Update, July 1st

So it’s a new month here in Japan, thus I thought it was high time for an update as to how things have been going:

UK Team

The OMF team from the UK have now all arrived safely, and are (mostly) over their jetlag. So praise God for that! They are here for about one month and are going to be working primarily with FMZero.

From left to right; Sandra, Cheriel, Levi and Frazer.

There are now eight of us, so Karin has christened us the ‘Hokkudai 8’.  As our numbers are much larger we’ve been able to arrange lots of events, so looks like I’m going to be extra busy for a bit.  However, this also means we have lots of great stuff planned for the month ahead!

FMZero Jubilee Party

To welcome the team, and allow them to get to know some of the young people, we held an FMZero party on Friday night. As we now have a lot of people from the UK we decided to make the theme a ‘Jubilee Party’. 

It was decided that we should cook the traditional UK dish of Shepherd’s Pie, followed by scones with jam and cream.  Thus the hunt was on to find bags of potatoes with more than a few tiny potatoes in them!

This is considered a large bag of potatoes in Japan.

 As a Northern Irish individual I cannot fathom this.

Once a sufficient number of potatoes had been accumulated, the next task was to mash 9kg of the things using only a fork! Furthermore, most houses in Japan don’t have an oven (as I would understand it), however most microwaves do double up as ovens (and grills, and toasters, and various other things).  Consequently, it was rather challenging to cook such a large quantity of Shepherd’s Pies in such small ovens; at one point we had Shepherd’s Pies in various locations and on 3 different floors of the Hokkaido Centre.

The food however was a great success; one guy managed to eat at least four portions of Shepherd’s Pie (I seriously have no idea where he put it though, they weren’t exactly small portions), the only thing which stopped him was that we ran out! A number of people came up to me and told me that they had heard that food from the UK was really bad and tasteless, however they now didn’t believe this was true.  The team had also brought over some sweets and snacks from home; everyone seemed to like Jaffa Cakes and Percy Pigs, but were rather confused by Twiglets.

We had about 50 people attend in total, considering we had been expecting about 35 people this was very encouraging.  For once, however, I was quite glad that I am really bad at maths; I had miscalculated how many scones I would be making (12x tables are hard!) and accidentally made 54. After a few ‘mysteriously vanished’ in the presence of the team beforehand, we ended up with exactly the right number!

We played a few games together and Frazer, who is from Scotland, and led everyone in a Ceilidh dance, which was a great laugh.

The dance we did was called the Flying Scotsman.

After the food Levi gave a talk. As it was ‘Jubilee Night’ he was able to use part of the Queen’s most recent Christmas Speech:

Although we are capable of great acts of kindness, history teaches us that we sometimes need saving from ourselves-from our recklessness or our greed.  God sent into the world a unique person-neither a philosopher nor a general, important though they are, but a Saviour, with the power to forgive.

He was able to use this and part of his own testimony to give a short message to everyone gathered.

All in all the night was a great success!

English Summer Scheme

We are now half-way through our Special English Summer Scheme. This week was gestures and etiquette, which was good fun. We were supposed to finish at 9pm, but on Tuesday night we ended up playing signs (using the gesture we had just taught them) until past 10 o’clock! Two guys also saw copies of the Manga Bible (Bible stories illustrated in the style of Japanese comic books) and asked if they could take them home and read them.

They each borrowed both English and Japanese versions.

The fact that they asked if they could have them, without being offered, was quite surprising, but at the same time rather exciting. I’m quite eager to hear how they’ve been getting on with them.

Next week we are going to be teaching about slang and idioms.  We are going to use the Bible to show how it is the source for so many idioms in the English language (and the basis of so much of our culture). We are hoping that this will inspire students to want to learn more about the Bible.

ESS

ESS did really well in the recitation competition they were practising for, coming 1^st in the speech and poetry categories, and 2^nd in the play. 

They won a prize in every category!

 

They are now practising for a Debating Competition.  I have discovered that the style of debating is very different in Japan from at home. The purpose of a debate is not to argue or make heard your opinion, but rather to come to an agreement as quickly as possible.

Some ESS members have also started coming to our English Summer Scheme, which is great to see. The ESS of Rakuno University, also attended and came 3^rd in the play category. Rakuno University is in the next city of Oasa, some students have been attending our Summer Scheme and FMZero events, so it was great to be able to support them too.

