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A Chance to Love

Yesterday I spent the afternoon at a coffee shop here in town. While I was there a middle school boy came up to talk to me. To be honest he was a bit strange in the way he approached me, and I was busy working on something “important” at the time. I wasn’t mean to the kid at all I was just indifferent. I had some polite small talk, but didn’t engage at all on an emotional level.

Here was my inner dialogue. “This kid is kind of strange, and I don’t really need him for anything in my life. He is not someone I can hang out with a lot, and he doesn’t really fit with any of my classes. Also, he is pretty socially awkward and the truth is I have enough of those folks in my life already. What I really need is some high functioning young Japanese men to invest my time and energy in, not some squirrelly 7th grader.

Of course my thoughts were not that blatantly rude or harsh, but that is definitely the reality of what they were based on. Pretty sick stuff huh. I’m thankful that God quickly convicted me of how off I was in that situation. And hopefully I will be able to engage and love this kid well next time I see him. (Minamata is a small town and I will see him again)

I really do need to be less hung up on searching for future leaders of the church here and just be more effective in loving the people that God brings into my life. The problem isn’t that this kid wasn’t cool enough to warrant my time; the truth is that I was to arrogant to give it.

Engaged

Don't worry its not me that's engaged, but I have recently witnessed something very interesting in Japanese culture. I was talking to a friend the other day and I asked her how her boyfriend was doing. She told me they were engaged. I hadn't seen her for a few weeks and I knew it was a serious relationship so I wasn't that surprised. I asked the obvious question, "When did he propose?." She told me, as if it was no big deal, that he had proposed back in May. (It's the end of August and this is a person I see almost every week.) She proceeded to tell me that it still wasn't public knowledge and not to tell anyone.

At first I figured that this was unique to her situation so I asked a few more questions. It turns out that this is very normal in Japanese culture. I laughed knowing my friends back in the states would never be able to keep the fact they were engaged a secret for 3 days, let alone 3 months.

I like happy endings...

Michael Shipman might deny it, but i really do like stories with happy endings.

Most days I have Japanese homework. Part of this homework includes reading stories. I have been struck recently by how many of these stories have sad endings. Basically you will have character, come to came about him, then horrible things will happen to the character and then the story ends. The consistent moral seems to be life is hard and that can’t be helped.

This is in stark contrast to most of the stories I remember as a child, there was almost always a happy ending. And the times when a main character dies, justice was still served. Today for whatever reason I was thinking and wondering if there is a connection between happy endings and the fact that the gospel has been a regular part of our culture for the last 2000 years or so in the west. Regardless of how you feel about the religious state of our nation or Europe, you can’t deny that the gospel has been a major part of our culture for a long time. In Japanese religion there is no idea of restoration, salvation, or a God coming to save the day. You basically try and keep the Gods from being upset with you and hope that they will help you get what you want.

I am not a anthropologist or a literary historian, but there seems to be a connection to me. Those of you who have visited other parts of the world, I would be happy to hear if any of you have had similar experiences with local stories.

Dilemma of the Day

Is it ok for me to do Garden work at the local shrine. Here is why I ask. In Japanese small towns they generally don’t have grounds crews, street sweepers and things like that which we take for granted in the states. So every couple of months my neighborhood meets to clean the streets and other public areas in our neighborhood.

In the past I haven’t made it to this exciting morning of fun because I didn’t know when it was. But it is a good way to get to know the neighbors so I have wanted to go. I found out it was this morning so I got up, went outside, and started working. Well I found myself in the group responsible for cleaning the local shrine. So I helped. But I must admit, it was a bit strange. But I am pretty sure I did the right thing.

Anyway, overall it was a good time with the neighbors. They all greeted me warmly and warned me about the typhoon coming this afternoon. With lots of fun gesturing I must add. And I am actually looking forward to next time.

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.