7 years ago
Sep 13, 2006
Oh man! I have more work than ever before, and less time to do it! So I'm sorry for the lack of decent updates, but life has been going by so quick. But God is still so faithful! He has blessed everything that I am doing. Especially in my Japanese studies. I have been able to understand it better than any other language I have ever tried. I'm so excited.
Saturday is our only day that we can rest a little bit. So the day was pretty chill. It is the only day I can really devote to homework. So from about 9 to 3 my time is spent studying. At 6 we leave for Nehama. It is a part of the island that didn't even exist 15 years ago. The area used to be ocean so they literally built more ground to build on. Nehama is known as American-ville. When it was constructed they tried to give it a South Cali boardwalk feel. It's where loads of highschool kids and military guys go to hang out. There's a huge ferris wheel, big shopping area, a wicked cool SEGA arcade, things like that.
We took some guitars and a little sound system to set up so we could play some music. While myself and some other people played music the rest of the crew handed out tracts and witnessed to people. We got rained out and had to run into a near by store, but that was cool because we got trapped in there with some other military guys that were really stoked to talk to us.
After the rain stopped we set up and kept on going. I talked to a couple military guys and a japanese guy for a while. It was loads of fun and I can't wait to go out next Saturday! Oh, and Praise God there was even a guy that came to church because of it! Pray that Saturday nights would continue to be fruitful and that The Holy Spirit would give us boldness, mixed with cultural sensitivity!
Sunday Jeremy, Haley, Nikkie, and myself go to Calvary Chapel Okinawa to help out with whatever they need. We leave the house at 7:00. I have been leading worship for Tsunami, their jr. high group. Jeremy has been doing the power point for the main service. And I believe the girls are helping out with the younger kids and in the nursery. Yastomo and Tamiko used to lead worship and do the translations for Tsunami, but Tamiko just left for the Vision for Life program in Europe. So Yastomo was left with loads of work. It's a blessing for him that I can help out so he doesn't have to do worship and translations.
After church we went out to lunch and just sort of hung out in town until about 4:00 when we came home for dinner. But that's not the end of Sunday. On Sunday night we have a Bible study at the Koinonia cafe. It's loads of fun, a sweet time of worship, and great to hang out with everybody. But we don't usually get home until 11:00. I got to meet a sweet guitarist, Rio, who is moving to Tokyo to do some factory work. If I come back next semester he wants to start a band with me. That would be cool.
There went Sunday. A 7-11 day with no time for studying.
Monday we don't have any school because it is set aside to see the island and learn some Okinawa history. We spent all day around the Himeyuri Peace Museum
. And later went to a really neat beach.
The museum was really depressing. I don't like learning about war, but it's hard not to when war affected this island so severely. Stupid war. I don't even want to write about it because it makes me so mad.
On Monday night I had to go to the studio. It was our last session (Praise God!) and everything turned out sounding really good. However, because recording takes for-freaking-ever it was another night that I didn't get home until 11.
There went another 7-11 day with no time for studying.
Tuesday was way busy. Tuesday has more classes than any other day. I have Devos, Acts, Life of David, Men's Discipleship, and Matthew (taught only in Japanese so I don't even know what the heck is going on!).
So like every other day I get up at 6:30. Go to Devos at 8:30, have a full day of awesome classes and go to be around 11. But this monday was different! Instead of Matthew I got to go to a sweet Japanese service. The most famous worship leader from the main land led worship (which was amazing, though I couldn't understand. Leah, I'm working on getting you some worship music!). There was some sweet Prayer, a teaching, and more prayer. It was so good! Plus there were only like 5 Americans out of the 100 some people there! That was the best part aside from worship.
Tim also played three songs. The two that we recorded and one more. He's a really good rapper, in English ad Japanese. They sounded really good, but he wants to change some stuff which means one more session in the studio (ack!).
Another 7-11 day with no time for studying!
Today I was supposed to have a few hours for homework. But plans change. I usually have class from 8:30 to 4:00 and church from 7:00 to whenever. But today after the Japanese class we went on base to meet the chaplain. Some of us are going to be going on base every Sunday to help out with the church there. That is going to stretch me loads. But Charlie (the chaplain) kept bringing everything back to love. There are too many people who strongly believe different things on base and they all just have to gather together in love. It will be hard, but I know God will teach me. Heck, maybe I will come out believing that war can actually solve something... pfft, yeah right!
So my 2-4 class was moved back to 3-5. That only leaves two hours to get back to the house, eat dinner, and get back to the cafe for church tonight. I know it will be rad tonight and I'll get to practice more Japanese. But man, I need some time to do homework! Hopefully tomorrow after my 11-12:30 class I can hit the library until dinner and actually get something done!
Tonight I will probably get home around 11:00 making today another 7-11 day with no time for studying! I love being this busy!
You can keep checking out e3 missions for some other updates and loads of pictures.
Please pray that I would continue to learn the language quickly. I want to communicate with people better!
