm 23 and how greatly our desire should be that God work through us this trip. If we trust in our own efforts we might as well plan to fail but if we trust in God to work through us, despite ourselves, scripture promises we will succeed in abundance! After we finished out prayer walk we went upstairs and had a time of coffee and fellowship with the ladies from the English study. We took this opportunity to share about our personal lives, showing them pictures of our families and developing personal relationships.

We drank coffee and ate snacks, practiced our broken Japanese and were severely impressed with their capacity for the English language. After wishing the Japanese ladies well and inviting them back for tomorrow’s classes we met together as a group for lunch. Once again we were extremely well taken care of with delicious food cooked by the women of the Nagoya church.

We then met as a team for a time of debriefing and to wrap up some logistics for the children’s program later. After this we had a bit of free time and a few of us took the opportunity to walk around the are surrounding the church and visit the local grocery store. I have never seen so many fish! The entire back section of the store was filled with fresh fish! I also had the opportunity to sweet bean snack called On Pan and I loved it!

The children’s ministry was next and this is where God really surprised the group. But in order for you the reader to understand the full effect of what God accomplished I need to introduce you to a few things first. Our team asked to develop two children’s programs each lasting about one hour. We were told to expect no more than 6-10 kids for each program. This was based on the numbers from a group of Canadian workers that used to be involved with the church in Nagoya and provide a children’s ministry program on a regular basis. Currently the church was also expecting only four of their own children to show up and bring a few friends, creating a small but effective outreach for this culture. God had other ideas! For the first program we had 18 kids, for the second we had 20 kids! Way more than we expected or even dreamed would show up! It was amazing, we ran out of crafts and had to use our backup plan on the 1st day! The surprising thing is that only 2 or three of the regular church kids came, the majority of the rest had little or no experience with a Christian church before this night! All I can say is that God is awesome!

Our whole mission team pitched in to play games, make crafts, and teach the Bible lesson. The kids thoroughly enjoyed the time and promised to come back next later and bring more of their friends! The entire time the parents, mostly unchurched, hung out in the back of the room listening and enjoying the excitement. God truly blessed today’s ministry and we are expecting Him to do abundantly more in the upcoming days!

• Please pray for the team’s energy level

• Pray more kids come and we max out our supplies and space • Kathy Kim leading women’s Bible study on Friday

• Rich teaching women’s group on Saturday • Ethan preaching on Sunday

• That God would step in some of the language gap

• A few Japanese ladies that have shown great interest in walking with Christ, one that has been quite adversarial in the past.

      Today has already been quite eventful! We arrived at LAX this morning to find out we are on the same plane as a Japanese pop sensation singing group. A few members of our group found this out the hard way while trying snap a picture of the Japan Airlines flightboard that happened to be near the singing group. After being accosted and harshly reprimanded by the tour manager we decided to wait until the group cleared out before we further documented our trip.
      It got even more interesting when Jeff decided to help out the TSA official at the security screening by restocking the plastic bins. Evidently this is a borderline serious offense in that each bin has some sort of special marking that designates where exactly it is supposed to sit. Jeff managed to breeze through the check point before his “helpfullness” came to fruition, leaving me to face the frustrated TSA official head on.
As I did my best to hurry through the checkpoint I was harshly reprimanded by the TSA official and repeatedly warned to “Be peaceful, Sir!” when I calmly tried to explain that I had nothing to do with the moving of the bins.
      The whole thing was starting  to look a scene from a bad comedy where the main character is mistaken for a rebel rouser who is detained and subjected to a “thorough” search involving a latex glove. Needless to say I acquiesced fairly quickly and was on my way.
      The team made it through security fairly quickly and boarded the plane. After an 12 hour flight, a dinner of beef wellington (during which I managed to shoot my Kaiser roll into my non-English speaking neighbors lap), several in-flight movies, and multiple trips of leg stretching up and down the aisle, we landed in Japan.
      After  short flight from Tokyo to Nagoya we met up with Pastor Ryo Itoh and drove to the church for a quick dinner. Then we were off to our houses to try and get some sleep.
      Ethan, Josh, Jeff and Rich met later we Pastor Itoh to wrap up lose ends and then we all hit the sack. Everyone slept pretty well, even Kylan!
* Please pray for us as we develop relationships with the people of Nagoya.
* Please pray that God will give us His peace as a team.
* Please pray that the Spirit will lead in the direction He desires so that we can truly be Ambassadors for Christ here in Nagoya!