Date: Tuesday, 20th November 2007AD – 11 days and counting
Time: 2:40pm
Location: Brisbane, Australia
Current Mood: Apprehensive
What happened:
Still preparing for the trip ahead. There is so much to do at the moment that I feel swamped. Picking away at the iceberg slowly today and has been fruitful – I’ve finally done up the prayer requests for our blog and Facebook friends.
Looking forward to:
…getting there! By then all the stresses of the things to do now can be dropped and we can focus on the upcoming mission.
Interesting thing I noticed today:
Have been reading through a booklet titled ‘Countdown to Mission’ by Keith Appelgate from Kenmore Baptist. He notes, with great insight, on the Day 14 devotion that the trip ‘seems to be galloping towards you’. That it certainly does!
20/11/2007AD - 11 Days and Counting
24/11/2007AD - 6 Days to go
Date: 24 November 2007 (6 days to go)
Time: 1:30pm
Location: Home
Current Mood: Tired
What happened:
Last night it dawned on us again how soon we would be leaving for Japan. In some ways I feel completely unprepared for the trip. I haven’t mentally prepared myself for the task ahead, nor prayed nearly enough about it.
I feel tired, and now I have to go and vote for the Australian Federal Election. There still feels like so much to do and so little time.
I also feel like I talk much about how I’m thinking things through, when really I haven’t been.
Looking forward to:
Getting all that we need to do done before we leave. Also looking forward to resting.
Interesting thing I noticed today:
Election day was quieter than I thought it would be.
30/11/2007AD - Liftoff!
Date: 30 November 2007 AD
Time: 7:30pm
Location: Sydney International Airport – Gate 33
Current Mood: Tired
What happened:
At the Brisbane domestic terminal we met Brad’s family. Really good to see them and greatly encouraged that they would turn out to send him off – compared to the Asian families which left us at the front door and waved us off.
After an uneventful plane trip we touched down at the Sydney domestic terminal and quickly ran into Ivan Choe, who I understand travels to Melbourne weekly for work and flies ‘home’ to Sydney on Friday afternoons. He caught us as we were walking along and we had dinner with him.
Now have another few hours before the flight out and I’m feeling both tired, yet relaxed. My feet hurt and are sweaty thanks to the super-warm boots I have – which is a good sign for how they’ll handle in the coldness of Japan!
Looking forward to:
Touching down, getting some sleep, testing out the camera in the cold.
Interesting thing I noticed today:
Should have broken in my boots earlier…but oh well.
Interesting food I ate today:
In an effort to avoid anything Asian, Steph and I tucked into some ‘Red Rooster’. Mel also bought a dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts which was a nice finish. I think they’ll also serve us supper and breakfast on the plane.
01/12/2007AD - Touchdown
Date: 1 December 2007AD
Time: 9:40pm
Location: Ichikawa, Japan
Current Mood: Exhausted, but excited!
What happened:
The overnight flight was relatively uneventful. However, something in the meal they served didn't agree with me and made it's way back up. Not pleasant, but at least I felt better afterwards. Didn’t get much sleep either and was awoken around 4am for the QANTAS staff to serve breakfast. Attempted to watch ‘The Simpsons Movie’ but was cut short by about 30 minutes as the plane was 'preparing for landing'.
We landed at Narita Airport around 6am where we met Kenton Samuel for the first time. He looked remarkably different to the photo he sent via his ‘Japan Team’ email…probably because he no longer had small dreadlocks and also because he had glasses on.
Kenton hails from Britain and has the same sense of humour as Aussies do, which means we get his jokes. We then met Steve Weemes who is an American and a little bit more forward in his comments, but I think that comes with the turf. Spent the next few moments waiting to meet the Sydney team who had lost themselves at the airport.
Packed our bags then took the train to our Ichikawa* residence. Train ride was approximately 1 hour long with some interesting scenery along the way – despite the windows fogging up 10 minutes into the ride.
Went through some basic orientation for the day including finance, emergency procedures, and general things about the OMF vision. Struggled to stay awake during the latter due to lack of energy and, as I found out later, the coffee I was having was decaf…
Highlight of the day was going on a Cultural Scavenger Hunt which lead us through the heart of Ichikawa’s district. It was a really great time to get to see the city for ourselves and make various observations.
Dinner was had at an Italian/Fusion restaurant chain which was pretty average, but cheap. Later that evening Brad, Jay and myself went looking for shoes for me (my boots were killing me all day) but this didn’t eventuate into anything unfortunately.
Looking forward to:
- Getting some good rest tonight
- Church service tomorrow morning
- Dinner tomorrow evening at a nice Japanese restaurant
- Not all Japanese look the same – I was genuinely surprised at this (though I shouldn’t have been!). Japanese come in all shapes and sizes and I was surprised to seem some look alikes throughout the day (Mark Wee, Andrew Young’s sister, Steve Chong…)
- Hardly anyone uses their car horns despite all the traffic on the roads – apparently a sign of strong self-control/face
- Lots of people ride bicycles – including very old women and women in their mid-40’s who seem to be done up so well
- Engrish is real and common!
