In Comparison?

Our first 5 days in Osaka have been somewhat different to Tokyo, yet surprisingly similar. It's warmer here, a really nice spring weather, and the church we're staying at is massive, providing us with plenty of comfortability. We have a fairly busy schedule, and we mostly work in teams of two or four, which means we don't really get to do stuff as a team, which is becoming a problem as we go on... We help out with the different ministries the church has, such as preschool, english lessons, cafés and whatnot. Though it feels like all we're actually doing is cleaning the church and handing out fliers at the train station nearby. But I guess we're hear to bless and help the church, so I'll try to have a good attitude about it all.

And it isn't the programme that's becoming a problem. It's everything outside of it. What we do with our freetime. Obviously internet is accessible everywhere, and with 4 laptops in the team, half the team spend their free time in a vegetative state on facebook. Some less than others, some definitely too much. And even though we hardly do any of the ministry stuff together, nobody seems too keen oon correcting that during the times we have free. I don't want to sound like I'm the only one who cares, tbh I haven't even addressed the rest of the team about it, partially because I don't know what to tell them or ask them, and because I feel like I'm just a big hypocrite trying to convict them of something that I'm guilty of as well. The team unity, that was one the things we really wanted to put effort into, seems to be forgotten, we've even started to be really rude to each other. Some of the stuff these guys say to me makes me wanna hit them hard and go home, though I know they don't mean to be mean. I guess we're all struggling with our expectations and the reality of this outreach, with not doing anything that would have an effect on these people, with having to conform to the ways of the church here that's really quite different of what we've just discovered that a church should be like. And in that frustration it's easy to forget to love each other, because we think we're the only ones struggling. So short little comments said out of impatience and without really thinking, bounce off the walls and come back as the meanest things. I know I do this too and it's really hard to stop and think before saying stuff. And even harder is to confront someone. I'm still figuring that one out.

So obviously this is not the healthiest situation an outreach team could be. And as I read about what the other teams are doing I'm filled with guilt and shame - we should be casting out demons and healing the sick too! What's wrong with us? Why are we sitting on our asses, having really crappy attitudes towards each other and the work we're doing for the church? And even if the stuff the curch wants us to do doesn't really feel like it's efficient, why don't we do something in addition to that on our free time? I'm filled with these questions more and more as the days go by and we're getting more and more apathetic and tired.

Now it's more than chrystal clear that this is all spiritual warfare. Loneliness, apathy and tiredness were the three main things that the Japan team suffered last year. And that's exactly what's happening here. But as much as we've learnt about spiritual warfare on DTS, in Brisbane there really wasn't any real need to practice it. Now that we're actually facing the problem I don't even know what to do about it. Heart attitude and communication is a good place to start I guess. Maybe it's not about saving souls in Japan and seeing miracles happen daily. Maybe it's about learning to fight the circumstance in a place that's very similar to our homes. And there is no sense in comparing us to the other teams, because Japan is just too different for that.

So keep us in your prayers and especially pray for the unity of this team! Hopefully next time I'll have happier things to share about :)

Shitai koto suru

This week was a little busyer, I guess... We've been doing a lot of worship, mostly in this youth group thing with international kids. English speaking people, Praise The Lord. Worship seems to be our main area of ministry here, and it's cool, though so far we haven't had many opportunities to play as a full band, most of the time it's just Josh and Isaac with a guitar and a djembe.

On wednesday we went to this one YWAM lady's prayer room in this really dodgy part of town to worship for a couple of hours. It was awesome, we played for three hours straight, after which the lady showed us a really cheap sushi bar nearby. I was so excited to get sushi, cos so far we hadn't had any during our time in Japan. The plates were a 100yen each, and I ate like ten of them... But to my surprise real sushi isn't that great :O Though it was cheap and Koji said it wasn't that great, it still was supposedly better than the "fake" sushi we had in Brisbane. I thought the fake stuff was better than this... Just goes to show what an amateur I am when it comes to Cuisine Japonaise... After stuffing ourselves with sushi we went to this international youth meeting and led worship, just like the previous wednesday. It was awesome and we really enjoyed to meet these kids. These meetings are organised for kids who go to a christian international school, and they call it HI.B.A., though I have no clue of what it stands for. It's basicly a non-charismatic thing, but they work closely with YWAM (at least in Tokyo) which can be very charismatic, and it was just awesome to see that it is possible for christians with different backgrounds and theology to work together and make it work! It's mostly to the credit of mr. David McDaniel, who's the leader of YWAM Tokyo and one of the most awesome people I've met. He's such a down to earth guy with a really good theology and a strong relationship with God, and he's funny as hell. God sure has a sense of humor when he puts a loud, large American to work in Japan. But I guess that's exactly what this country needs... God knows the best.

