Picture Postcards to Japan

Oct 2011 Update

2011-10-11T02:35:00.000-07:00

It is kinda by accident that I am writing this.
Because Joy has to use the macbook for her work, I am now on the iBook G4.
We don't use this computer anymore since 2009 because we spilled water on the keypad, and now the computer goes beserk by renaming all our files whenever we turn it on.
Now, we have to use a friend's old external keyboard to do any work.

I digressed. Anyway, links of our friends' blogs are conveniently tabbed on the iBook's firefox browser, so I visited a dozen blogs.
Verdict: Nobody really blogs anymore.
Why: Most of the blogs (approx. 80%) have not been updated from 6 months to over a year.
This blog is no exception. It takes time to read blogs, let alone update them.

I digressed again. Here's a little update to the few who would still come to visit.
1) Two and a half years have passed since our return from Japan.
2) We quit our day jobs to concentrate on our bible seminary studies and church ministry, in preparation to serve in Japan again some day.
3) Grace is coming to 10 months old. Her hobbies are blowing bubbles with her mouth, displacing objects within a 1-metre radius, and crawling with one trailing leg.

Baby Grace

2011-01-04T04:56:00.000-08:00

Grace Lau Hui En born:
23 Dec 2010,
1928hrs.

At birth, she was:
3.26kg,
51cm long,
34cm head circumference,
blood group A+

Grace is a fairly active baby from day 1. Her eyes open and started darting around right from birth. This was her still draped in her birth towel.

Grace had to be kept under photo therapy for 3 days because of jaundice. She has to don eye protectors during her 'sun-tanning'sessions. This is panda-eyed Gracie after one such session.

Grace is one milk guzzler. From the 3rd day, she drinks 90ml of milk, equivalent to what babies drink at 3-4 weeks old. She was 12 days old when this photo was taken.

Parenthood has been an exciting adventure so far.

Punggol Field

2010-05-02T01:52:00.000-07:00

For the past month, we've been settling into our new apartment in 173A Punggol Field (See red star above for our location). After being in what I term "HDB purgatory" for five months (definition: selling our apartment too early, buying our new one too late and spending the interim period living out of our suitcases in mother-in-law's home from Nov 2009 to March 2010), we finally moved into our new home.

Moving house is an experience that should not be repeated for health reasons. Buying furniture, electrical and household appliances while trying to balance work, studies and ministry commitments is not an easy feat. Furthermore, we had the most unpleasant experience with Singnet when they left us without access to Internet or phone connection for almost 3 weeks. After a long period of waiting, planning and coordinating, we were more relieved than happy to move in.

We are starting to enjoy our new home. Now we look forward to spending lazy Saturday afternoons each week in our quiet apartment, away from the maddening crowds and sound of heavy traffic. Despite the inconveniences we had to go through, we remind ourselves that the Lord provided the place for us, and are thankful for our home in Punggol.

The residential estate of Punggol, which we call 'Jalan Ulu Northeast' is still very 'Ulu' (remote) despite the great hype it generated when it started 7 years ago. As of now, Punggol still only has one church, one temple, one shopping complex (Punggol Plaza) and one petrol station (SPC. I think every Punggol resident carries a DBS or POSB credit card only to enjoy its discounts).

The government is taking bigger steps to develop the area by proposing a waterway across the estate. According to reports, it should be completed in 1-2 years time. Hopefully, we would have more amenities in Punggol by then.

Japan- The strange country

2010-03-17T08:45:00.000-07:00

Here is an excellent piece of work that focuses the many issues that characterize the country of Japan. I hear it was done by a pastor for his graduation thesis. The video is narrated in Japanese but it is simple enough to be understood by everyone. Do take a look.

Japan - The Strange Country (Japanese ver.) from Kenichi on Vimeo.

Anime & memories

2010-02-16T08:36:00.000-08:00

I (Daniel) chanced upon an animated movie titled "秒速5センチメートル" (English:"5 centimeters per second"). It is a coming of age love story about a boy in three different stages of his life. What struck me wasn't the storyline (although it was quite sad and moving), but the realism of the artwork and how accurately it portrayed life in a typical Japanese suburb and city. Watch the music video featuring clips from the movie below. You may be able to catch a bit of the plot here:

What happened after watching that show was a stream of memories flooding in from our time in Japan. I couldn't help but think back on the everyday scenes that were a part of us for 2 years: apartment buildings along narrow alleyways, roads lined with electric poles, sakura trees in full bloom, train station platforms, railway barrier crossings etc. These are cerebral picture postcards etched in our minds, and that movie triggered a landslide of them. We suddenly miss Japan...heaps.

2009

2010-01-01T00:49:00.000-08:00

The past year was a lot like a football match: it is one comprising of 2 halves. It was only 7 months ago in April that we were still serving in Japan helping out in the Tokorozawa & Ikebukuro house churches and running kid's club programs. Not to mention we were immersed in Japanese culture: speaking to its people, lapping up its food and watching its television programs.

Now we are back in Singapore, and a routine is taking shape. Our lives are starting to slowly but surely, resemble the life we left in 2007 to serve in Japan. Daniel has his regular day job as a civil engineer and Joy will be starting work helping out in the OMF Singapore office. We are also being roped in to serve in different ministries in church. Our diet has also completed reverted: Daniel once had Fried Hokkien Mee (the swimming in lard kind) everyday for 5 days. He has since learnt his lesson...

Life is starting to get busy for us again. In fact, with so much happening in the latter part of the 2009, it feels like years that we returned from Japan. Our perception of time seems so far removed from reality that it is surreal.

