Tyndale Japan Team 09: Final Updates

The principal explaining where Canada is

The grade three class made this for us

Hello everyone!!

It seems like only yesterday that we were taking part in all of the following ministry activities, but it was actually a week ago. On Wednesday morning, we traveled to an elementary school in Hirosaki to do a full program of action songs, a puppet show, some concert songs and a Canada presentation. It took the kids a couple of songs to warm up to us, but after that they were really enthusiastic and were probably the most involved of anywhere we went.

Watching the Puppet Show

This school is very blessed to have a Christian principal. He and his wife are members of the Tsugaru Church and are some of the few mature Christians there. Some of us had spoken to him about his school a couple of Sundays before we went and he was just so excited about his job. He said that the school feels like a family and that he loves them all like his children. We definitely had a great sense of the community that is in that place.

When we were finished our presentation, we had the opportunity to eat lunch with all of the students. It was so cute because they had special representative students wearing aprons who called our names and then took our hands and lead us to our seats. The elementary schools in Japan go from grade one to grade six, so we mostly had two people sitting with each grade. It was beyond fun interacting with them! Even though some of us did not have translators at our tables, we were still able to just be attentive to them and let them know that we really wanted to understand.

Lunch time at the fourth grade table

Our name tags :)

After lunch, we were given the choice of either staying inside and resting or going out to play. We jumped at the chance of going to play on the playground. We had a group of about twenty students come to the principals office and formally invite us all to go play. We all had chains of kids latched onto our arms leading us out to play. Some of us played octopus (a chasing game where you have to tag people before they get to the other side), some played baseball, some played soccer, and others played on (really more so watched) them play on the equipment. We easily could have played with them all day, but they had to go back to class. They also said that they would love for the team to come back next year!

She really wanted to come home with us :(

Later on Wednesday af

ternoon, we climbed Mount Iwaki. We had been eyeing this mountain, which can be seen in the entire Tsugaru region, since the day we arrived but had not been able to climb due to poor weather and other responsibilities. We were running short on time, so after driving up sixty eight curves in the road and riding the lift as far as we could go we only had thirty minutes to climb to the top. We basically had to run up the mountain because it is usually takes a person an hour, so not everyone went all the way up. Even though it was fairly cloudy, the view was absolutely spectacular. We could see all of the Tsugaru region. At the top of the mountain, there is a little Shinto shrine. The sight of this made us feel so compelled to declare Jesus' name in that place, so Nick read a passage from the Sermon on the Mount.

On Thursday morning, we had the opportunity to go to the preschool of one of the little boys in the church. We had a great time dancing around with the kids and seeing them perform a song for us as well. The teachers were very thankful for us coming and told us that they would like us to come back again next year. It is has been such an encouragment every time we have heard from the teachers that they would like us to come back because the way is being paved for the team next year and for the Ghents to get to know more people.

Thursday evening was quite busy and quite fun! Hirosaki University invited our team to go play a concert for them. Ourselves and the Ghents were so full of anticipation as short-term workers have never been invited there before. The concert took place in a fairly small class room with a few university students and some church affiliates. We had a hilarious time with the equipment and sound as the electric drums literally fell apart at the very beginning of the first set, the sound was way off for the first while, the Canada video did not work properly and we were only given ten minutes to set up all of our equipment. In the midst of all of these struggles, we came to the realization that God is way bigger than anything we can try to do. It did not matter that all these things were happening, the people present had a great time and we were able to just really worship. After the concert, some of us had the opportunity to speak with two girls from the university. They said that they loved the concert and would like to come to anything else we had scheduled for the week. I will share a little bit later about how that played out, but it was just really encouraging to know that seeds were planted that night. Another exciting part was that even though there were so many technical difficulties, the professor who organized the concert really wants the team to come back next year and he promised a much larger facility with a lot more advertising. Praise Jesus!! We also helped out with our last English classes that night and had to say goodbye to everyone. We had such an amazing time getting to know the people in those classes and will continue to pray that they come to know Christ as most of them are either seekers or just not interested in God.

On Saturday, we traveled to the American Air Force base in Misawa (two hours away). The Ghents are really good friends with a Christin family there and so they arranged for us to play a worship concert at the International Center, which is a short drive from the base. We did not know what the facilities would be like, but when we walked into the room we were amazed at how luxurious it seemed as compared to the places we had been playing for the previous five weeks. Some of us commented that it was kind of strange to go from what we had grown accustomed to in Japan back to having everything and more in a Western setting. This helped us realize even more that we really do not need all of the luxuries we have in our usual worship services. We had very minimal equipment and poor acoustics in most places we played in Japan and yet people met with God in such a powerful way. All of this said, God was really present in this worship service as well. Most of those in attendance were actually either American Christians who live on and around the base or English speaking Japanese, but a few were non-Christians. It was very different worshiping in English with mostly American people because it felt like we were back in our usual worship setting. We found after the service that people were telling us how encouraged they were with what the Ghents are doing in Japan, how much hope they have for the area of Misawa and how the churches there are reaching out to both the Japanese and Americans. It was so amazing to hear what God is working in that area and how Christians on the base have the great opportunity to witness to both their own people and the Japanese.