On thursday we had another Hi.B.A meeing with a little different crowd, and this time we actually had a full band (no drumkit though, and no vocals). Again it was a lot of fun. These kids are so joyful and welcoming and they seemed very encouraged by us. Working with these kids has been exactly what we came here for. It's been awesome, though I wish we could stick with them for a little longer to build real friendships with them. Meeting people once or twice and then adding them on facebook, yet never talking to them again, is kinda sad. I feel like we would have so much more to offer them but again time works against us... Maybe later, if I ever return.

On Friday we had our first and only gig in Tokyo as Fresh Out Of. We'd sent out fliers and advertised, but nowhere near enuf, as it turned out. The concert was at this tiny church, and we managed to make it look pretty cool, but in the end only a handful of people showed up, none of them actually outside our "circles". I was a little bummed in the beginning, as I'd expected at least some of the Hi.B.A kids to show up. But in the end we just played for the crowd that was there and had a good time. It wasn't that bad, yet I was still wondering what was God's point in all of this. He didn't answer, but I did get a verse the next day, proverbs 20:24; The Lord guides our steps, so why try to understand everything along the way?" (or something like that, I don't have my Bible here...). It just made me smile and really comforted me about the whole two weeks that we've been here and haven't done much. God sees the bigger picture, our job is to have a good attitude about the tiny picture that we can see.

On saturday we had a full day, beginning with homeless ministry at 7am. This time the sun was out and it wasn't that cold, so I actually enjoyed it. From there we continued to this new-ish suburb about an hour away from Shibuya, where we did some prayer walking for a sister Church of the Tokyo Baptist Church. I didn't have high expectations for it, but it was pretty nice with the sun shining. Me and Josh walked with one of the pastors of the church, and ended up praying more for the Church they're building there rather than the actual area. After lunch we did another round at a shopping mall there. Josh had his guitar and after walking around the mall for a while I just felt like we should go sit down outside the mall and jam. So we found this nice bench next to a hairsalon, right were the people coming from the train station entered the mall. We got to play for a good 30 minutes, just jamming and improvising worshipsongs, as well as singing some ready songs. I was a little worried the hairdressers in the salon would get annoyed but turned out that they actually really liked us playing there. Four of them came outside to say hello and fortunately the pastor happened to be there to translate for us. It was awesome to be able to bless the salon and even though we didn't speak a word about Jesus to them at least we were building relationships, and I think that's way more important. A lot of people passed us by and smiled and looked back and some kids even came straight up to us to just stare at us as we played. It was awesome. After about 35 minutes this guard came to tell us to stop because we were"noise pollution". It didn't really matter cos we had to go home anyway, I just felt sorry for the guy who obviously took his job way too seriously...In the evening we had our last Hi.B.A. in Yokohama. We led worship and shared a testimony and Ronnie did a little teaching that was really good though the time run out. Sad day for him, for he was really excited about it.

Our last evening in Tokyo we had a barbecue at the McDaniel's house. Real meat, it was so good. And after eating we just hung out and listned to music and talked for hours. It was so relaxed and nice, a truly awesome ending to our time in Tokyo. Now it's time to move on to Osaka, which apparently will be like going to another country. I have no idea what our schedule will look like, but I know there's gonna be less white people and more awkward moments with everything lost in translation... Anyway, keep us in your prayers etc. etc.

Tokyo draft

Now I hope that nobody's angry at me for not telling stories about Japan sooner, there is a very valid reason for that. And I'm still sticking to my once-a-week routine, so it's all good.

Anyway... we arrived in Tokyo on Monday evening after a decent 9-hour flight, during which we got no food or TV... I didn't mind really, I was able to sleep through most of it, which I found very impressive. So we had our first meal on Japanese soil at the airport, in McDonald's, right next to a sushi restaurant... I mean come on! We're in Japan for goodness sake! However, getting food fast seemed to be priority over fine dining, so we went for the easiest choice. The meal was followed by an hour of traveling by train to Senzoku where our home for the 2 weeks is. It was about 11PM by the time we got to the Senzoku station where Derick, our host and fellow YWAMer welcomed us and took us to the house. The house is decent size, basically a narrowish two storey house with a big kitchen, a sitting room and a bathroom and a toilet downstairs, and 4 bedrooms upstairs (plus Derick's room which is basically a little closet). You can fit about 20 people to live in this house as all the floorspace is reserved for futons. Me and Jess had a deal to kneel down to open the sliding doors as the Japanese do, having to kneel down and get up again about 10 times a day. It worked out for a day, till it got too cold... Anyway, after getting to the house we all just crashed. It was freesing cold at night but luckily there were some extra blankets in the cupboard in our room, or else I think I would've died...