2010 will continue from the previous year as one of transition as we settle firmly into our work routine and move into our new place in Punggol sometime in mid-March. Japan is still very much in our minds and we keep wondering to ourselves if or when God calls us back into the field. Nevertheless, 2010 will not be a boring one for us and we will trust in His sovereign will and perfect timing for our future.

TGBCG

2009-12-20T05:38:00.000-08:00

The Great Big Christmas Giveaway is our church's Christmas project this year. This musical is modeled after a typical television game show (e.g. quirky hosts, large 'applause' banners, prizes) with the audience as contestants. The prizes symbolize special gifts such as peace, joy, love, hope, forgiveness and most importantly eternal life, which can only be obtained through faith in Jesus Christ.
Daniel & Joy are involved as singers in this musical so our weekends were busy preparing and rehearsing for it. We've had our 1st performance on the 19th and 35 people indicated an interest to believe in Christ. PTL! We will have 2 more performances on the 24th and 25th, and we are praying for a similar response.
We wish everyone a merry Christmas and a happy new year.

Yunnan, China

2009-11-04T04:21:00.000-08:00

We were about let another 2 months lapse absentmindedly until a church friend quipped, "eh, when you gonna blog about your China trip?!?" Just one week shy of our customary 2 month interval, we are bringing you our China report. Rejoice!

We flew into Kunming feeling a little apprehensive about major culture shock, considering that we were going into rural China after being pampered for 2 years in a land of automated toilets, good service and low crimes rates. We flew into China desperately clinging onto our wallets, but after a while we grew accustomed to things around us, realizing our fears were unfounded... plus we looked silly clutching onto leather pouches.

Prior to going, we weren't sure how best to get to FF's place which was in a remote village near the Burmese border. LY heartily recommended the 16 hour sleeper bus option, which involves an overnight ride across several narrow mountain routes. The good thing is you won't know how close to the cliff edge you get to in the night. The bad thing is you get cooped up in a tiny bunk bed with a blanket that reeks of smoke and sweat.

That 16 hour bus ride turned out to be a 22 hour one because a landslide blocked the road ahead of us for six hours. We boarded the sleeper bus at 6pm in the evening and arrived at our destination 10pm the following day. That was however, probably the highlight of the trip: a road trip into real China with real Chinese, and seeing beyond the skyscrapers of Shanghai or Beijing.

FF lives in a nice place by the river and works among a minority people group in the mountains. It was nice to catch up with her and exchange stories about Japan and China. For 2 days, we hiked for a hour up the mountains with FF to see her work in the villages. It was an encouragement to see how FF cared for them, spoke in their local dialect, and gave medical advice. In response, the villagers cooked us lunch which may only have consisted of eggs and pork fats (which incidentally tasted really good), but that was the best meal they could offer in their poverty.

We broke our journey in two parts on the way back to Kunming and stayed in Dali for a while. The old castle town is a tourist trap mainly because it sits along the highway to the famed Shangri-la (which itself will be commercialized pretty soon). We had a good time nevertheless, visiting the tourist attractions and eating Western & Tibetan food...

We had a wonderful time visiting FF, LY & family, and seeing the work that is being done in China.

September Update

2009-09-16T07:47:00.000-07:00

We seem to always apologize for every 2 months of cyberspace silence. We suppose this is no exception. We have been rather busy lately, and each time we feel it is finally about time we do an update, lethargy creeps in. So there, "Gomen ne", and wait another 2 months for another update... :)

August was our home church's missions month. and volunteered to help out in several areas. We think BFEC has a pretty good missions focus and wanted to contribute to that. That month, the church came up with a mission booklet with a writeup on our existing missionaries and focus fields (e.g. China, Japan & other local ministries). We also had the privilege to share with the church our experiences and lessons learnt during our short but eventful two-year stint. That month was rather overwhelming for us to juggle church work, secular work, bible classes & Japanese language classes. It was tiring, but worth it.

Daniel found a job in a German civil engineering company dealing with machines that constructs tunnels. It requires some interaction with Japanese clients, which allows him to speak in Japanese. Business Japanese is a whole new ball game for Daniel, and he now wonders whether this is a classic case of biting more than one can chew. Joy is in no hurry to find a job this year and is still very happy at home, praying & reading through the bible, washing & cleaning, and cooking up a storm.

We are writing this on the eve of our China trip. Will spend 12 days in the Yunnan area to visit some friends. Will blog about it when we get back.

Here is a missions challenge from a page from our mission booklet for you...
From top:
A guy contemplating in front of Mount Fuji
Police at a 'work conference' in Siem Reap
Peak hour at a suburban train station in Tokyo

SJCF

2009-07-16T00:11:00.000-07:00

A month ago, we decided a pay a visit to the Singapore Japanese Christian Fellowship (SJCF) in St. George's church along Minden Road. We've known about this church all along because this is the church that most OMF missionaries to Japan would go to at least once during their time in Singapore for Orientation Course (OC). We were the exception during our OC in 2007 because we were still too busy packing and saying our goodbyes. The other missionaries coming in from various countries have already done that before coming into OMF IHQ. Anyway, last month was our long overdue visit to this Japanese fellowship.

St. George's church is only a 15 minute walk from Botanic Gardens. We walked up the hill to find a rather quaint looking red brick church building. This Anglican church was originally built for the British forces in 1911 and still retains most of its colonial charm. What surprised us pampered Singaporeans after trudging uphill in the hot sun, was that this church had no air-conditioning!

SJCF has about 50 members, mostly families of Japanese expatriates and a few Singaporeans who either worked or studied in Japan. The worship style is typical of most traditional Japanese churches: hymn singing, scripture reading, sermon preached in polite language etc. We even had to stand and introduce ourselves to the congregation, albeit in our rusty Japanese. However, because everyone seems to know each other, we can sense the warmness of the fellowship there. We adjourned to the adjacent shed for refreshments, and got to meet many people.

