Date: 12th December 2007AD
Time: 11:00pm
Location: OMF Guest House, Sapporo
Current Mood: Feeling good
What happened:
Again had most of this morning and afternoon off. Steph went off to a women’s meeting and I stayed home chewing on Matt 3 trying to do a bible study for the SIC English bible study.
Devotion in the morning was good. We finally finished Ruth and I finished it off by applying it through Christ and how we are included in God’s plans for salvation. It was great!
For Lunch Brad and I went down to the local Seicomart and picked up some pre-packed boxes. I had a rice noodle thing with some cheap popcorn chicken type of addition. Yum!
When Steph returned home we looked at the study together and decided to change things around – so we looked through Mark 1 instead. The shape of the study was quite different to what I'm normally use to. Instead of the more inductive styled questions and answers the study we were asked to write consisted mostly of comprehension type questions (ie - What gifts did the wise men bring to Jesus? How many gifts were there? etc).
A quick dinner of noodles that Uncle Peter had bought, and we headed off with Alaric, Brad and Fanny (a girl who arrived this morning) to SIC for the English bible study. The games and study went relatively well. There was plenty of discussion in our bible study group and I got into a very interesting discussion with Shota - a regularl non-Christian member to the SIC bible study - about the different meanings of various Hebrew words (ie, 'Bethlehem' = 'house of bread', 'Israel' = '(to) struggle with God'). I was glad to have spent some time meditating on the book of Ruth as I was able to get into this discussion in the first place! And prayerfully I hope I was able to point Shota back to Jesus Christ as the one who 'struggled with God' in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross, but was never disobedient - the true Israel.
Looking forward to:
Tomorrow is another relatively light day, though some of us will be cooking cookies.
Interesting thing I noticed today:
- There’s hardly any homeless people on the streets – apparently most of them are in the middle of the middle island of Japan and are quite hidden away due to the shame factor
- I learnt that there are hardly any food vending machines because there’s so many combini’s (convenience stores)!
Interesting food I ate today:For lunch: rice noodle type of thing which had three prawns in it – then added some chicken stuff which reminded me of KFC popcorn chicken.
Dinner: packet noodles – which didn’t have a sachet for seasoning, instead you just add water! Was ok.
Lunch was sushi from a local supermarket, which was great. Then afterwards Steph and I headed to the 100yen store and Shoe Plaza to have a look around. I found some stationary items for myself and Bruce Chau and finally found some ear muffs. We also stopped by a local toy store to pick up a present for Lawrence – a small Gundam Wing figurine.
Tonight was our ‘Australian Dinner’. We served up pumpkin soup, damper, a Chinese salad and Pavlova. It was well received by the Japanese people who came. Jay gave his testimony which was such an encouragement to hear. Praise God for the way He sovereignly chooses sinners to repent and come into His kingdom!
