Lots of lasts

This past weekend was filled with goodbyes, see you next year type gatherings. It was also filled with packing, packing, and more packing. I was trying to get my suitcases packed at the same time I am packing boxes. It was going well and looked liked I was actually going to get everything into two suitcases. Then Woykes came to get my shoe closet and I realized that I had not packed any shoes to take on home assignment! So, I will have to repack once I get moved so the weight can be distributed evenly in the suitcases. I may still be able to have two suitcases, but that means my carry on will be super heavy-nothing new there, though.

So here are a few highlights of the weekend in pictures..
Pre-choir singing time

Sharing at Kongo Church

One more potluck at Kongo-always really good food!

Paul took a group picture at Komyo so when I get that from him I will post it, too, if I remember!

And, here is a little glimpse into the state of my apartment...


Last night at a very late hour I realized that the guy was coming to take out the air conditioner units and all the boxes were stacked under the units, in both the office and the dining room! So, I had to move them all to the other side of the room giving the worker a whole 3 feet of work space!

Did you know?

Did you know that you can come to Japan?! Yesterday a team of people from Illinois left after a two week trip here to Japan to help us out. In our NAB conference they are known as Gateway Teams, groups who come for a short time to help out the missionaries as well as get to learn about the work here and find out how God can work in and through them.

Although I have been busy packing, I did get to spend a little time with the team. They came to church last Sunday where Megan gave her testimony and Doug preached. The rest of us listened carefully!






On Monday we went to the elementary school to do an English lesson with the 3rd and 4th graders. The week before the team had been to the school to teach the other grades, too. There was a little lesson on Illinois, Chicago, and Abraham Lincoln, followed by an English conversation introduction, a game and finally the Hokey Pokey!
(We were asked not to take close up pictures of the kids.)

Joy and Paul teaching the conversation

Third graders listening carefully

Fourth graders getting ready to move to smaller groups

The Hokey Pokey!


Some of our bilingual volunteers enjoying lunch with us at Ewings.

AGC Summer Concert

Today we had our annual Gospel choir concert. It was early this year so that I could take part in it before I leave for home assignment. It was a fun day! Here is a recap in pictures:

Getting ready for rehearsal.

Rehearsing "Hallelujah, You're Worthy."

Practicing "You are my All in All."

Rehearsing "Call Him"

Gerber daisies from Yuki chan. How did she know I love them?!

Getting ready to go home after dinner.

Bittersweet

A missionary acquaintance is also going on home assignment this summer and has a blog I read. Recently she had a post about what she was looking forward to doing in her home country, Australia, and what she will miss about Japan. As I run in the mornings and as I am packing up I have been thinking about this topic, too. So, here are a few things on my lists...

Things I am looking forward to in America:
*family
*friends
*sharing at my supporting churches about what God is doing in Japan. Truly, I enjoy doing this!
*Mexican food!!!!!!
*being able to understand and be understood
*Mom's mashed potatoes and Dad's burgers on the grill
*fresh veggies from my sister's garden
*not paying $18 for a movie
*worshipping in my heart language

Things I will miss:
*friends
*church planting
*Gospel choir
*onigiri
*nashi, aka Asian pears
*unintentionally being the center of attention (okay, so maybe I won't miss the constant staring!:)
*summer so hot and humid you can't even move without breaking a sweat
*fall colors
*the challenge of understanding and being understood

These lists are just a quick, off the top of my head list. I will add more as I think of more things. Basically, people and food are the theme of what I am looking forward to and what I will miss!

Thought for the day from Oswald

He Himself has said...So we may boldly say... Hebrews 13:5,6
My assurance is to be built upon God's assurance to me. Take a deep spiritual breath. Take hold of the Father's assurance, and then say with strong courage, "I will not fear."