It was nice to be in a Japanese setting once more after a long break. We hope to visit other Japanese ministries in Singapore and blog about it.

2009-07-02T09:25:00.000-07:00

July update

2009-06-29T23:23:00.000-07:00

The hunt is on! It has been over 2 months since we returned from Japan and we are now on the prowl for suitable jobs & an apartment. However, they seem to be eluding us at the moment.

For a while, we've been wanting to move to a bigger apartment nearer our parents. We sold our apartment on 23 May, just only a day after putting it on sale. It is now July and we have not found a suitable apartment to call home after viewing several in the area. We will have to rent our own apartment from the buyer, or move temporarily elsewhere unless a new apartment is found soon.

On the job front, Daniel is rather particular (or fussy) with his next vocation, hoping to get a Japanese speaking job that allows him to work with Japanese expatriates in Singapore. Joy is considering several jobs in the social work sector. Alternatively, we are also interested in seeking further full-time theological training for future ministry in Singapore or Japan. We are praying for God's direction in this too.

We were encouraged by a sermon over the weekend about waiting on the Lord. The speaker likens our relationship to God to a pair of circus trapeze performers. Waiting upon the Lord is a lot like letting go of the horizontal bar and flying out into mid-air. Hanging out there in mid-air with a prospect of falling several storeys to a gruesome death in front of a sell-out crowd is not an exciting proposition nor a reassuring position.

The trapeze performer must not attempt to grasp onto your partner, or flail your arms in panic. He must be completely still and wait patiently, but surely, for his partner to catch him and bring him to safety. We as Christians will, many times over the span of our lifetime, wait for the Catcher to bring us out of a sticky environment.

Admittedly we are not very good at waiting upon the Lord. We often wonder what the Lord is trying to tell us by putting us in a perplexing situation, but we will trust that He will make all things perfect in His time. "Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD." Psalms 27:14

Understanding Japan

2009-06-15T08:14:00.000-07:00

OMF produced a number of videos to promote Japan as a mission field. Understandably, this affluent country is not high on the list for many aspiring missionaries. There is a great need for workers in Japan. Please have a look at this video and learn about its spiritual hunger and the issues many Japanese face daily.

Live to Work | Japan: Below the Surface from OMF Media on Vimeo.

Japan Prayer Group

2009-06-03T02:31:00.000-07:00

Every month, a group of Christians gather at OMF (No. 2, Cluny road, near Botanic Gardens) to pray for the nation of Japan and the work of the missionaries serving there. We have been to a few of their meetings, and will continue to do so as often as we can.

Everyone is welcome to join the Japan Prayer Group (JPG) that is held at 7.30 p.m. on the 1st Tuesday of every month. We all come from different churches island-wide bound by one common burden for the nation of Japan and its people. We would pray through a prayer booklet or pray on issues facing Japanese society (e.g. pluralism, joblessness, hikkikomori etc). JPG sometimes would also invite missionaries back in Singapore on furlough to share about their work and pray for them.

Do join us if you have an interest in Japan missions. It would be fantastic to fellowship with people from other churches and missions organizations. Let us pray and intercede to the Lord for Japan!

Cambodia

2009-05-15T04:03:00.000-07:00

Don't rub your eyes, you are still on the right blog. You may be wondering, "What on earth is Cambodia doing on a so-called Japan only blog?" Well, we went to Cambodia for a short break, so please indulge us and allow us to write about it. We will however, make some reference to Japan sometime later in this post, so read on...

Flying on Jetstar Asia to Siem Reap, we (Daniel, Joy & Jill) stayed 3 days then took a 6 hour bus ride to Phnom Penh where we stayed another 3 days. We visited the usual tourist spots such as the temples around Angkor Wat, the S-21 genocide museum and the killing fields. A lot of times, we simply chilled out at coffee joints to escape the searing Cambodia heat and to watch the locals pass by.

Angkor Wat was quite an experience for us. Through these well preserved temples, we managed to get a good understanding of the social fabric of Cambodia in the 11th century. For many temples, there is a fusion of Hindu & Buddhist influences. For example, one particular temple has 5 main halls: each dedicated respectively to Buddha, Brahman, Vishnu, Shiva, including one designated as a dancing hall (I suppose we all need outlets for amusement...)

The Buddhist king who built this temple wanted to preserve peace in a then-predominately Hindu society. This was in spite of the two religions have distinct teachings from each other. It is not uncommon then to see statues of Buddha sitting alongside a Hindu mystical creature (e.g. Garuda or Naga) in the temples around Angkor Wat.

In Japan, such pluralistic worldviews are widely accepted today. Operation Japan quotes the number of believers as:

* Shinto: 109 million
* Buddhist: 96 million
* Christian: 1.5 million
* Other: 10.5 million

This puts the official number of believers in the various religions to about 217 million, which far exceeds Japan's population of 128 million. Most Japanese follow a combination of religions. In a lifetime, they may have had a Shinto birth ceremony, a Christian wedding and a Buddhist funeral.

What should be a Christian's response to religious pluralism? Emotions often run high when we debate such sensitive issues. Do we risk being labeled a hate-mongering intolerant bigot and insist on Jesus being the only way to God? While we wholeheartedly value peace and harmony, we would only negate the main ideology of the Christian faith if we profess otherwise.

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." - Jesus (John 14:6)

Post-arrival update

2009-04-18T01:37:00.000-07:00

It has been 3 days since we touched down into Singapore. First thing that we noticed upon exiting the aircraft was the heat and the humidity. Even till today, we are taking 2-3 showers a day because of the scorching weather (although our friends are commenting that it is very cool by comparison).