So the first morning was rather pleasant. Sun was out and though we had nothing to eat for breakfast everybody seemed very refreshed and happy. Derick took us to a grocery store which was an adventure in itself. The Japanese sell the weirdest food. The veggie and fruit section was tiny, instead hey had a never ending selection of nuudles, rice, fish, bacon etc. Lots of weird dried stuff, like fish and squid and mushrooms and stuff. So many times we found something dodgy-lookin and had to get Koji to tell us what the heck it was, cos obviously we didn't understand what it said on the wrapper... After lunch (noodles) the director of YWAM Tokyo, David McDaniel, came by to get to know us and talk a little about Japan. He's an amazing dude, one of the funniest guys I've ever met. In the evening we went to a Ywam meeting in senzoku. There weren't that many people but it was still nice.

I honestly don't even remember the order of the rest of the stuff that has happened this week. It isn't much so I guess it doesn't matter. Sometime on wednesday the heaters in our house run out of kerosine. The temperature outside being less than 5 degrees, and the house having no isolation, the temperature indoors dropped down quite remarkably and it ended up beeing colder than inside our fridge... This went on till today when Derick finally went and bought some kerosine (usually this one dude comes and fills the heaters, but apparently he was unable to come this time...) So now the one in the kitchen works, which now feels like frikkin luxury. Coming from 35 degrees in Oz to 5 degrees was not a pleasant experience. Feeling frozen down to my bones even just staying inside the house made me very reluctant to go anywhere outside it. But we did our best to do something every day even though our schedule has been almost empty. On wednesday we led worship at this youth meeting which was very nice. The youth seemed very grateful for our different kind of worship than what they're used to. One guy came up to Josh to thank him and said he hadn't been to a worship session like that in years. It was good to feel like we were actually doing something useful after a day of loitering in town. We went to Shibuya, which is one of the big stations in Tokyo. We found a H&M, the largest one I've ever seen (on the outside, it was like a massive skyscraper), and on the inside it looked more like zara than H&M. But it was expensive. I could pretty much tell what garments would've been 10 or 20 euros in Finland, here they were 10-5 euros more expensive. And I didn't really need any more clothes (or so I thought at the time).

After the H&M experience we started lookin for a place to eat lunch in. Now trying to find a cheap lunch restaurant for 8 people in Tokyo at lunchtime is NOT an easy task. After wandering back and forth, being cold and tired and hungry, I was about to snap at anyone who came too close. I was very close to punching Nick in the face for making stupid comments about me. Finally we managed to find a place, though the servings were so expensive that we had to share a dish between two people. But it ended up being just enough and we all left for home happy and fed.

Thursday and friday we had nothing to do, which was hard for me cos of the nagging voice in my head that keeps saying that we're wasting time. I'm sure it's not the Holy Spirit cos He'd never be so mean. But it's hard when you know you're on a mission and fell like all the other teams are probably being all creative and seeing God move in magnificent ways, while we're just sitting in a pile trying to keep warm. I know comparing is a dangerous path to go and I'm trying my best to avoid it. And hopefully the weather will get better, and our schedule busyer.

Despite the fact that we had no scheduled activity for thu or fri we still did our best to do something. On Thursday we went to see the Meiji Shrine. It was pretty creepy going to a place that we knew as heavily spiritual. I didn't really feel it too bad, though I did sense some kind of heaviness over the place. Mostly I think I was just freakin out because I knew that there were demons all over the place, rather than because I felt them. Some of our guys, however, felt chest pain and whatnot, and Jess wouldn't even enter the main shrine. I kept praying in tongues the whole time, maybe that's why I didn't feel anything... From the Shrine we continued to the famous Yoyogi park right next to the shrine. We prayed over the place where we knew we'd be playing on sunday. It was all good fun despite the cold and the rain and I felt like our team got a little closer. In the evening we watched tropic thunder and ate weird Japanese snacks while trying to stay warm under our blankets in a room colder than our fridge.

