札幌に到着 (Arrival in Sapporo)

Thursday focused on developing language skills in the group, working in small groups to practice basic conversation pieces such as greetings and commonly used phrases we might need whilst speaking with native Japanese. This was mainly done so as to ensure that we were polite whilst here since careful consideration must usually be taken when speaking to people, particularly elders.

Thursday afternoon was spending wandering round the Edo Tokyo Museum, a stadium size museum sitting 50 feet off the group, containing full size replicas of 18th and 19th century Japanese houses and a Kabuki theatre, as well as a replica of the Great Edo Bridge. The museum focuses on the period in Japanese history, around the Meiji Restoration, a period of drastic change in Japan which led to its rapid westernization at the hands of the Americans.
The remainder of our last day in Tokyo before departing for Hokkaido was spent going into downtown Tokyo to the four major places to go in Japan:

Akihabara, home to all the anime, manga, games and latest technologies of Japan.
Shinjuku, the major shopping area of Japan, complete with Japan's equivalent of Harrods.
Harajuku, the home of the Tokyo nightlife, the later it gets the more energetic they get.
Shibuya, the site of the large crossing commonly used in movies, some 100 people will cross this intersection at the same time.

Hazel and myself feeling at home in this paradise of otaku culture, we dragged the group of six of us, including two Japanese friends of Dan's, around for the next few hours, spying out places to go when we would return to Tokyo. We passed through Shinjuku and bore witness to the insanity that it is the Japanese trains at rush hour, people literally back themselves into the trains.

Friday began with farewells to the Aomori team as we departed for the airport to catch our hour and a half long flight to Sapporo. Welcomed by Alaric, the obvious foreigner in the crowd of Japanese, we were bundled into a car and driven to the Sapporo guest house to be welcomed by Dieter and Shelley who own the house.
When entering into Sapporo, one really noticeable characteristic is that the entire city is Americanized, all the roads are straight, based on a block system with an elevated road which runs from East to West over the whole city.

Having been in about 30 minutes, Dan, Pete and myself were out the door again, bundled into Alaric's car to help with his English Class at Hokkaido university (aka HokuDai, from Hokkaido Daigakuen). Working in groups of two or three we worked through simple conversation pieces getting the Japanese guys to use the English that they'd be studying. All of them were Nuclear Fusion research graduates, a particularly favourite area of mine. each with well developed English language skills, but some of them too shy to speak. But by the end they were opening up a little more and were exchanging email addresses to meet up during the week.

Dieter and Shelley provided us with dinner that night with salad and pizza whilst we chatted with Alaric (UK), Aaron (Swiss) and Tre (American) the other missionaries currently in Japan. This gave us a chance to chat about what was happening over the next three weeks and enjoy some food from home, making a difference from the convenience store bento and restaurant meals we'd been enjoying for the last few days.

Saturday we went at a crawl, around HokuDai including its incredibly boring museums. The real disappointment about HokuDai is that it has removed all the traces it can of the original intention of William Clarke when he formed the university with the intention of spreading the gospel of Christ. The only trace that remains of Christ on campus is the KGK, the equivalent of a UK Christian Union. Though this light within the dark is shrouded by notices warning students of strange religious cults working on campus, generally performing the same activities as the KGK and Christian missionaries on campus.

That evening, Dan and Claudia provided us with another taste of home in the form of a spaghetti bolognese which gave us a chance to have some good communion and fellowship.

Sunday began the first real day of our ministry, starting initially with joining churches in and around the greater Sapporo area. The church Claudia and myself were attached to was in Oasa, a small church with approximately thirty people with a varied age range. The entire service was given in Japanese, which put me through my paces trying to understand it, though we had Karin, a German full time missionary, translating for us. Even all the songs were in Japanese, which gave me an opportunity to practice my hiragana speed reading, even though I didn't understand the song at all. It turned out though that even the Japanese didn't understand the songs, since they are over 70 years old and the language is an extreme case of Old English.
After the service we were invited to lunch and to chat with the members of the church, some of which spoke good English or had spent time in America. Following the lunch we took a tour around Oasa university and discussed the activities we would be organizing over the next week, which would see us spending two nights at the university dorms and organizing English speaking nights and barbeques. Thankfully this university is very welcoming of the gospel, providing a chapel which a Korean church meets at every Tuesday at 10:30.

Prayer Requests

Please pray that we would be equipped with the Boots of Readiness to Spread the Gospel to be ready to speak with people of the gospel, and be provided with the opportunities to do so.
Please pray that the people we meet with might be pierced with the Sword of the Spirit and be struck with the grace of God, and that the Lord might work to put faith in Him in their hearts.
Please pray that the Lord might provide us with protection by the Shield of Faith, so that the arrows of the devil would be affect us. Claudia has been feeling unwell and Alaric hasn't been sleeping lately, so we need protection from the schemes of the devil.
Please pray that the Lord would fasten us with the Belt of Truth so that when speaking with other Christians we might speak truthfully about the gospel of Christ so that they might be encouraged to go seek out the lost rather than waiting for the lost to come to them.

Thanks to all those who have been praying for us thus far, and apologies for the large content of these blogs.
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Comments

• Jon

  Friday 17 July 2009

  Okonomiyaki is something akin to an omelette though generally crammed with additional vegetables and meat. Often things like cabbage and cheese. The skill lies in being able to flip them since, unlike an omelette, due to the lack of liquid they do not generally stick together very well.
  
  Onigiri are the generic Japanese lunch snack. A rice triangle or ball with a piece of meat of vegetable stuffed in the middle, wrapped in seaweed and delicately wrapped in plastic in a truly Japanese way which is both inventive and annoying at the same time.

  Rosanne

  Monday 06 July 2009

  Hey Jon
  
  Thanks for the updates - will be praying for you as you begin to get to know some choice Japanese students. Can you give us a line or two on each of the team members - or have I missed that somewhere? Also, what's all this stuff you're eating - spag bol I can work about, but tell us more about okonomiyaki and onogiri...