The evening we arrived, both our families came together for a nice seafood dinner along East Coast beach. The black pepper and chili crab proved to be a tad too much for Daniel as he had a tummy ache the next day. He should have learned from Joy's experience after she ate roti prata with spicy curry on our short break last July.

We are almost unpacked and settled back into our apartment and should be ready to meet up with friends soon. It is often said that people who lived overseas (e.g. missionaries) should expect to meet with 're-entry' issues such as reverse culture shock.

Please pray for us as we transition back into the Singapore culture. We already got our first 'mini-shock' after being reprimanded by one stall auntie at the hawker center... That will be the first of many to follow.

Pre-departure update

2009-04-13T09:33:00.000-07:00

The last few days have been utterly exhausting! We have been making full use of our remaining time to meet up with friends before we return to Singapore. For 3 consecutive days, we met with 3 or more different groups of friends separately for meals or tea. Farewells are always sad, but they can be a little tiring too if you cram too many excursions in a single day. We were glad nevertheless to see them one last time.

Then there is this arduous task of making all the necessary arrangements to leave the country. To leave Japan, a foreigner would have to seek clearances with alien registration, national health insurance and the tax office. One would also need to think about rent, utilities, phone & internet, etc. We did not realize how much stuff we had accumulated over 2 years and we are now scratching our heads trying to figure out how to bring all our things back.

We are flying home in 2 days on 15 April. While we are eager to meet our family & friends, and to gorge on Singaporean local delights, it will be sad to leave Japan.

There is still much to blog about our ministry in Japan and we shall continue to do so when back in Singapore. We are also intending to blog on Japanese ministry work in the local scene, so be sure to check out our blog once in a while.

Thank you for your prayers. We will be seeing some of you back in Singapore soon.

Blessings,
Daniel & Joy

Parents in town

2009-04-08T05:14:00.000-07:00

From 28th March to 7th April, Daniel's parents were in town to visit us one more time before we return to Singapore. A family friend, Aunty Pearl also came along. The last time Daniel's parents came to Japan was in Autumn 2007. This time, they came just in time to catch the Sakura come into full bloom. There was in addition, one disguised agenda in their coming: to take some 30kg worth of our belongings back to Singapore ahead of us...

Kyoto & Nara was one place we had not yet visited, so this was the perfect opportunity for all of us to catch the sights and see the Cherry blossoms there. We went to the usual tourist spots such as (it is a long list, please bear with us) Kinkakuji, Ginkakuji, Kiyomizudera, Nijo castle, Ryoanji, Heian shrine, Maruyama park, Philosopher's path, Arayashima & Gion. It was a good cultural experience to visit these places and learn of its historic significance.

Some attractions, especially those located in East Kyoto were relatively close to each other so we covered the area on foot. Otherwise, we bought a 500 yen one-day bus card that allows us unlimited bus rides for a day (good value!)

As one might expect, we also took photographs of the famed Geisha. One night, we caught a Japanese cultural show at Gion corner where we got to see glimpses of several kinds of traditional arts such as Bunraku (puppet play) and Kyomai (Kyoto dance) in a single night.

Todaiji, the famous landmark in Nara is the world's largest wooden building in the world and it houses a colossal statue of Buddha. While we marveled at the historicity and architecture of Todaiji, one cannot help but notice how deeply rooted Buddhism & Shintoism are in Japanese society.

Nara is well known for its tame deer that roams freely around the park, and we squandered a small fortune buying shika sembe (deer biscuits) feeding these adorable pets. Many of these deer would simply wait for biscuits to be fed to them. Some loafers would stalk the sembe stalls and pounce on any unsuspecting tourist who so dares venture innocently into a crowd of greedy deer.

In Tokyo, we visited Ueno park, Asakusa and took the Sumida river cruise to Odaiba. However, the main highlight for us was Shinjukugyoen, the city's very own version of Central Park. Yumiko-san (top photo, in white jacket) took us to see the park known for its variety of flora. The colors of Sakura combined with those from a variety of flowers in Shinjukugyoen left an indelible impression on us. We think the hundreds of people amassed at the park for hanami (Sakura viewing) that same day must be feeling the same way.

In Japan, the Cherry blossom signify the start of all things new: Another academic school term or the start of a new job. This is also for us the end of one season and the start of another. Viewing the Cherry blossoms in Shinjukugyoen made us think about it a little, and it will be exciting to see what God has in store for us in the future.

BS@ochanomizu

2009-03-26T19:31:00.000-07:00

We met Yoshimasa one year ago by chance at one of a youth church member's farewell dinner, and have been doing bible studies with him since. He believes in Jesus and is very earnest about his new found faith. Until January this year we met at Mister Donut (a Donut eatery) every week to study the bible, but his company transferred him to a branch in Chiba, nearer Narita airport.

Louis & Daniel now meet Yoshimasa two times a week in the city, at Delifrance (our calories are piling up!). Yesterday, Kodaira-san joined us for the first time. He is a welcome addition to the group because a fellow Japanese will be able to explain biblical concepts to Yoshimasa accurately.

Incidentally, Kodaira-san worked in Singapore for several years and had actually attended BFEC church services since 1978! He still remembers the names of several church elders and speaks of them fondly. This was such an amazing surprise...

Please remember Yoshimasa in prayer as he strengthens his faith. He has irregular off-days and is unable to worship at a church. He does not have many Christian friends to support him either. However, we trust that Yoshimasa will continue to walk in the Lord.

Kid's Club III

2009-03-18T01:20:00.000-07:00

13 March 2009. That was our last day of Kid's Club. Many of the kids will be graduating from kindergarten and starting elementary School in April after Spring break, so this would be the best opportunity to have all the kids together one last time. 25 kids came for our finale, and we were happy to see all of them.

