02/12/2007AD - Chapel + More Orientation

Date: 2nd December 2007AD
Time: 10:15pm
Location: Ichikawa, OMF Guest House
Current Mood: Very tired

What happened:
So much happened today!
Breakfast in the guest house lounge was simple enough, coffee and toast. We then finished off our introductions from yesterday with prayers for each other then Kenton took us through some things regarding language and translation.

We then went to the 11:30am Chapel service which was interesting. The whole service was run in Japanese, but we had been provided with an English translation earlier. Service was quite conservative with the use of hymns and an organ. Lunch was served after the service.

We then went through some more orientation stuff – religions of Japan and language.

Dinner was at a local Japanese restaurant which was a little less traditional than we expected.


Back for more language and now here.

Looking forward to:
Seeing Sapporo, but have been informed that it will be very cold. Also looking forward to getting more good sleep tonight.

Interesting thing I noticed today:

1. Learnt a great deal of how Japanese have a very syncretistic culture/system of belief – pick and choose the best of each religion in a mish-mash of identity
2. The Japanese language does not have tones – it has expressions, but no tones as such – so it’s hard to tell when a sentence starts and when it finishes
3. The preacher was excellent, despite me not understanding a word he said – rarely used his notes and was quite energetic. The translation of the talk seemed solid, so solid biblical teaching is alive and well.
4. Church growth in Japan has been notoriously slow, and we got our explanation as to why:
   
   
   Christianity was introduced during the 1500’s by a Catholic priest and spread quickly. However, Buddhist monks became alarmed that the Christians were growing in number and were, in a lot of ways, taking revenue away from their services. They asked the powers to get rid of the Christians which they did. The Tokugowa government at the same time instilled a ‘state of fear’ and closed the country to all outside contact. This created a foundation for the country’s people to be generally closed to relationships and opening up – since the Tokugowa government set up each community member to spy on one another. Only has the more recent generation moved away from this inherited baggage and are we seeing growth in the church amongst the youth
   
   
   
5. I am now addicted to Japanese flavoured rice crackers!

Interesting food I ate today:
Lunch: sushi triangles/sesame rice, deep fried calamari, potato wedge and boiled egg – more filling than expected
Dinner: sashimi, quality of the fish was excellent