Week 1 3/4

Hey its good to hear from you all in the comments and email, so keep that coming if you have time. It's been pretty slow since that first week. We're not yet comfortable enough with the students to call them up and make plans, and so we end up just spending time together as a team. Which is a good thing. Just not exactly why we're here. Things are looking like they are going to start picking up though, in fact tonight I and a couple of the female members of the team, Kathryn and Becky are going to sit in on one of the midterm staffs "english class". I put english class in quotes because while the idea is for the students attending to learn how to speak english it sounds like the way they are taught in this particular class is by reading bible stories that the midterm staffer (Aileen) has transcribed to a readable level. The scary thing about it is that Aileen will be leaving early next month and so for a couple weeks it's just going to be Kathryn and I running that show. So hopefully I'll learn alot tonight and be able to keep these kids interested enough in the class that they don't all bail when Aileen hands it over to the scrubs.

The other thing I'll be working on is trying to find "My Guy". That is the one or two guys that I will invest most of my time and effort this summer into creating a relationship with. There are a couple dozen guys so they advise us to just spend some time in prayer to find the guy that God leads you to and you can have the most impact on. I'm naturally impatient and wish that God would just throw a guy in my lap or give me an outright obvious sign of who he would like me to focus on so that will be a little difficult. The whole team is going through it together though soat least we have camaraderie.

Speaking of the team, every Monday morning (That's Sunday about noon to most of you folks) we get together and have a team bible study. This year they decided to go through 1st Peter and our leader here Brian VanZante has challenged us to memorize it before the end of the summer. I enjoy reading 1st Peter and looking at all the nuances of the letter but memorizing is a real weakness for me. I'm usually lucky if I can remember what I did yesterday much less a 13,000 word book. So if you're feeling particularly bored this summer you could memorize along at home and feel like your part of the action over here.


So the prayer things today would be:
Effectively lead the english class of 7 or 8 students that Aileen is handing over to Kathryn and myself, and be able to use it to also familiarize the students with Jesus.

That I would be able to locate the student that I could most effectivel minister to through a relationship.

and that I would be diligent about the memorizing of 1st Peter (if you have time).


Outside of that I guess a couple fun things


the exchange rate is pretty much 1 yen to one cent, so a meal usually costs about 600yen and its pretty easy to do the math from there.

Along with that a movie ticket cost 2000yen and no student discounts going on here either. Also movies here are about 2 months behind America, so the most popular movie at the theatres last week was 21 (about the MIT guy and blackjack) so theres a little bit of lag.

KFC here is a Christmas meal, and actually it sounds like a traditional present. So for Christmas to give your girlfriend KFC makes you basically a stud.

We did have a movie night here as a team and watched this movie called "Always- Sunset on Third Street" and it was pretty much the best movie I saw all year, but I can't seem to find it in the US, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

Myself and the other 3 guys here are discovering that we know very little about cooking and have been making alot of Ramen, Cereal, and sandwiches, so if you have any easy quick recipes PLEASE email them to me.

I think thats about it, look forward to hearing from you and thanks for all your prayers.