We used this occasion to celebrate Easter although it was still a month away. For games, we had a Easter egg hunt around the community hall premises, sang our usual round of songs and told the story of the wordless book: telling the gospel story using colors (black, red, white, gold, green). This was our most direct approach to date, and we are praying that the kids would understand this message. For craft, we asked the kids to construct their very own mini-wordless book, so that they could go over the story again.

We tried doing something special for snack time by having a sandwich bar. We laid out various ingredients like ham, cheese, tuna and egg mayonnaise for the kids to create their own sandwiches. In addition, we had lots of stickers leftover from previous Kid's Club programs and had a sticker corner for kids to take as many stickers as they wished.

The mothers presented us a gift toward the end of the program. It was a scrapbook of photos, drawings, and hand written notes that the mums and kids specially made for us as a farewell gift. We were incredibly moved by this wonderful gesture. The scrapbook will be something we would treasure for years to come.

Kid's Club II

2009-03-17T22:05:00.000-07:00

6 March 2009. This is what a typical Kid's Club program is like. Although only 8 kids came that day because of the bad weather, we nevertheless had a smashing time playing with them. It was also a whole lot easier to control a peaceful group of 8 kids then 25 clamorous ones. We have to be ready for any of these situations on a given Kid's Club day.

Song. The program started off with 2 songs. One was a greeting song in English ("Hello, how are you?"), the other was an alphabet song (LOVE: "i say L, i say L-O..."). The mothers would like their kids to study English and the Alphabet, so we have been singing songs like these with the kids to help them be familiar with it.

Game. Next, we played Alphabet Bingo. Each child has to write 9 of their favorite letters of the alphabet on a 3x3 grid Bingo card. A card bearing a different alphabet is drawn out of a bag to see who wins.

Story. We also have a Christian teaching element in each of our programs. That day we taught the story of the Shepherd and the lost sheep: Jesus who is like that good shepherd will go all out to help us when we are in trouble. The kids got to look at colorful pictures as we told them the story.

Craft. We would always do a craft that is related to the story so the kids would remember our stories easily. This time, we had the kid's decorate a picture of a sheep using crayons, stickers and cotton wool.

Snacks. After craft, the kids will be rewarded for their hard work with cookies and fruit.

Kid's Club

2009-03-17T22:00:00.000-07:00

The Kids' Club that we run at Hanakoganei every fortnight has become a fixture in our schedule for over a year now. From 8 kids in the Christmas of 2007, Kids' club have grown to about 25 kids on a good day. We are really thankful to God for allowing us to be part of this exciting ministry.

The work we put into this program is almost similar to running a small church! For every program we have to prepare songs, games, story and a craft activity geared toward kids of kindergarten age. Each time we have kid's club, the children would run with us, climb all over us, and beg us to play with them even just for a while. We leave Kids' Club every fortnight utterly exhausted... but satisfied.

Last year we were doing an "I will..." series teaching the kids basic manners and courtesy such as "I will work hard and not be lazy" or "I will help a friend in need" through stories and skits. This year we have been telling bible stories, especially the miracles of Jesus to the kids. We also include a practical application for the kids. So far we have done Zacchaeus, the 10 lepers, and the paralytic with his 4 friends. Most of the kids may be too young to fully comprehend these stories, but we are praying that this Christ-centered foundation will stay with them in years to come.

We are working with Steve W, who lives in Hanakoganei and is praying about starting a HC in his area. Steve's neighbor has kids who go to a nearby kindergarten, so we decided to embark on a venture to run a kid's club to reach the families in the area. The Lord has graciously blessed this ministry, and through it we now have E-mums (English club for mums) and Tea-time (chat session). Thanks to Steve's perseverance in reaching out to his immediate neighborhood, we are closer to seeing a HC in the not so distant future.

Kimono

2009-03-12T05:23:00.000-07:00

Mrs. F was kind enough to let us go to her home for a visit and to try on one of the many kimonos that she owns. She works as a professional kimono dresser and is very keen in learning English. Mrs. F served us various Japanese desserts, and specially made us some traditional green tea after she learned that we have not been to a traditional Japanese tea ceremony. The green tea is extremely thick and bitter, and honestly we had a hard time downing the liquid without offending our kind host. Traditional Japanese green tea is definitely an acquired taste.

Although Joy had bought herself a yukata, she has not worn a kimono before so this was a good chance to do so. Putting on a kimono takes 20 minutes, and involves wearing several layers of fabric and tying them together. This was especially so of the Obi (belt) and before long Joy was sweating in her stomach...

It was a culturally fun experience for us nevertheless, and we enjoyed chatting with Mrs. F and savoring her Japanese desserts.

E-mums

2009-03-10T19:08:00.000-07:00

The mums at the English conversation club had a little farewell for us this week. Usually we would meet in the morning at the nearby 市域センター (community centre) after the mums send their kids off to school at the kindergarten, but this time the mums made it a little special by meeting in one of the mum's home for lunch.

Everyone had a fun time chatting and interacting in English. We played games like charades, storytelling using random words given by the opposing team, and guessing the animal written on our backs by asking 'yes or no' questions in English. This English class not only gave us a good opportunity for us to know them, but for the mums to know each other better.

In typical Japanese hospitable fashion, the mums whipped up a scrumptious spread of dishes for lunch. We will miss this group of mums when we leave. Steve will continue to meet the mums for English conversation in the future, and we are hopeful that these mums will grow to know Christ soon.

Ageing pastors

2009-03-04T05:27:00.000-08:00

Speaking of old folks, we recently received this information from a Japanese pastor.

