Week 4 3/4

Hey, I'm back. I seem to have disappeared for a week and a half or so and I was going to post something before Sunday, but I forgot we were going out of town to Sports Camp this weekend and I wouldnt be able to. Sorry about that.

So the relationships with the students have been really growing. Our team is a group of pretty likeable guys and girls (well I like them anyway) so the Japanese students have been hanging out with us more. A couple of big events happened this week.

We celebrated Elberts birthday last Sunday and also had our second "American Night".
Elbert turned 24 and we as a group of guys gave him a towel, and a medicine ball. clearly he was thrilled. The BEST club got together and bought him a couple cake rolls though which we ate alongside a homemade cake by Becky at American Night.
I cant remember if I explained "American Night" before but here's a brief summary. It's basically "church lite'. First we invite Japanese students over for American night and a meal. Then we all have dinner together, last Sunday night it was Hamburgers and Fries which were actually really amazing, (prepared by Masterchef Thomas with the help of Cody and Amanda). We then sing a couple really easy worship songs with the words on showing on the telvision, read a verse and share a thought about it, and have a sharing activity for the groups. I did the verse last week and just read Matthew 7: 3-5 about the logs and specks in eyes. It seemed like a universal truth which is kind of what we're going for with the students. especially when we have such a large group as we did that night (over 16!). It went well but I think I talked to fast which I tend to do in front of groups so I'm not sure how much of the english they all caught. After that we broke up into small groups for the sharing activity which was prepared this week by the youngest member of our group Gabi. In smaller groups of 4-5 each person picked out a subject such as Myself, My friend, a stranger etc and a adjective like suprising, good, bad, encouraging, awkward and had to share a evet that happened that week that fit the 2 slips they pulled. so for example for awkward stranger I could share about how I never know what to say to cashiers after they ask me a question so I just stare at them and smile and wait to pay. The activity went really well and was well thought out. The night overall was a good success.

Tuesday we went to dinner with some of the sophomore students. It was a smaller group than usual which was nice and allowed for the students to really interact


(sometimes when there is too many Americans the students will just listen, probably cause they cant get a word in edgewise).So it was a good time of getting more input from the students.

The following day was our second go at teaching english class. THere seems to be a pretty high turnover rate in this class as we again had a good number of students (4), none of them were repeat students from last week. Hopefully next class we'll see some students return. We went through Luke 12:22-34 where Jesus teaches to not be anxious and rely on God. Then we talked to the students about things that make them anxious and what they do to help with the anxious feeling, and we (when I say we I mean Myself, Kathryn and Becky) shared how we would pray and read the bible when we feel anxious. Hopefully all this and future sharing will at least plant some curiosity in the students about our way of life and maybe they'll ask some questions.

There was NO sports on Thursday as the students were preparing for "Sports Festa" the upcoming weekend. They did however have a farewell party for one of the midtermers, Aileen. Aileen has been here for 2 years I believe and is in charge of the english class that we're filling in for a couple weeks on Wednesdays. It was make your own sushi night which was....interesting. Basically makeing your own sushi is really easy, you take a square of "Nori" or dried seaweed, add a layer of rice, maybe some egg and then the fish dipped in soy sauce. You then roll it all up and go for it. So that's sushi, very different from the "Dragon rolls or California rolls in the states, but a little more on that later.

Overall it was a good time even though it was really sad when Aileen read her goodbye speech in Japanese. Even though I don't exactly know what she said it was still really moving based on the students around me. She will definitely be missed. Becky also gave a quick speech thanking people and saying goodbye as she would be leaving that weekend to go back home to Colorado. So I guess Kathryn and I are on our own now as far as the english class on Wednesdays go. We will really miss her.

Friday we had our last meal with Becky as a team and went to a restaurant called Sushiro.
By the way I'm just guessing at most of these Japanese words spelling as I only hear the word and never actually see it in Romanji or the letters english uses. So Sushiro could be SushiRoll, or SushiRa, etc. It was the 3rd sushi meal in the last 3 days for me and if you know me you'll know I'm not really a seafood aficionado. But Becky really enjoyed it and we got to hear the SushiRo theme song over the loudspeaker (which sounds like the word SushiRo over and over to the William Tell Overture it's hilarious) so it was a good time. That evening we left Shizuoka for Sports Festa.

Sports Festa is a yearly weekend long BEST club event planned by that year's Sophmores and is attended by most of the BEST club in Shiz and some members from surrounding areas, (this year I think Hamamatsu which is a nearby city, had a lot of members join). There was probably a good 150 participatants in the Festa. The Festa works like this, we arrive at a Hostel near Mt.Fuji friday night, and get welcomed by a speech from the Sophmore spokeman and woman (This year it was Waki and Ayako, Waki has been hanging around a lot with the team so it was cool to see him in the leader roll.) We then go to our rooms to sleep. The next morning the teams are posted in the common area and everyone gets ready for breakfast. The teams are your teams for the weekend, you eat together, you compete together, and you really spend a lot of time together. The competition was an array of sports that the teams rotated through thoughout the day. Sports included kickball, basketball, soccer, dodgeball, dodgebee (dodgeball with a soft frsbee) volleyball, ultimate frisbee, and a couple other games. The students take the competition pretty seriously so our whole team was pretty nervous about being the weak member of our teams. The weekend was super exhausting for the team both physically and mentally as we tried to understand the rules of the games and the strategies our team leaders wanted us to employ. I was fortunate though and actuall had Aileen on my team and she was awesome and translated whatever was going on for me and really saved me a lot of the guesswork most of the rest of the team had to do. Also on my team was a student named Akio, who alos sometimes comes to the english class on wednesdays so I had a lot of time to spend developing a better relationship with him which has been great. At the end of the weekend my team ended up tied for the 2nd place slot which was settled using a very popular game in Japan called "Janken".
As you may have guessed Janken is rock paper scissors and in that video our team leader (A young sophmore named Dice-K) just won our team 2nd place! It was really exciting for our team, especialy since we thought maybe we were doing pretty bad throughout the weekend, but apparently other teams had rough weekends also.

The Festa was a great chance to spend time with the students but also extremely exhasuting so we all welcomed the next couple days of rest and regular housekeeping activities.

We did have our weekly Bible study on 1st Peter when we returned though which is always really encouraging. THis week overall has been pretty laid back as the students recover from the Sports Festa and get back to studies (they have Finals in 2 weeks!).

Prayer Items

• For energy as our team moves into our last month of ministry here in Shizuoka, that we wouldn't start to fade.
• For the students that they would be curious and maybe ask questions that would lead to deeper conversations.
• For Aileen and Becky as they head home, especially Aileen having been in Japan for the last 2 years, the adjustments she'll face are beyond my comprehension.

I think that's about it, for now. Sorry for taking so long to update this but it'sbeen busy and the longer I don't update it, the longer it takes to update (cause I keep experiencing more "content" if that makes sense ). I miss you all but am really having an amazing time here in Shizuoka, thanks for your prayers.