Learning

This year I have been learning, or re-learning, how to play the piano. I took piano lessons for a good chunk of my childhood. However, once I moved away from my parents' house I didn't play much. In an effort to help out at church, I decided it would be good to dust off the keyboard. Our gospel choir director teaches piano seminars and restarted one in Osaka this winter. What a great opportunity to learn how to play for church!

This picture is a joint class to prepare for the concert. But, this is our usual set up, keyboards lined up around the room and our director up front. We gather around him for direct teaching and then go back to our keyboards, which we usually share, to practice what he just taught.



In the past 5 months I have learned an amazing amount of information-some of it I understood and some I didn't! Two of my friends from choir also attend. The class is divided into beginners (me) and experienced players (my two friends from choir) and they meet on alternate weeks. If you had time and the desire, you could attend both classes, which I usually did. I figured the more I put into my head, the more would stick.

Yesterday, May 30, was our concert/recital. 26 of the 29 members were able to attend and play. Since everyone is learning to play for the purpose of accompanying a gospel choir or at church, we basically had a 3 hour praise and worship time. My voice is a little tired today! It was a wonderful time!

I chose "You are My All in All" to play for the concert. (Pretty much the only song I can play right now:) Tomoko Shimada, from AGC, sang the verses in English. The choir sang the chorus and then the whole thing in Japanese.



After the concert, two friends from choir who came to sing and one of the friends from choir who also is learning piano and I went out for dinner and dessert. One of the ladies is a Christian and the other two are listening to Jesus knock on their hearts' doors. We had great conversations!


My dessert!








(I still haven't figured out which flash setting to use on my camera in that kind of lighting so the pictures didn't turn out all that good. Therefore, I only included one picture from the concert.)


**Update: The lady who stopped by the church last Thursday came to Bible study on Wednesday night and is planning to come back again!

Hope

About a week and a half ago I saw some sobering statistics on the news. The Japanese national police agency has released their suicide statistics for the year. I had just turned on the TV and was preparing to watch a movie with a friend. We were talking about other things so I didn't catch the whole story-plus it was in Japanese. But, last week as I was preparing to talk about hope in church on Sunday I remembered that news story and started hunting for the information on line.

Hunting for information in Japanese takes me a while so I started by searching in English. But, since these statistics have just been released, I couldn't find them in English. So, I did a search in Japanese and found exactly what they had shown on the news.

Here are just some of the basic statistics:
Number of suicides in Japan in 2008
32,249
percent male
70%
top age group
50's
top two reasons
health (which includes depression)
economy
number of children
611

I talked with my Japanese Christian friend about these statistics and hope. She said something that really stuck in my heart. "We cannot exist without hope." As I look at this list, the last number, especially, hurts my heart. What could happen to a child, to that many children, that would cause him/her, them, to lose hope? Aren't the children our future? If children are losing hope, what does that say about our future?

BUT...
There is hope! Jesus is our hope. Paul says in Hebrews that 'we have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.' A ship in a storm is safe when it has a good anchor. Just like a ship in a storm, when we go through storms in our lives, if Jesus is our anchor, we are safe. This doesn't mean that because we have an anchor we will never go through storms, but that when we are in the storms, if we trust in Jesus we can be firm and secure. We have hope.
If our anchors are things like money, family, work, material possessions, then what happens when we lose them?

We closed, yesterday, with the hymn "The Solid Rock."
My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus' blood and righteousness
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus' Name

On Christ the solid Rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand

When darkness veils His lovely face
I rest on His unchanging grace
In every high and stormy gale
My anchor holds within the veil

His oath, His covenant, His blood
Support me in the whelming flood
When all around my sould gives way,
He then is all my hope and stay.

When He shall come with trumpet sound,
O may I then in Him be found
Dressed in his righteousness alone,
Faultless to stand before the throne.

On Christ the Solid Rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand

NOW...
The challenge is, how do we share this hope?
How do we share this hope before more people take their lives?
How do we let children know they are loved and give them hope?
These are the questions in my mind today, and, hopefully, always.