This is one of a series of emails I sent while preparing and living overseas in Japan, from April 2008 to April 2009.  They are mostly for my own benefit, but also for anyone who may care to read them.  Enjoy 🙂

Hey everyone!

Thanks for your prayers, I definitely felt calm and collected when I shared my testimony last night.  It was my first experience with International Café and it was really great.  We had about 20 people there.  Two of my students came to hear me speak, both from my Tuesday night ladies class – Tomoko and Mika.  Mika, who is 21, brought her friend Hiroka, and we had a great time getting to know each other through our limited vocabulary of each others’ language.  Mika is going to miss our class this next week, and then we have holidays for the two weeks following that (two weeks of Tuesday class…the holidays are the 29th, and the Golden Week which is May 3rd – 6th).  We were both so sad that we wouldn’t see each other for a whole three weeks, so I asked if they’d want to do something over Golden Week, since I don’t have any plans.  They were so excited!  We’re going to go on May 3rd to Karato, to see a ceremony that’s performed.  It’s particular to Shimonoseki, and is Buddhist in origin.  The ceremony starts out on the street and then goes up into a particular shrine…which I can’t go into…so we’ll just watch it from the streets, and then go to the aquarium and maybe to the summit of Hinoyama!  It’s the highest point in the area, besides the Keiko Tower, and I’m so excited to get to go up.  There’s a car that transports you to the top, so no climbing (sad…oh well), and then we’ll check out the view.  I hope it’s a really nice day. 

Mika and her friend Hiroka went to high school in the area called Baiko.  There’s also a college, and Hiroka goes to college there as well.  Baiko is a Christian school, so they teach the Bible and they pray there.  It has a really good reputation, so whenever you mention the school everyone gets a look of astonishment on their face.  So, Baiko is Christian mostly just in origin and practice, but they don’t teach any of the supernatural events in the Bible…so none of Jesus’ miracles and whatnot…maybe not even the resurrection.  So, I don’t know how much you can call it a “Christian” school.  But regardless, Mika has a pretty good knowledge of Bible stories, but I know she’s not a believer.  She’s so friendly, though, and has a unique spirit – a personality that’s not very Japanese…meaning she’s very outgoing and expressive.  Her friend is too.  They are so sweet and I’m looking forward to building a relationship with them.

The rest of Int’l Café was great too.  We had good food and lots of great conversation.  I had several people come up to me, Christians and non-believers alike, saying that they got a lot out of my “life-story.”  I’ve never thought that my testimony spoke much, since I was saved at a young age, and never really experienced doubts in my faith, or fell into anything like drugs or alcohol.  But, the things that the Japanese struggle with, at least the ones I’ve met, is the idea of fitting into a mold of an ideal person, and my biggest problems and difficulties in life have been along those lines – Trying to live up to peoples’ standards instead of focusing on who God wants me to be.  Through the whole thing, it was so neat to feel the veils that the Japanese people put over their face so often to be lifted up.  By the grace of God, many of them heard it and were touched.  I’m so grateful for that.  I hope that it raised some questions in their minds and can lead to really good conversations in the future.  The Japanese are very hard to reach…they’re very stand-off-ish, but they don’t let on that they are.  They will tell you, “Sometime I’ll come to church with you.”  But really they mean, I probably won’t ever, but I don’t want to disappoint you, so I’ll just say maybe.  It makes it very difficult to gauge someone’s receptibility to it. 

Thanks again for the prayers and I hope that you all have a wonderful Sunday and week to come.  Later!!

In Him,
Sarah ><>
aka. – Sarah-san
aka. – Sarah-sensai  🙂

This is one of a series of emails I sent while preparing and living overseas in Japan, from April 2008 to April 2009.  They are mostly for my own benefit, but also for anyone who may care to read them.  Enjoy 🙂

I was going to wait until Saturday to send out an email, but I was so proud of myself with this last post on my blog that I thought you all might like to see what my day was like today.  I think that some of you still have not ventured over to my blog to read my daily (semi-) posts, but I think you should!  Here is the post from today…enjoy!

Here is my attempt at photodocumenting:

Today, I spent four hours working on one lesson plan.  It was crazy.  I found out later that the one student in that class wasn’t going to be there today…sooooooo, I’m just all the more prepared for next week!  Anywho, Thursdays, I have to travel to Kawanaka for my classes.  I hopped onto the

and was sitting there pleasantly when suddenly one of these

decided it wanted to go for a trip as well.  Quickly deducing the travesty of not only taking a bird on the train – without a ticket – but how would that bird find its way back to its home, I grabbed my

and started waving it at the bird trying to frighten it back onto the platform.  Unfortunately, it had been raining all day…thus my need for an umbrella…and I began flicking

around my vicinity, and onto a lady sitting quietly, even dozing off, completely unaware of the fiasco brewing about her.  She glanced up quickly, fast enough to see the pigeon hop back onto the platform and so forgave me of my antic. 

