The final few weeks really did fly! I can’t believe I
have left Japan already (and to be honest, a large part of me didn’t want to).
Hiragishi Minami
Kid’s Camp
The Kid’s Camp went really well. Everyone was safe and had enjoyable time,
albeit not a restful one! I was slightly
baffled by the girls I was supervising’s desire to brush their hair at 4 in the
morning.
During the camp we rehearsed a short play of ‘David and
Goliath’, which was later performed for the children’s parents. A good number of parents came; I was
pleasantly surprised by the number of fathers who actually attended. Men work so hard in Japan that often they do
not have the time or opportunity to see their children’s events. So it was particularly special to have these
men there.
David and his sheep, practicing hard!
There was one particularly special moment. None of the children who came were Christian,
however before we settled down for the night we all prayed together. In the building we had rented for the night
there was a decorative hollow tree trunk.
Throughout the day many of the children had climbed on top of this tree
trunk and used it as a seat.
You can see the tree trunk, complete with someone
on top, in the left of this picture.
One small boy , however, had been unable to climb up. That night each of the children were asked if
there was anything they wanted to pray about, and that one little boy prayed
that he would be able to climb onto the tree trunk. The following morning we found him up on the
tree trunk. When Levi remarked on this
he responded with ‘well of course, we prayed to God that I would be able to
didn’t we?’ The faith of children is something marvellous indeed!
Please continue to pray for these children, that the seeds
sown in events such as this might bear fruit.
Obihiro and
Nakasatsunai
Going to Nakasatsunai was a really worthwhile
experience. It was my first opportunity
to really see Japan outside of the big city of Sapporo, and to see another
facet of OMF’s work. Nakasatsunai is a
village with a population of about 4000, it is very much a rural area. It is an area famous for its dairy products
and potatoes (that sounds somewhat familiar…).
I actually saw my first cows in a number of months (no sheep though,
they keep those in the zoo)!
Nakasatsunai has a daughter church plant from the larger
city of Obihiro, however it is currently very small. It does not yet have its own building,
however a member of the church allows the service to be held in her café. The café is called ‘Priquilla’ after the
Biblical characters of Priscilla and Aquilla.
The lady who owns the café deliberately chose this unusual sounding name
so that when questioned about it she would have the opportunity to share her
faith.
It was at this church which I was asked to share. In the morning they had a special event for
very young children. We sang and played
games together, then Conny (the OMF missionary for the area) shared a message
with the children.
After the church service was the English Event for teenagers
which I had been asked to prepare for…except that some of the ‘teenagers’ ended
up being a little bit older than I had expected! The youth fellowship group from Obihiro also
travelled down to join the event. In the
end we had about 20 young people, ranging in age from 10 to 28 (and one, very
cute, little 2 year old who had come with her parents). To begin the event we all made pizza and
shared lunch together.
Japan has a slightly
novel approach to pizza. Neither
tomato-sauce
nor cheese are vital ingredients, however
it does seem important to put on as
many topping as
you can manage. I had chocolate pizza once.
After this time of fellowship we played some English games
and sang praises together. At the end I
shared my testimony with everyone. Sometimes
I am quite surprised as to how well my personal experiences and struggles relate
and resonate with Japanese young people, however why should I be? Nothing is
ever wasted in God’s economy! He knew before I was born that He was sending me
to Japan.
Farewell Party
For the Farewell Party we all got to dress up in yukatas. A
yukata is the traditional Japanese summer outfit. However, actually putting them on proved to
be quite the challenge! Fortunately a
Japanese lady, who has taken classes in such things, offered to help us all get
dressed (excluding Levi, but a man’s yukata is much simpler to put on).
For some reason I appear to be a giant in this picture...
Each one of us who were leaving in the near future (that is,
Delia, Levi and myself) had the opportunity to talk during the night. We each had the chance to speak about what
God had taught us during our stay in Japan.
Once again, I was absolutely terrified of speaking in front of
everyone. Public speaking is still not
something I feel particularly comfortable or gifted at, though I have improved
somewhat during my time here. However,
God got me through! All in all it was a
lovely night, but it was somewhat difficult to say goodbye to all the new
friends I had made without knowing if I would ever see them again.
We had about 50 people along on this night.
Iwate and Yamada
My final week, before leaving Japan, was largely spent in
Yamada. Yamada is a small village on the
coast of the island of Honshu, in the prefecture of Iwate.
Miyako is the nearest
town of any size.
Yamada was about 25 minutes away.
It was an area which was very badly affected in the 2011
tsunami; many of the towns and villages still lies in ruins.
I travelled to Iwate with Karin, Alyssa and Delia. We travelled by ferry, which was quite an
experience in itself! On the way down we
had bunk beds in a large, communal room, however on the way back we all slept
on the floor in a tatami room.
We were working with a couple of OMF missionaries who have
an ongoing ministry in Yamada and the surrounding area. They have set up a Drop-In Café called ‘Ippo Ippo Yamada’ as their centre of
work.
‘Ippo Ippo’ means ‘step
by step’. The hope is that little by
little, step by step, people will able to repair their lives.
Whilst there have been a lot repairs done to put back into
place many of the essential infrastructures, there are still thousands of
people who homes lie in ruins. Many of
these people now live in emergency temporary housing. These temporary houses have been arranged
into what almost appears to be small villages.
They reminded me of
the mobile classrooms at my
old primary school.
We were mostly involved with running ‘cafés’ in these temporary
housing areas. Each area would have
structure which acted as type of community hall, it was in these which we
largely worked. As a team, alongside
three ladies who had come from a Japanese Church, we would travel out with tea
and cookies (or, in my case, a selection of traybakes!) which we would offer to
anyone who came along. We also did a
craft with the ladies and played with any children who came along.
I found it quite difficult to know what to think of
Yamada. On one side there was a lot of
hope; people getting on with things and making the most of the situation.
This building has no
ground floor, you can see through
it from one side to the other, and yet is it
still open
to business on the first floor.
The local equivalent to B&Q (known as Homac) was open
for business, it may not have a roof or even all of its walls but it’s still
selling everything people need to do repairs!
Elsewhere there were entire shopping-centres made up of the temporary
structures.
At the same time standing in what was once a busy town
centre, but now was little more than weeds and the foundations of buildings,
was quite chilling.
This whole area used
to be housing.
One time, when I was walking through the village, I saw a
red and black lacquer-ware rice bowl sitting amongst the rubble of what used to
be a house. Something about that scene
really struck me, really drove home to me that these used to be people’s
homes. Many of the houses that were
still standing had an ‘O’ or ‘X’ spray painted on the walls, indicating to
emergency services whether bodies had been found in the building or not.
Piles of boats lined
large areas of the coastline.
It was still very much a disaster area. Although many of the people we met were
getting on with their lives, there were many more people we did not see. Many people have become depressed and do not
feel able to leave their homes. I think
it’s important not to forget these people, even if news of the tsunami areas is
no longer on our TVs.