On friday we were a little more puzzled about what to do. In the morning we played with ideas but none of them seemed to work, so we waited till lunch, after which we went to Sibuya with a couple of guitars and a djembe. Me and Jess went to starbucks while the guys tried busking on the side of the station. 15 minutes later they came to us saying that the cops had told them not to play there or anywhere else in Shibuya. So they went to look for another place while me and Jess stayed in starbucks. about a half an hour later the guys came back again. They hadn't really found a place to play at, but some girls had asked them to be topless models at Abercombie&Fitch. The guys's self-esteem weas through the rough, though I'm pretty sure that anyone who's tall and white and lives in Tokyo will be asked to that job... so anyway we went home for dinner (amazing homecooked okonomiyaki) and then early to bed cos on saturday we had to wake up early.

So today, saturday, we woke up at 5:30 so that we'd be at Yoyogi park in time for the homeless ministry that a local church runs. There were about 50 homeless people already waiting when we came. The church had an abundance of food to give this time, but first they had a service for the homeless before giving out the food. I didn't really like this kind of ministry, forcing hungry people to listen to a message before they can get food. But we tried to go along with it and it wasn't too bad. Steven gave a cool testimony and we helped to give out hot drinks to the people. It was zero degrees and raining this weird icy snow, and I towards the end I thought I was gonna die, I was so cold. But we went to McDonald's to have breakfast and melt a little. After going to this printing place to print out fliers about our gig(on friday) and buying more clothes for ronnie we left for home, where we found the heater in the kitchen working! A happy happy happy surprise.

So this is how we're doing atm. Tbh I'm really struggling with not having any "real outreach stuff" to do, though I don't even know what that means. I guess I still have no clue whatsoever about what the heck I'm actually here for. We seem to be falling slowly into this weird coma where everyone uses all their energy to stay warm and nobody's being creative, including me. It's hard, it's really hard, and it's definitely a part of spiritual warfare against us. I just don't know how to fight the cold that seems to drain all life force out of me. If you have any creative ideas on what we could do with our time or how we could fight this ever growing apathy, please let us know. Fortunately next week seems to have a little more content to it, so it should be all good. Keep us in your prayers, pray especially for warm weather!! Arigato.

The End Of This Season

So I realise that I didn't update my blog last week, and to be honest at the moment I'm sturggling with it as well, so I apologize for a lot of misspelling and weird sentences that are in this post...

So these last two weeks have been basicly prepping us for outreach which begins on monday. First we had a couple people from the base staff to share with us about just basic stuff, like speaking in public, sharing a testimony, behaving in another culture, and to our great delight, two demonstrations of how to use a squattie potty. We also had to drink a cup of indian salty butter tea, which was pretty disgusting. The more we've been going over these things, the more I'm happy that I'm going to Japan.

This week we had a brasilian guy teaching about missions. It was like the perfect ending to the 12 week lecture phase. He was very down to earth and solid in what he said, bringing evangelism to a whole new level, that actually sounded like it would appeal to people. Now I'm not an evangelist, in fact it's something i hate to do, to go share the gospel with someone. Mainly because I feel like nobody wants to listen to me. And maybe nobody does, just because usually the gospel is so poorly presented. But Pablo looked into how people were saved in Jesus' time, and how Jesus never really evangelised anyone. He gave us some really good Dos and Don'ts when we are sharing the gospel. I just realised that I'm not meant to share it with words, cos nobody does want to listen. Nobody listens. So rather than talk, I should listen. It's not about changing people, it's about loving them for who they are. It's not about bringing them to my God, it's about showing that God is already there. It's not about increasing the number of people who go to church, it's about people finding a deep relationship with God. And seldom does telling someone that they're going to hell help anyone.

So I'm really pumped to go to Japan, though it's gonna be hard because of the spiritual nature of the country. I don't really know what our job description is even gonna look like. In tokyo hopefully we'll be able to play a lot. But as far as I know in Osaka and Kyoto we're mostly just gonna be helping the churches and being an encouragement and a blessing to them. It's deifinitely gonna be intresting. The spiritual warfare is already happening, and not just in our team but the whole school. There's tiredness, illness, confusion, and all sorts of things. I myself am feeling like all my mind is just a blur and it's hard to catch a thought, especially during quiet time when I'm trying to listen to God. Annoying, but nothing that prayer wouldn't conquer.

So keep us in your prayers, pray especially for unity in our team and communication. I'll be sure to keep you posted! Sayonara!