Finally, I was at the church and about to start my class with the junior high kids.  They are a blast and good sports.  In fact, they’re such good sports that I coerced them to pose for a picture.  This was the result:

Pretty well worth the crazy train ride, eh??  O-H!

Thanks!!

In Him,

Sarah ><>

This is one of a series of emails I sent while preparing and living overseas in Japan, from April 2008 to April 2009.  They are mostly for my own benefit, but also for anyone who may care to read them.  Enjoy 🙂

Hey everyone!!

I just wanted to give a quick update and let you know how things are going for me so far this week in Japan.  Let’s see, I last updated by email on Saturday, so I’ll tell you about Sunday.

Sunday, Samantha and I both went up to the Kawanaka Church, which is the main church building.  It’s called Kawanaka, because that’s the street name on which it’s located.  For the most part, everyone here refers to it as Kawanaka…so I think I’m going to do that same and try to save on some confusion.  🙂  We went to Kawanaka, where I got to meet most of the church membership.  It’s not a huge church, but the building is small and makes it feel like there are many more people.  They are so nice though.  I felt like I was breaking every cultural rule out there, and yet they all smiled and bowed and nodded to me just the same.  Pastor Tony had me get up and sing a solo.  I was going to sing How Great Thou Art…thinking it a pretty easy one to have music for…but we couldn’t find a hymnal anywhere!  So, I had to go through a book real fast and pick out O the Wonderful Cross.  It all worked out, but the communication difficulties were amusing.  One good thing is that music speaks beyond language, which is probably why it’s the only thing other than ourselves that we’ll take to heaven with us.

After church, Samantha showed me another grocery store near Kawanaka, and when we got back to the church to wait for the train, the Broaddus’ came in and invited us to come have lunch with them.  Brian and Yoko have two very energetic daughters, Naomi (6) and Sara (3).  Sara follows Samantha around like a shadow, and it seems that Naomi and I are going to be very good friends.  After lunch, Yoko helped Samantha prepare for her Japanese exam and I babysat the girls.  The first picture link at the bottom of this email will show you the fruit of that time spent.  They are fun.  🙂

Monday was pretty busy as I signed my contract of service at Kawanaka in front of the church leadership.  So, I am now permanently stuck for a year!  It’s so much fun though…but I was intimidated being in front of the Japanese membership and trying to answer their questions through Taka, the Christian Ministries Director, and Tony.  Tony has a wry sense of humor too, that is going to take some getting used to, and he sprinkles puns in whenever he can.  Most are groaners.  🙂  It’s going to be a great year…hah.  On Monday, I also took the train by myself twice!  Samantha and I had dinner at the Haug’s (Pastor’s family) that night…real Japanese food that I kind of liked.  🙂  I’m getting used to it.  Tony’s daughter, Tiffany, is up on spring break from high school in Chang Mai, Thailand.  She is so much fun…a goofball.  During the silence after one of Tony’s jokes, she pulled out the “awkward turtle” (those of you in Connect should know what this is…the others, just ask someone in Connect…hah)…and I knew that we’d get along just fine!

Today, we had our teacher’s meeting, and then Brian and I went through the teaching material and methods.  We also discussed my students and the lives they lead.  As I learn more about them, I’ll share with you all.  Right now, I’m still learning names.  I had two classes today that I observed.  The first, Brian taught…and they were 2nd/3rd grade girls, three of them.  They are so adorable!  Rinka, is one of them and she has some attention problems.  Despite that, she is an avid learner and picks up English so quickly!  She probably understands the English better than either of the other girls, and she’s younger than them.  The other girls are Ayumi and Mizuho.  Ayumi came late to the material, so she’s still behind a little from the other girls.  Mizuho is so sweet and quiet…I’m so excited to get to teach these little ones.

The second class I observed was taught by Samantha.  It includes Nakayama-san, who lives here at the Center with us.  She’s one of the church leadership and so sweet.  Brian calls her Anna, and she laughs whenever she hears it.  The other ladies are older as well, and they are Reiko-san and Tomoko-san.  We had a visitor too, a 21 yr old girl named Mika.  I’m not 100% sure, but I think she might be a Christian.  She brought a Bible with her, and she seemed to already know the story of the Good Samaritan.  It’s hard to tell who are believers or not here.  Anyways, she liked class a lot and is going to come back.  I’m hoping that I can spend a lot of time getting to know her.  She seems like a lot of fun. 

Well, that’s all for tonight.  I’ve included links to photo albums for you all to check out.  The second one has pictures of the Center here and some other things so you can see where I am living.  It’s not anything like the conditions in CN…much more clean and organized.  🙂  Also, I want to remind you, I will make sure that I send out, at least, weekly updates by email…but so that I don’t weigh down your mailboxes, I am keeping a daily blog.  The web address is:  Thanks for all your prayers and encouragement and wonderful emails.  I really appreciate them.  Much love in Him,

Sarah ><>

Links to photo albums have expired and been removed.