Give Your Enemies Your Underwear

This is why I should always read a text in Japanese before I have a non-Christian student read it out loud to the class during a chapel time. Last Tuesday we were talking about Luke chapter 6 when Jesus says to love your enemies. I had done my prep in English and had not read the Japanese version of the text before class. One of my students was reading the passage in Japanese and suddenly burst out laughing and said that she could not do this. I did not understand until I read the passage in Japanese.

Luke 6:29b-If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic.

And in Japanese: 上着を奪い取る者には、下着も拒んではいけません。

下着 means underwear. So where in English it says to give your enemy your tunic, in Japanese it literally says to give your enemies your underwear. That may be a little different than what Jesus had in mind. Me giving my enemies my dirty underwear would probably not help expand the kingdom of God, but it would be pretty funny.

Church was good this week. We had a buddy of mine from a nearby university come for worship. 5 people were there, making it our largest gathering to date. And 3 of the 5 were men, also the first time we have had more men that women. Average age… 24. Please pray that God would raise up a vibrant church of young people here in Okuchi

I had a bad day

Luckily nobody was hurt. I was driving from a meeting to an English class Thursday evening and was involved in a car accident. As I was driving a car started to pull out in front of me. I looked at that car for a second to see what it was going to do. When I looked back forward the car in front of me had stopped to turn. I did not have room to stop myself so I swerved up onto the sidewalk to avoid the car. Unfortunately there was a curb and metal pole waiting for me. It destroyed the front left side of my car.

The story does get better from there. The man I almost hit was very kind and took me into his office to wait for the police. Also, I was 2 hours from home and worried that my Japanese was not going to cut it. Amazingly, my pastor and his wife were shopping about 10 minutes away, so I called them and they came to help out. We resolved everything with the police and I was driven home late last night. My car was totaled in the accident. So Asian Access and I are in the process of deciding what to do about transportation. Please pray that I would not spend too much time beating myself up, and that everything will be resolved quickly.

Visiting a friend at the Art Museum

Wow, this is my first real post on my official ministry blog. The reason for this blog is to sort out what is Robert just being silly and what is relevant to my ministry partners.

This last weekend, after church, me and the two women I work with went to a art park nearby. One of my students has begun working there as a part time job.

The exhibit in the picture is a by a man who makes machines to play musical instruments. He is famous all over Japan so we dressed up in a costume like his and took our picture.

The art museum’s web page

Today I will be having lunch with one of my friends here. Then it is 3 English classes tonight.