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 with other believers' in this cool language!

After lunch, we took a train to the Edo Tokyo Museum, which was highly informative and interesting, for a further dosage of Japanese culture and history. On top of that, we got to appreciate the food culture in its prime at the oh-so-wonderful Tenyu restaurant for dinner, not forgetting to say itadakimasu of course.

Following that, we had a time of sharing to get to know one another better, and we simply marvel at the many different and often unexpected ways through which God brought us to Japan to do His Gospel work.

To finish off, the prayer points:

1. Pray that He will aid us in learning and improving our Japanese (especially spoken and reading), so that we can better communicate with the natives (and perhaps even share the Gospel in the language!)

2. Pray that we'll be increasingly culturally-sensitive, so as not to offend anyone that we may be witnessing to.

3. Pray that we'll continue to depend on His sovereign guidance and trust in His faithfulness.

4. Pray that He'll, in HIs grace, grant us restful nights and energy to do His work.

Edo Tokyo Museum

Dinner at Tenyu

Lloyd's sashimi (raw fish) set