- Lots of vending machines with little cans/bottles (150mls), apparently it’s considered rude and lacking in self-control to eat/drink on the go. So the vending machines have small bottles designed for people to drink on the spot and throw away before walking off.
- Lots and lots of recycling – three specific bins for ‘plastics’, ‘burnable’, ‘non-burnable’
Interesting food I ate today:Goyoza – Japanese dumplings which weren’t as tasty as ones I’ve had back home in Brisbane
Teriyaki Burger – which consisted of a burger bun and teriyaki flavoured patty
Hamburg steak with crumbed shrimp – very average as the ‘steak’ was actually just a burger patty
*Ichikawa is situated South-East of Tokyo City, approximately 20 minutes by train from the city centre.
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:
- 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
- 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
- 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.
- 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 - 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
03/12/2007AD - Ichikawa to Sapporo
Date: 3rd December 2007AD
Time: 11:20pm
Location: Sapporo, OMF Guest House
Current Mood: Tired and excited!
What happened:
After a quick breakfast we met with various OMF missionaries from around Japan to pray for OMF and it’s work around the world. I had a chance to meet with a couple –
Peter and Janet Dalmond – who will be working in Sapporo shortly (they come in a few days). It was a highly encouraging time of prayer and sharing and meeting others from around Japan whilst getting in on God’s work.
We then took our bags for a long ‘stroll’ to the train station: very tiring work carrying 20kg+ bags up stairs and on the train. Had a cheap lunch at the airport – chicken curry, which had a scant serving of chicken. Flight to Sapporo via JAL (Japan Air-Lines) was relatively unpacked. Slept for a bit and we landed around 4:00pm, but by this time the sun was already setting and it felt much later to us. Met Richard East and was surprised to see how young he was!
Moved into the guest house in Sapporo, which was recently acquired and we were one of the first groups to be using the facilities. Also met Stephanie, a girl from the UK also on a short-term mission (5 weeks) taking care of Missionary Kids, and Manuella, the daughter of Wolfgang (director of OMF in Japan). Manuella and Stephanie served us dinner of Ramen noodles with crispy bacon, boiled egg and seaweed – which was very yummy!
Later that evening we all piled into Richard’s van to head to the local supermarket. 
We practically bought out the whole store, but in reality the shopping carts only made it feel this way because they were tiny!
Showered, had some dessert, chatted with Mel and Jay for a little while, then went to bed.
Looking forward to:
- Beginning our work doing some leaflet dropping tomorrow
- Snow!
- Meeting the people of Sapporo
- All the people on our flight had either khaki or black coloured jackets
- There is a great sense of harmony and order to Japanese society – hard to pin down exactly what that is, but I don’t ever get the sense that things might go crazy at any given moment
- When the temperature drops below 0 degrees Celsius, it all feels the same = cold!
- Serving sizes for meals in Japan tend to be smaller than I’m use to
Chicken Curry – airport food – expensive, but nasty
Ramen noodles with crispy bacon, seaweed and boiled egg - Sapporo is famous for Ramen, and even though this was an 'instant' variety it was still very delicious.
04/12/2007AD - Leaflet Drop
Date: 4th December 2007AD
Time: 10:00pm
Location: Sapporo, OMF Guest House
Current Mood: Tired, relieved, overwhelmed
What happened:
Began the morning with devotions from Ruth 1, which I shared. I focused on God’s sovereignty
despite the tragic circumstances and how Ruth reminds us that God is always at work. How this would prove so true later this evening.
We then went leaflet dropping around the Satsunae Lighthouse church. We were paired off and I went off briefly by myself at some apartment buildings. Richard met with me shortly afterwards and we hit another block of homes. I got to meet a few people and also handed them some leaflets.
Richard and I got back around 12:30pm and chatted a little whilst we waited for the other pairs to get back. Come 2:00pm and we finally headed off to the OMF headquarters to have lunch – which was a mix of packet soup, bread and goyoza. We then had more meeting and planning stuff to do. Felt extremely tired throughout the whole meeting.
Peter and Mary then went to dinner with Steve and Saeko Manders, whilst the rest of us went to a local Jap restaurant for dinner. It was like a canteen – pick up your food on a tray and pay for it at the end. I’m glad that I ordered the large rice, as my condiment portions were, 
again, rather small. After dinner we then went to a nearby 100yen store to pick up 'hand warmers' (little heat packs for our pockets), which would be used for tomorrow’s leaflet drop.
I also had a very scary episode of having lost my wallet, only to find it later in my computer bag. Praise God! My wonderful wife redirected my anxiety and annoyance back to the devotion from this morning. How truly wonderful she is :)
Looking forward to:
I am looking forward to getting some rest and doing something other than meetings and planning. We’ve had almost four days of just meetings and planning, so it was good this morning to get out, but want to do that more. I also have to stop thinking of this mission as a holiday, since we are doing work!
Interesting thing I noticed today:
- I’m totally addicted to all the ricecracker snacks
- Japanese people tend to eat a heck of a lot of processed foods – and consequently also have tonnes of wasted packaging
- Japanese food sizing is also much less than I’m expecting or hoping for – I should drink more water to compensate
Nothing really of note. I had a Katsu Chicken tonight which was alright, but nothing spectacular.