The data shown below reflects the proportion of pastors classified by age in Japan. This was research compiled by a Mr. Mitani in 2006. While we are aware of the situation, we did not expect results such as this:

pastors aged 80 years and above : 11%
pastors aged 71 - 80 years old : 28%
pastors aged 61 - 70 years old : 25%
pastors aged 51 - 60 years old : 20%
pastors aged 41 - 50 years old : 12 %
pastors aged 40 years and below : 4%

In other words, 64% of Japanese pastors are aged 60 and above. 84% of them are over 50 years old. You can do the math...

One reason for the Japanese pastors' skewed age distribution is this: After the war in 1945, there was a mini-boom in Christianity as American missionaries started to pour into the country. This explains why more than half of the pastors are in the 60-80 age bracket (53%). Like the general Japanese population, the pastors in Japan are greying.

Please pray for more young people to take on the spiritual leadership in churches around Japan. It is difficult to be a pastor in Japan as they receive very little encouragement and financial support. Many young Christians are aware of such challenges and therefore are unwilling to take it up.

The future of the Japanese church needs your prayers.

Old Folks

2009-03-01T23:18:00.000-08:00

It's been confirmed. Tokorozawa HC will not be able to visit and give presentations at the old aged home any longer. We were supposed to be granted one last session next week, but the management said there is an open house at the home that Sunday, so we cannot go. Personal visits however, are still allowed though. We have developed fairly close friendships particularly with Mr. Hakkao and Mrs. Hirakawa. We will continue to see them as often as we can.

There is a fantastic story about 90 year old Mr. Hakkao. He was a WWII fighter pilot in the self defense forces, and served in Japan and the Philippines. One one mission, he crashed landed onto a deserted island and survived on it for a month. The military assumed he was killed in action, but was later found and rescued. After the war, the island he survived on was later named after him! Mr. Hakkao kept mentioning that he is lucky to be alive, but HC members tell him that God must have had a purpose for him.

Mrs. Hirakawa, an ex-kimono seamstress, is probably the nicest and sweetest lady in the home. Her son-in-law is a pastor of a local church in Chiba and has some knowledge of Christianity. She has not been in the best of health lately. Her eyesight is failing, and her back recently gave way. However, we try our best to encourage her and pray with her whenever we visit. Her birthday is coming soon this month, and we will be celebrating the occasion with her next week.

老人ホーム

2009-02-22T19:14:00.000-08:00

Tokorozawa HC visits the roujin homu (old aged home) once a month, and some members make personal visit to the folks during the week. Tokorozawa HC was at the roujin homu yesterday, and like other monthly visits, we sang traditional and Christian songs, and Louis gave a brief sharing of encouragement. This is followed by a time of conversation over tea or coffee in the dining room.

Over time, we have developed a warm friendship with some of the folks at the facility. Louis & Chris are doing bible study with one elderly man, while some others were open to us praying for their health and family. It is nice to be doing something for the community, and spreading the love of God in the process.

There was a change in management at the facility, and although we could continue to make personal visits, we may not be allowed to give presentations anymore. Please pray that the management would change their mind and show favor to us. We are glad nevertheless, for the opportunity to meet many nice and delightful folks over the past year or so. Ministries like this may come and go, but the work of the Lord continues forever...

February update

2009-02-16T19:00:00.000-08:00

Dear friends,

Thank you for taking the time to visit our blog once in a while to check up on us. We haven't been regular in writing mainly because we were just plain lazy... no excuses. 申し訳ございません (common polite phrase for expressing regret). Anyway, we will aim to write in more consistently, starting with this little update.

JLPT2. Thanks to all your prayers, we passed our JLPT! Our results came in 2 days ago. It is a huge relief to know our results after having held our breaths for over 2 months after our exam in December.

April 15. That is the date we are intending to fly back to Singapore to mark the end of our 2-year associateship. Daniel's parents will be visiting us one more time in end-March and we take a trip Kyoto and Nara during the cherry blossoms period.

Chocolate fondant. Joy tried making this heavenly 'chocolate spilling from the insides' dessert for Valentine's day. She did pretty well on her first try, and Daniel has been bugging her to make more of it since.

Genesis 6. Daniel will be sharing on the story of Noah and the great flood in Tokorozawa HC this weekend. It takes a day to draft a simple outline in English, but 3 days to translate all of it into Japanese! (make that elementary Japanese). Daniel was also wondering what some terms mean in the passage.

A question for the audience: What does "Sons of God, daughters of man" refer to in the chapter, and why does Noah's name mean 'comfort' especially when God sends the flood in his time? Send in your comments in the Guestbook!

Sumo

2009-01-26T03:26:00.000-08:00

The first Sumo tournament of the year was held in Tokyo from 11th to 25th January, and we thought, "If we were ever going to see a Sumo match, it would have to be now". We've seen Sumo highlights many times on TV but it would be a great experience to see it live.

We did some research on the Internet and found out that tickets could cost as much as 14,300 yen for a ringside seat. We opted instead for the seats furthest from the ring on the second floor which costs us 2,100 yen. The catch was that those tickets are limited (only 350 available) and are sold on a first-come-first-served basis from 0830hrs.

Choon Ling and Eileen were in Tokyo for a holiday and 4 of us went together. We arrived at the Kokugikan stadium at 1030hrs to find that we were just on time to purchase the last 4 tickets! There were not many spectators when we entered because the junior level wrestlers were competing. The crowds only started to pour in later in the afternoon when the top ranking wrestlers were featured.

As the day passes we realized that Sumo is more than just some over-sized, slow-witted blokes in diapers manhandling each other off the ring. It requires lots of strength, skill and balance to win. There are 82 winning techniques such as the 'frontal push out', 'slap down' and the 'leg trip'. There are plenty of traditions and ceremonies too, which contributes to the colorful character of the Japanese national sport that is called Sumo.

