Gracious Beginnings
Well, we've completed a month (just over now) of The Journey. Much has taken place. It feels sometimes like we've been here much longer. As you read through this blog post, we pray that you are encouraged by the fact that God can take our ordinary, struggling offerings of ourselves and turn it into something beautiful by His gracious power. He takes us in our incapability and somehow creates something meaningful. Our God is the God of the impossible and improbable. He is gracious, mighty and faithful.
Making Friends
Joining in the Flower Viewing festival (ohanami) was definitely a cultural highlight of this month. We had recently made friends at an outreach event with a relatively new Japanese Christian lady. She very kindly scheduled out her day to play "tour guide" and take us to some very spectacular cherry blossom locations. It was great getting to know more about her and her story. I would say she's the sort of person that God's joy just naturally radiates from. We feel very blessed that God brought her into our lives as our friend.
We have continued to connect more with our Japanese church family. They have warmly accepted us and all our language shortcomings. One lady even created a prayer book for us. It contains common sentence patterns and phrases for praying in Japanese, including the English translations. It is to help us learn to pray in Japanese and we are able to write down anything we would like to be able to say in English, and she will translate it into Japanese for us.
We have a neighbour (for privacy, we'll call her Mrs S) we have been getting to know. Every now and then Mrs S comes and visits. She is an older lady, not yet a Christian. Our first meeting resulted in her telling us she has no need for God/ god or any religion. Yet, knowing we are Christians, she still chooses to engage with us. We have traded soup for Japanese pickles, coffee sachets for ANZAC biscuits, been shopping and out for lunch. Each time she asks us more questions about Christianity- the "religion" she apparently has no need for. We are excited by her interest. We are praying for the opportunity to invite her to church and our next challenge is literally learning how to say in Japanese "Would you like to come to church? There is no pressure to participate. If you don't like it you don't have to come again. You will not magically get converted or be pressured to be converted by anyone," just to maybe break down some of the skepticism and nervousness we sense there may be around what really happens beyond those four walls.
英会話　English Conversation Class ministry
Wednesday, April 13 was the start of our English Conversation Class (ECC) ministry. We are calling it a ministry because yes, the children are learning some English but most importantly, they are learning about Jesus. On this particular Wednesday, a mum and her 3 children were walking past and had stopped to look at our sign at the front of the house, advertising English classes. The Japanese dialogue went something like this (English translation written for your ease of reading).
Mum: We're interested. When are the classes?
Rod (our host who was finishing up some maintenance work): You're the first person. When would you like to have classes?
Mum: Saturday mornings?
Me: Sure.
Contact details exchanged. Done. That was basically that.
We had commitments that coming Saturday but we were scheduled for the first session to take place on the 23rd of April.
On Saturday, April 16, the doorbell rang. We had visitors. The eldest daughter (9 years old. For privacy's sake we will call her "Hannah") of the family we had met had brought me a letter. She wanted to know if she was allowed to invite friends to English class and how many she could invite. How exciting!
On Tuesday, April 19, the doorbell rang. Hannah was at the door again. This time, she had come to show me the invitations her and her mum had made for English class with the time on them. She wanted to know if the details were correct and if it was ok if she used them to hand out to her friends and invite them to come along!! A BIG yes!! Nothing like having the locals help with your letterbox dropping evangelism!
Saturday, April 23, came around and we were ready....well as ready as we could be. We felt nervous and were still wondering how it would all come together. How were we supposed to communicate in Japanese fluently and effectively enough to actually teach the Bible and English? Hannah, her younger sister and mum came at 9:30am. Hannah had brought a friend too. We had thought we better start at the beginning and used the "Jesus Storybook Bible" (a Japanese version- so cool!) to explain briefly what the Bible is and also tell the story of Creation. The children were mesmerised! They had not heard the story before. They hadn't even considered how the world came to be let along an all-powerful God creating it all just through speaking. After this, we learnt some words in English from the story, played a game and did a craft. The hour passed and the children asked if they could return the following week. Of course!! Not 5 minutes after leaving, the doorbell rang again. Hannah had found 6 more friends from who knows where and had brought them to our house to meet us!! We had made little snack bags and thankfully we had over prepared for the session because, when these 6 extra children rocked up we had just enough left to give them each one! It was like God knew or something! The children were keen to come the following week. We would have to wait and see how many were able to come.
