Greetings from Japan! 7 of us (Hutch & Lu, Lawrence, Lloyd, Katie, Pippa, Yao Yu) came to Japan on 10 July and will be here until 11 August. We'll be teaching Japanese primary school kids to sing Gospel songs in simple English, and this will culminate in a concert put up by the kids for their parents.
So, in the meantime, please be praying for us as well as the Japanese kids and parents. And please do read our blogs for regular updates and specific prayer needs that we may encounter along the way. Thank you for supporting us in your prayers as we endeavour to spread the Good News in Japan.
The Team
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We're finally in Japan!
After a long period of anticipation, we finally stepped on Japanese soil this morning (11 July, 11-ish, GMT +9), and as you can probably guess, we're all very excited! We do thank God for the the safe and enjoyable flight, and for clearing the customs smoothly at Tokyo Narita airport. We're currently stationed in Ichikawa (near Tokyo) and shall be here for at least a week.
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Itadakimasu!
And that's what you say before your meals in Japan! So we had our first Japanese language class this morning and learnt this very helpful phrase (well, you can't start eating if you don't know how to say that properly...just joking). We learnt to do some self-introduction in Japanese and for some of us, exciting stuff like how to say 'worship God', 'listen to sermon' and 'fellowship...
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Idolatry in Japan
The highlight of the day was an afternoon visit to the nearby Sensoji Buddhist Temple and Asakusa Shinto Shrine. We were greeted by the impressive Kamanarimon (Gate of Thunder), where tourists were snapping away on their cameras. We joined in their trigger-happy craze, but we were no mere tourists, for we were there to make observations that would make ou...
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First day of practice
Now that orientation is over, we shifted our focus to the songs themselves. We spent the morning and afternoon going through the kids songs and adult songs (i.e. songs that the team only is going to present at the concerts, with the kids' parents as the intended audience in mind). By assessing and evaluating their appropriateness and relevance, we chose a reasonable number of...
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Japanese Church Service
Today is Sunday, and we went to the Chapel of Adoration for the 10 am service, which was in Japanese. They had those lovely sheets detailing the order of the service in English printed out specially for us, and the sermon translated on the spot, which was very helpful indeed. There were about 15 - 20 in this first service and 25 - 30 in the 11.30 am one (usually 50, but low numbers...
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Kids' Songs
Today, we practised the kids' songs for the first time, and we are faced with the daunting task of coordinating 5 instruments (piano, guitar, bass, 2 saxophones) and the singing in a short span of a week. The singing (subtle differences) and actions also had to be standardised for the sake of uniformity and so as not to confuse the kids to whom we'll be teaching these. We als...
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Adults' Songs Revisited
Thank God for the progress today! We were kept enthusiastic and excited by all the singing and harmonising. And so, we have pretty much settled the nitty-gritty details on how we should as a band sing and play 4 of the 5 songs. In addition, everyone says that we're doing brilliant, which is very encouraging indeed.
But please please:
- pray against any pr...
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Team members' message board - Issue 1 (Part 1)
Here's news from Hutch, Lu, Katie & Pippa! Lloyd and Lawrence have gone to bed, so I shall reserve our entries for tomorrow. Towards the end, is an absolutely random entry by Pippa, who's simply 'rare' (Northern Irish slang for 'weird').
Hi all!
Everything is going really well in Japan! We’ve had a few days of orientatio...
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Team members' message board - Issue 1 (Part 2)
And here are the entries by the 3 guys who occupy room 404 in the OMF accommodation at Ichikawa.
Hi to all,
It’s been a real blessing so far, from the church service we had on Sunday when we also met some of the kids who’ll be at the kids gospel to all the strange and interesting things we’ve experienced first hand of Japan. Praise...
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End-of-week lethargy
After a week of practice, exhaustion finally set in and we found ourselves rather lethargic in the morning, despite starting an hour later than usual. Having sung those songs over and over again, as we attempted to fine-tune them, was probably one of the reasons for our lethargy. For some of us, we might add in the factor of late nights spent watching DVDs (though sometimes i...