This Sumo tournament proved to be memorable. Yokozuna Asashoryu (the wrestler with arms raised doing a dance) missed the last three tournaments because of injury was considered to be nearing the end of his career, but went on to win the competition by the narrowest of margins.

池袋HC

2009-01-13T23:56:00.000-08:00

This is Ikebukuro house church having sukiyaki (beef hotpot) at Karen's apartment in the first week of the new year. It was a nice cosy gathering to start 2009. After dinner we had the Lord's supper together and talked about our resolutions.

The group is pretty comfortable with each other now and it has already stabilized in some way. This year, with us returning to Singapore and others graduating from language school, 2009 is going to be a year of transition and it will be exciting to see what the Lord has in store for the HC.

Ikebukuro HC has come a long way since its inception in November 2007. Back then, we had absolutely no idea what a typical house church looked like, let alone lead one. The Lord however brought people to us and over time we have become firm friends. The group has taken on an international flavour since, as most of the HC members come from China, Malaysia and Singapore. It may sound a little ironic since we are here primarily to reach out to the Japanese, but the Lord in His sovereignty knows what is best for us considering our level of Japanese a year ago.

At the moment the HC appeals to internationals and Japanese with an interest in English or Chinese. As such, we have been drawing a number of visitors to our parties and evangelistic events. Presently we sing worship songs and study the bible in Japanese. Eventually, the HC in the Lord's strength will reach out to the greater population of Tokyo.

As we will be leaving in April, Karen (see top photo: in blue and white horizontals) is taking over the reins and is instrumental in making the transition a rather smooth one for the HC. We are very moved by her eagerness and initiative despite her busy schedule at work and school. Ando (in green sweater), our long-suffering 'Japanese language sensei' has been with us in ministry since day 1, and his patience and insight into the Word is an encouragement to us.

We praise God that Liu Wen (in turqouise checkered shirt) is settling nicely into the group and is showing signs of growth. We are praying that he will begin to be more active in the HC. Sam & Slyvia will be completing language studies and entering university for their post-graduate studies this April. They have been most helpful in our evangelistic efforts to the international student's dormitory.

We have just introduced to you the core group of Ikebukuro HC. Will you please pray for us? Pray that this house church (and others in KHCN) will grow spiritually and numerically, and will be used mightily for God's glory in the future.

Happy New Year

2009-01-02T22:20:00.000-08:00

We welcomed 2009 in a relatively tranquil fashion. For the next few days after Christmas, we simply went on strike and stayed at home to hibernate. We did not get to meet a lot of people too. The last week of the year before new year's day is a national holiday, so most Japanese would return to their hometowns to celebrate.

On new year's eve, we were invited to Y&TK's home for dinner. We had tempura and soba (traditional dishes for the new year) and watched the annual Kouhaku variety program on TV where J-pop and Enka singers perform. This is how Japanese households generally spend their new year's eve every year.

This year, Nakama Yukie & Nakai Masahiro hosted the popular Kouhaku program. You would definitely recognize them if you are fans of Gokusen (TV series) and SMAP (J-pop group).

Today we will be having a nabe-kai (much like a steamboat party) together with the Ikebukuro HC. There will be Tokorozawa HC on Sunday and an OMF prayer meeting on Monday. Things are starting to get back into gear again. Please pray for renewed vigor and zeal in our work as we move forward into the new year.

We wish you a blessed and abundant new year!

Merry Christmas

2008-12-26T19:36:00.000-08:00

Here is a little ministry update over the Christmas period.

1) Ikebukuro HC party
We held a joint Christmas party with Shinagawa HC at the international students' hostel that some of the HC members are staying. These students come mostly from China or Hong Kong, and spend most of their time studying Japanese for admission into universities. The party was a good opportunity for us to reach out to them, and yet also allow the overseas students to interact our Japanese HC members.

There was a good balance of Japanese and overseas students. Furthermore, out of 23 people who came, about half have yet to know Jesus. After the usual rounds of dinner, games and singing, Ken, a Japanese studying in bible seminary, spoke to us about the true meaning of Christmas. We felt vibes that people enjoyed themselves at the party, and we are praying for more possibilities for outreach to both Japanese and overseas students.

2)Tokorozawa HC meeting
Yoshitaka-san preached from Exodus 12, an unlikely passage for a Christmas Sunday morning message. However, he went on to tell us how the Passover is a prelude of things to come through Jesus Christ. God's plan of salvation was already in motion way before baby Jesus was born. After the service, we had a delightful time of potluck lunch and gift exchange with the Tokorozawa HC members.

3) Deck the Mall
The team was remarkably different from the one in Nanae. After 2 weeks of non-stop performances, Unison had become very comfortable on stage, and executed the musical with much poise and confidence. Our 3 Japanese actors, Hideko-san, Tomoho-chan & Ando acted well too. We were especially happy for Hideko-san who was so afraid of fluffing her lines at the final part but didn't. It was a great night for everyone involved, and we are extremely grateful for each person who put in much time and effort into it.

We were a little disappointed however, that we couldn't get more people to come see 'Deck the Mall'. It was such a pity that so many of our friends missed out on a great musical. The musical was held on a Monday evening, but working adults had to work overtime, and families had to stay home to care for their children. We can't help but think that this was a great opportunity for evangelism missed, but the Lord always has His sovereign ways, and we will take this as a great learning experience for future events.

4) Kids' club
This Christmas party was intended to be of a larger scale compared to previous kids' club session. We rented a bigger room, and roped in some HC youth and some girls from Unison to help out. We had a positive and encouraging response that day. Including children, parents and volunteers, there were 50 people who turned up. In particular, 2 dads also tagged along for the event.

