05/12/2007AD - Lost

Date: 5th December 2007AD
Time: 11:55pm
Location: Sapporo, OMF Guest House
Current Mood: Tired but excited

What happened:
Another good morning’s devotion and prayer, people sharing their thoughts on Ruth and how great it is.

We then went leaflet dropping again for most of the morning. Brad and Richard and I got lost on the way to our designated 'drop' area and only found our way when we realised we were further North of the map than intended – this caused problems with the areas we were leafleting since we overlapped a little between the pairs. Lunch was from a Japanese equivalent of a ‘takeaway’ store, but of better quality than in Aus!

We then headed into town afterwards to have a coffee at the Radio tower in the middle of the city. Coffee was had at a restaurant which was almost metaphoric of Japanese identity – a grab bag of different things from around the world. We were, however, treated to a rather large coffee serving size as well as a great view of the Christmas lights as the evening light faded away.

We then took a brisk 20 minute walk to the Sapporo International Church, stopping by a ‘Lawsons’ convenience store to pick up dinner. We went to the SIC to help out with their English Corner type of ministry which included a bible study run in English. It was a highly encouraging time of getting to know new people, playing games and studying God’s word together. A timely encouragement in what has been a rather hectic couple of days.

Looking forward to:
Getting more rest and some time off together as a team. I’m also looking forward and getting excited about the Saturday night event (despite the concerns about rehearsals), and also excited about the possibility of returning to the SIC English speaking ministry.

Interesting thing I noticed today:

1. Whilst on our letter box drop, I noticed that hardly any Japanese people rug up to the extent as we did: jackets and scarves, yes – but hardly any beanies, no ear-muffs and there were plenty of high school girls wearing mini-skirts! Freezing!
2. Japanese people tend to look emotionless as they walk down the street. I have two theories for this – 1: The freezing cold weather has frozen people’s faces so it hurts to move or show expression. 2: most people feel a sense of hopelessness in their lives.
3. All the houses look the same

Interesting food I ate today:
Not much to report again: lunch was a beef katsudon – beef with egg and rice, which was nice and cheap.
Dinner was soba noodles from the convenience store with one morsel of pork, nice, but average.

12/12/2007AD More Rest, SIC Bible Study

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:

1. 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
2. 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.