Clothe Yourselves with Christ

On Saturday I went to Omiya Church to help with their Harvest Festival Kids Day. The first part of the event was trick-or-treating. The poor little girls in my group kept saying, "samooi samooi" as they clutched their umbrellas. Growing up in Minnesota I always had to plan my costume around wearing a winter coat underneath because you never know when a blizzard will come up. I guess in Japan it is typhoons you have to worry about. But, overall they really enjoyed it and did many activities inside as well. I was in charge of the bowling. We filled up plastic bottles with a little bit of water as our bowling pins and used various vegetables as bowling balls. The small pumpkin gourds worked the best. The kids also had an opening where they sang songs and heard a devotion.

On Halloween kids and adults often put on costumes and pretend to be someone else. Growing up I got to dress up like Big Bird, Raggedy Ann, a painter, someone from the 70's and much more. It can be a lot of fun and sometimes you might not even recognize the person! Here in Japan Halloween is just beginning to become popular and practiced. In fact, since it is so new and brought over from America, the Japanese people assume that it is a Christian celebration like Christmas. Really, it is Reformation which we celebrate at this time of year as part of our faith.

Halloween is not a Christian celebration, but as Christians we get to dress up in something even more exciting than being Spider-man or a Princess. We get to put on the full armor of God and clothe ourselves with Christ. This changes who we are by more than just putting a mask over our face or covering it with paint. Though we are sinful human beings who should be seen as such, God clothes us with his righteousness and we are seen as Holy in his sight.

Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law. You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
-Galatians 3:25-27

We don't go door to door asking for candy, instead we love and serve our neighbors just as Christ came to love and serve us. Jesus death and resurrection on the cross for us was no trick, it is the real thing! What a treat! And after the kids ate all their candy they were pretty hyper and happy from all the sugar they'd just eaten. I pray that the joy and hope we have in Christ may fire us up as well to tell others the good news!


This is a picture of starbucks in the train station at Omiya. Myself and the other missionaries enjoyed a nice cup of hot coffee here after the event. Notice how there is an umbrella hanging on the back of every chair. This is a very common sight on the rainy Japan days.

Run the Race with Perseverance

Today I ran in a Race for the Cure 10K (6.2 miles) around the Emperor's Palace in Tokyo. It was a lot of fun and a beautiful course. I wasn't sure how it would go because I haven't run that far in awhile, and especially in the last two weeks since I'd been sick, but it felt great. For the opening ceremony a Japanese college cheerleading group danced to a few different songs like Avrile Lavigne and Hey Mickey.

Here is part of the emperor's palace.

And here is a view of the tokyo skyline from it. It was such a beautiful day for running. It has been a little rainy and cold lately so I was somewhat apprehensive. But, today was so warm and sunny!
On our way home in Kawasaki by one of the malls we stumbled upon a five man Japanese acapelle group dressed in halloween shirts and ties singing in front of a HUGE inflated pumpkin. You just never know what you will come across here. Some days we come home from the train and see guys doing bike tricks, or girls practicing dance moves in front of glass store windows to a boombox, or many random street musicians. I've heard also that there is a man who spins on his head whom we have not yet witnessed. This Sunday we are going to visit another Japan Lutheran Church and attend their coffee house. It has been so neat meeting the Japanese Christians and church workers all over Japan and see their excitement and passion for ministry.

Discover Tokyo Day

Discover Tokyo Day happens every year with the VYM Program and this year there was a great turn-out. It is an opportunity for Japanese Christians and Japanese English students to meet the new VYM missionaries (Lindsey and I), practice their English conversation skills, make some new friends, and have a great time enjoying Japan sightseeing and food. So, it was a lot of fun to be shown around the sights by native Japanese people and getting to know some of the Christians.

First, we stopped in a store that sells goods used for Japanese festivals. The had these traditional masks that they wear, drums, special shoes they wear to carry big heavy models of shrines on their shoulders (as you see us standing in front of in the next picture), traditional dress and many other musical instruments.
For lunch we went to a famous Okanomiyaki restaurant that has apparantly been around for a very long time, like since before WWII. One of the workers told our group that they were just videotaped to be on TV the last week. So, one of the members in our group stood in line while we looked in the festival shop to get us a spot. The fun thing about this restaurant is that we got to make all of our own food. First you order what you want and they bring it in a bowl for you. You stir it all up and pour it on the hot gridle in the middle of your table. It's kind of like a pancake filled with all different foods like shrimp, squid, noodles, vegetables and more.
After it cooks awhile you must flip it over, and after that you brush on a sauce that is similar to soy sauce. The people in our group made sure that I got a chance to practice my flipping skills! I had a cheese, corn and mochi (a chewy food substance that is made of rice) okanomiyaki. I also sampled some of the others okanomiyaki including a nato (fermented soy) one which was quite tasty despite the skepticism many foreigners have about it. After lunch we wandered around the market in Asakusa which was filled with people shopping for various food, clothing and souvenier purchases. Here I also got to try anko (red bean paste) in pagoda, pigeon and lantern shaped pastries and a soy ice cream sandwhich. Other ice cream flavors the group members got were macha (green tea) and black sesame.

The shrine was busy with people putting incense on themselves for good luck, buying fortunes that they could tie on as prayers, throwing coins and saying a prayer. To many people these are just cultural practices, but it still prevents them from accepting true beliefs such as Christianity. Many Japanese seemed to treat the incense as a joke by laughing as they coughed from getting too much in their face, or trying to wave it into their friends faces. Sadly many people do not believe in Buddhism or Shinto and yet they do not think they could believe in any other religion either. I have been told that recently a challenge for Christianity are the many cults. Awhile ago one cult attempted to harm many Japanese people by putting sionide on the trains which would really effect a lot of people in such a contained area. Unfortunately now people are frightened by religion and sceptical of anyone who tries to share new beliefs with them. Please pray for Japanese Christians who struggle to give up false cultural practices, Japanese who do not think they are capable of getting into a religion so foreign to them, and for barriers built by cults to be broken down. Pray that the english classes may continue to open doors for relationships and faith to be fostered.

Traditional Japanese Dance

On Sunday after church we went to the Japanese National Dance Theatre. Emi, one of the ladies who works in the VYM office was the geisha dancer for one of the scenes so we got to see her! It was wonderful and then we got to go backstage and see where they all get dressed and ready.
She was so kind and got us all bentos (a lunch) so we walked to a big park to eat it at.
It was filled with rice, dried tofu, shrimp, pickled lotus root, mushroom and more.



On Saturday we also saw traditional Japanese dance on a blocked off street in our area in honor of Sports Day. Monday was a day off for everyone. There was shamisen, Japanese drum and flute that accompanied the dancers!

Rice is pretty important in Japan. The words breakfast, lunch and dinner in Japanese translate to morning rice, afternoon rice and evening rice. I probably dishonored this rice by accidentally dumping it all over our kitchen. It was up on a shelf, and the container I put it in was obviously not the tuperware I thought because the lid popped off and down came the shower of rice. We had to sweep our floor about eight times, and we are still finding rice in places. Fortunately, most of it went in the sink and we were able to save it.
We made Japanese curry our first night and it turned out really well!
We've actually been eating a lot of American foods with other missionaries here like TGIF and California Pizza Kitchen. But, we are enjoying lots of new Japanese foods as well. There are restaurants and shops everywhere you can stop for a bite to eat. And, there are pleanty of vending machines as well. Right now they have cold beverages and coffee, but in the winter they will have red buttons which means the coffee is hot!!
Well right now I have to go to my third language class but i will post more later!