So Long Japan

This will be our last update because we are back in Canada as of 4:30 in the afternoon Monday. Check back in a couple of weeks though because we will be adding a bunch of videos. After a five hour train ride, two hour wait at the airport and a thirteen hour plane ride we finally made it here. It will probably take a couple of days for all of us to overcome our jet lag as Japan is thirteen hours ahead of Canada, but hopefully it will not take too much time. I am just going to share some of our last times with the Tsugaru Church.

On Friday night, we helped out with the Young Life group for the last time. We went all out and built a huge maze in the sanctuary with all of the chairs. The object of the whole thing was to walk through blindfolded and listen to directions from your team in order to find a lego block and bring it back. The kids and parents loved it and were so much fun to watch! For our last time teaching, we showed them how to play "God of this City". It was so powerful to just watch the youth of the church playing this song which talks about the future hope for Japan and how they can be a part of what God is going to do there. After Young Life was over, the ladies of the group were invited by one of the church women to go and be dressed in kimonos. They were so beautiful! All of the girls ended up walking around in them for an hour and just soaking in one of the last tastes of Japanese culture. We found out later on that the woman who lent us the kimonos actually does that for all of the short-term workers who come because there was a couple of short-termers many years ago who greatly impacted her life. She takes great joy in doing whatever she can for those who come and we were definitely blessed by her.

The Young Life group surprised us with some special good bye cakes and chocolates that said thank you in Japanese characters. The whole time at Young Life was so amazing! We had a sleep over with a couple of the kids that night and so, after we blew out the candles on our amazing cakes, we had a little dance party to some worship songs and just celebrated together one last time. The sleep over was a great time as well. There was only one guy and one girl who came, so that was an opportunity to pour all attention on just those two. The one guy who stayed over is a grade eleven student who attends the Kanagi Chapel and just came to spend the night with the guys because he had met them the week before at the concert and really bonded with them. The girl who came has been coming to events with her seeker mother for quite some time now and is ten years old. Please continue to pray for both of these youth.

Sunday was quite an emotional day for all of us! We lead our last service at Itayanagi Chapel and we had no idea just how intense it would be. We all took turns sharing about what we have learned on this trip and most of us shared our appreciation for the church. Almost all of us could not contain our tears as we spoke of our incredible love for the people in the church and our desperation to see Japan know Jesus. As if that was not hard enough, Colin decided to play "God of this City" after we all finished sharing! That was pretty cruel! (I am just kidding obviously) Naomi Ghent and one of the young adults we had been working alongside the entire trip, Hoshi, sang it for the congregation. Almost all of us had tears dripping from our eyes at this point because it was just so hard to think of leaving and to not be a part of what is going to happen there after we leave. We have full faith though that God has planted some seeds and that so many great things are going to happen this year! Our God is the God of Japan.

After service, we were asked to help out with Sunday school. This was a very strange request as we have never helped out before and usually set the tables and help prepare for lunch. When we arrived upstairs, we were told to all stand in a line because the whole Young Life group and some parents were going to sing for us. Naomi and Hoshi sang a special good bye song for us and then after them all of the children and some parents sang. It was amazing to see that the fifteen year old that had just picked up the guitar when the team came last year was actually leading the song. They presented us each with special metal cases that have our names on them and are signed as well as Japanese wind chimes that one of the mothers bought. Once again, it was a very emotional time for all of us.

Our rice and shrimp Canadian flag :)

As if all of this was not enough, we also had a special surprise at lunch fellowship with the whole congregation. The same lady who lent us the kimonos made us a special rice dish which looked like a Canadian flag. We had to eat really quickly so we could rush off to do another concert at Harvest Chapel, but we did our best to make sure we had time to say goodbye to all of the church people.

We had a special event planned for the afternoon at Harvest Chapel. The accapella group from Hirosaki University was supposed to come and do a concert at 3:00, but they ended up postponing until 5:00. This meant that we needed to fill in the gap before the 4:00 service with our own mini concert. We also had the opportunity inbetween songs to share our testimonies of what God has taught us since being in Japan (only in less Christian sounding wording because no one would understand). We were really excited to see that even though they were going to come later on, some of the accapella group actually came at 3:00 and stayed for the whole worship service.

Not only was this really encouraging, but we also found that the two girls who came to concert at the university on Thursday night came at 3:00 as well and stayed for dinner after the entire program was over. The Ghents are really hoping to be able to maintain contact with them and invite them to future events and services. The accapella group was quite good and it was neat for our team to sit back and enjoy their concert. Another exciting part about the concert was that after the accapella group was finished, one of the ladies who I spoke about a couple of posts ago who was not able to play djembi for two years and wanted to come to church and play actually came and brought two djembis with her. She ushered Job and Adam to play djembi with her while Colin played guitar. She is not a Christian, but it was so wonderful to see the joy on her face as she played along with songs that she knew were about Jesus. All of the university students stayed for dinner after the concert and Nick and Kaitlyn tried to visit with them as much as possible (few of them know very much english). We are all really excited about the new friendships we have started with the university students and will be trying to keep in touch with some of them who we are going to add on Facebook.

The accapella group performing at Harvest

The djembi trio and...Colin :)


Later on in the evening, we had a worship concert at Grace Fellowship. Many of the people there are seekers, so it was really powerful to just be worshiping in God's presence there. There was no message this last time at Grace, but instead we each shared what we had shared earlier in the Itayanagi service about what God has taught us in our time in Japan. One really exciting thing about that night was that one of the men that comes out to English classes who is a very avid follower of Buddhism came out for the entire service. He had not come to anything else we had done those five weeks, so this was really exciting. I think that this was the hardest good bye service because it was the last one and we knew that there would not be anymore goodbyes other than the Ghents once that service was over. We were able to go to Tully's after service just like we always do and that was a great last time of fellowship.

Some of our dear friends from the church

We decided to pull an all nighter because we were trying to fight against jet lag and we had to pack. We ended up catching the sunrise at 3:30 in the morning a top the roof of the church. It was such an amazing way to end off our trip!

As I said before, after a five hour train ride, two hour wait at the airport and a thirteen hour flight, we arrived in Canada. It was a truly amazing time of ministry! Thank you all so much for all of your prayers and support! Know that God did great things during our time there and that much greater things are yet to come. Please do not forget Japan! Keep on praying for this nation in such desperate need of Him. Remember the missionaries there in all the service they put in every day.