English Teaching

My English class on a Friday has been going well, however I have also recently had the opportunity to teach a number of classes out at a Church in the outskirts of Sapporo. There are six different classes, ranging in age from 3 to 16. Teaching the 3 year olds was quite challenging, but a good laugh.

I had been asked for part of the classes to teach them all about where I was from. I do have to spend a lot of time explaining that Northern Ireland is actually a country. However it’s often interesting to draw parallels between the island of Hokkaido and the island of Ireland as they actually have a lot in common; very similar size, population, both are island nations and both are famous for potatoes.  One girl was particularly excited to learn that I was from the UK, as this is her favourite anime (Japanese cartoon) character:

Apparently he is supposed to be a personification of Britain 

(and/or England, I’m not sure the distinction is all that clear!)

 

She was able to tell me lots of titbits she had learnt about the UK from this TV show, including the UK’s love of tea (fair enough) and the fact that all UK food is tasteless (this appears to be a running theme in Japan).

Hokkudai-Sai and Rakunodai-Sai

The past few weeks have been the  Rakuno University and Hokkdai International festivals.  As we know so many of the students we attended quite a lot of the events to support them.

This is one of my English class students helping at a

 stand about the Philippines

As part of the Hokkudai-Sai (Hokkaido University Festival) there was also a food faire.  ESS had a stall selling chocolate covered bananas, so naturally we had to sample them…along with a number of other delicious things.

Alyssa was very happy to find a stand selling tacos.

                Rakuno is an agricultural university and they have a dairy farm on campus (it smelt like home!).  It is a much smaller university than Hokkudai, consequently there was much less at their festival. 

 There was, however, a cow seat.

They were also selling some of the produce they had made, so I was able to try pumpkin ice-cream; it was actually (somewhat unexpectedly) rather nice. Interestingly, the Rakuno KGK (Japanese equivalent of CU) were permitted to have a stall; this was quite unusual, but great to see.

Yosakoi

Now for something very fun! The Hokkudai-Sai coincided with the Hokkaido Yosakoi Sōran Festival. Yosakoi (which means ‘come at night’, apparently) is a type of Japanese dancing. It is very loud and energetic, combining traditional Japanese dance movements with modern music. The choreographed dances are often performed by large teams.

 
Costumes are a big part of the routines, many are based on different forms of traditional dress, however it’s quite common to have a number of costumes changes.  The costumes are always very beautiful.

 This team had travelled all the way from Taiwan.

               

                The festival went on for a whole weekend, with hundreds of different teams parading through the city and performing on the stage. It all culminated in a big final which was televised throughout Japan.

Hokkudai have their own team, which is quite famous for its multiple costume changes.  One night at the festival we were invited to see a preview of their dances for the competition. After the dances were finished the whole crowd (me included) was invited up to have a go at the dancing. Whilst fun, it certainly gave me a new admiration for energy level required to do a whole dance.

Hokkudai's first...

and second costumes. 

(I don't have any suitable pictures 
of the other costumes)

 Festivals are a very interesting thing to see in Japan.  The people are usually so reserved that festivals are often the only time they permit themselves to really let go.  Experiencing the festival has allowed me to see a whole different side to the people here.  Whilst it was an entertaining experience, I also feel I have gained a new insight into the culture.

Prayer Points:

Praise God for the safe arrival of the UK team!

Please continue to pray for the team; for relationships and planning. Pray that we all might work together to use our various gifts and talents to further God’s kingdom.

Please pray for the 2 guys who took home copies of the Manga Bible; that, as they are reading it, something about it will resonate with them and that they might wish to find out more. Please pray that if they have any questions that we might have the right words to say to them.

Praise God for the success of the Jubilee Party; that so many people came and that they team were able to get to know so many new people. I am so thankful that all the cooking worked out and there was enough for everyone. Please pray that some of the new people who attended might come to some of our other events.

Pray that relationships might continue to be formed with members of ESS. Please pray for the new relationships with students from Rakuno.

Please pray for my teaching at Hokkudai. That through my actions I might be a good witness to Jesus, even when I cannot always overtly speak about Him.

Once again, thank you for your prayers. They are such an important part of everything I am involved with. I am certainly seeing evidence that I am being lifted up and surrounded with prayer, and this is of great comfort.