On Tuesday, April 26, we were coming back from an afternoon walk around the neighbourhood when we met ANOTHER family. They got our attention and told us they were keen to also join the classes. There was a catch though. Unfortunately, they wouldn't be able to make any classes in the morning as the children had other commitments. We asked if they could maybe find 2 or 3 other children who wanted to join and then we would run an afternoon session.
On Friday, April 29, I checked in with both families separately via LINE message. Hannah's mum said she was expecting there would be 4 primary aged children, 1 kindergartener and 2 adults attending. The mum of the second family (we'll call her Rita) said she had made an error and they actually were available this Saturday because their other commitments were taking a break. Rita also asked if she could join in. Of course! We did the math: 6 primary aged children, 1 kindergartener and 3 adults potentially attending. An increase of 250% in a week! We had some furniture rearranging to do to fit everyone.
Today (Saturday 30th) we didn't quite get the numbers we expected. We had 3 primary aged children, 1 kindergartener and 2 adults. Still, 50% increase from the week previously and we were excited that God had brought us a new family to connect with! Also, Hannah's mum was happy for classes to move to the afternoon. So, as of next week, we will have an afternoon class instead of a morning one and Rita's family will be able to come (plus we heard whispers of other children perhaps being able to attend the afternoon session). Praise God!!
We are not hiding His story and He is faithfully bringing people our way. It is such a privilege to be used by God with our broken language skills. None of that matters to Him because He chose us in our current state, knowing full well what our capabilities were and weren't. These things don't matter to God because He's the God of the impossible anyway. We just have to say "yes." What is God inviting you to do that seems impossible, unlikely, too many unknowns/ questions? Will you say "yes" anyway?
Learning God's Way in Uncertainty
This whole Journey so far, even before we got here, has been filled with uncertainties. Sometimes you feel like you're just moving but not really sure where you're headed, you're just holding onto God and trusting that He will lead you where you're supposed to be. Oswald Chambers in his devotional book 'My Utmost, for His Highest,' makes the following point:
"Our natural inclination is to be so precise- trying always to forecast accurately what will happen next- that we look upon uncertainty as a bad thing. We think that we must reach some predetermined goal, but that is not the nature of the spiritual life. The nature of the spiritual life is that we are certain in our uncertainty.
...Certainty is the mark of the commonsense life- gracious uncertainty is the mark of the spiritual life. To be certain of God means that we are uncertain in all our ways, not knowing what tomorrow may bring. This is generally expressed with a sigh of sadness, but it should be an expression of breathless expectation. We are uncertain of the next step, but we are certain of God. As soon as we abandon ourselves to God and do the task He has placed closest to us, He begins to fill our lives with surprises.
...We are not uncertain of God, just uncertain of what He is going to do next. If our certainty is only in our beliefs, we develop a sense of self-righteousness, become overly critical, and are limited by the view that our beliefs are complete and settled. But when we have the right relationship with God, life is full of spontaneous, joyful uncertainty and expectancy. Jesus said, "Believe also in Me" (John 14:1), not, "Believe certain things about Me." Leave everything to Him and it will be gloriously and graciously uncertain how He will come in- but you can be certain that He will come. Remain faithful to Him."
What seems impossibly uncertain to you? Are you willing to trust that God will come regardless of how uncertain your situation may be? Are you willing to live in a way that declares you serve a God of the impossible?
Praise God for:
The opportunities we've had to connect with Mrs S
The beginning of the English Conversation Class (ECC) ministry
Connections with new families in the area
Pray for:
Mrs S and an opportunity to invite her to church
The messages at ECC ministry to be planted deep in hearts and to be the messages that sow seeds of transformation in families
Growth of our language skills and abilities
More families to come to ECC
Interest from others (e.g. young adults, adults, etc.) who want to join an ECC class where we can structure a session around a simple English and Japanese Bible study