We introduced the piñata game to the kids and did some cookie decorations. A church volunteer also told the Christmas story to the kids, and for craft we let them construct their own nativity scene out of paper and sticky tape. We are thrilled that the kids now understand that Christmas is the birthday of baby Jesus.

Hakodate

2008-12-19T01:38:00.000-08:00

We've just returned from a one week trip in Hakodate. The Sztos (missionaries from BFEC) are serving at a church in nearby Nanae, and we were there to visit them and to hang out with the members of Unison, who were also there on the first leg of their mission trip. Unison staged 2 concerts there, and we praise God for the positive response that each concert brought.

Hakodate is a beautiful city. This port city in Hokkaido offers one of the world's best night views from a mountain lookout according to a worldwide survey. Every year, Hakodate would receive a huge Christmas tree from its sister city, Halifax, Canada, and the lightup is quite spectacular. It was snowing when Unison visited the tree one night, making it a delightful experience for many of them, especially those who are seeing snow for the very first time.

Unison is now in Azumino, Nagano for the next leg of their trip, and we are back in Tokorozawa preparing for the all the Christmas events we will have over the weekend. Please pray for Unison as their journey back to Tokyo on 22 Dec in time for their last musical concert in Tokorozawa.

This is Unison below practising their 'Wong Fei Hong' kung fu impression.

December update

2008-12-05T22:35:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is our JLPT exam! Part of us wish we had more time to adequately prepare for it, the other part just wants this exam out of the way as soon as possible. This Monday we have a full day of ministry and meeting people. On Tuesday we will be flying to Hakodate to join the mission team. We will be there until 15 Dec. The musical will be held on 22 Dec, but the days in between will be hectic preparing for separate Christmas parties for Ikebukuro (20 Dec), Tokorozawa (21 Dec) and Hanakoganei (23 Dec).

Christmas is always the most super busiest time of the year (note the superlatives), but it is also an opportune time to meet people to share the gospel. Please pray for each event on our KHCN calendar, and that it would bear much fruit.

Incidentally, SY&J visited last week when they were here in Japan for their honeymoon. The photo on our left was taken when we brought them to our favourite Okonomiyaki shop in Tokorozawa. They visited several places in Japan (e.g. Kyoto, Hakone, Takeyama etc) and stayed at our place a couple of nights. We were rather impressed by their tenacity in maintaining their blog while they were here, and they would stay up on most nights to recount their adventures. However, we've noticed they've stopped at Day 9... (hint, hint)

Unison

2008-11-21T23:35:00.000-08:00

The singing mission team from our home church is coming again! This time they will be performing a musical "Deck the Mall" in 3 different locations in Japan: Nanae (Hokkaido), Azumino (Nagano) and Tokorozawa (Saitama).

Unison is practicing very hard for this musical. Furthermore, they are memorizing all their song lyrics in Japanese! Our greatest admiration goes out to them. The team will be in Japan from 10-23 December. The members that are coming are: (Front L-R) Xin Yi, Joan, Jocelyn, Dora, Fedora, (Back L-R) Chin Chang, Arene, Aaron, Toshi, Derek, and Vincent (not in picture). Please pray that the team will always be in good spirits and in excellent health (especially their voices). Pray too that Unison will be able to adapt to the winter cold of Japan.

Tokorozawa HC is now in the process of preparing for this big event. We have booked a concert hall nearby that can seat over 300 people. Thank God that we managed to find 3 Japanese church members to do the acting bit of the musical. However, these church members are doing something like this for the very first time and are very apprehensive.

Please pray for:
1) practices to go smoothly and the actors will grow in confidence.
2) the logistical part of putting up a musical. This will be one of the bigger evangelical projects that KHCN will be embarking on.
3) friends to attend the musical. Due to time constraints, we could only have have the concert on a weekday evening. Please pray that people will be able to leave early from work or school to come.

Soccer & Baseball

2008-11-10T00:43:00.000-08:00

We finally got to see a J-league soccer match in Japan! The K family, whom we knew through the kid's club, invited us to join them for a family outing to catch the game between FC Tokyo and Kashima Antlers (current league leaders). The match was held in FC Tokyo's home ground Ajinomoto stadium and the atmosphere there was electrifying. One could sense the charged up excitement of the fans from both camps. We were treated to a feast of goals that day. FC Tokyo beat last season's defending champions 3-2. Anyway, we were glad to have gone to at least one J-league match while getting to spend some time with the K family.

Kashima Antlers are still at the top of the J-league table, but there are only 3 more matches to play, with only 3 points separating the top 6 teams, setting the scene for a climatic finish.

On the baseball front, our local team, the Saitama Seibu Lions clinched the 2008 Japan series title after beating the Yoimuri Giants in a fiercely contested best of 7 series (Lions:4, Giants:3). Last night, the Lions came from behind to win the final game 3-2 to win the series.

In Tokorozawa (where the Seibu company HQ is based), banners were put up everywhere, and the Seibu shopping mall near our home is having a sale to celebrate the Lions' achievement. Although we do not know a whole lot about baseball, it is nice nevertheless to see our local team win the championship.

Friends in town

2008-11-02T18:31:00.000-08:00

Sean & Mag were here for a holiday and in 3 days explored almost every nook & cranny of the Tokyo area. They caught the Tsukiji market tuna auction at 4am, took the cruise from Asakusa to Odaiba along Sumida river, and visited every shopping district in Tokyo too. Naturally, the 100 yen stores were a big hit with them. We took them out one day on a drive to the countryside for an onsen retreat (to rest their blistering feet).

Vincent, Hui Kheng and baby Elias were in town too. For 2 days we were in Nagano to visit Northstar & Azumino Family Chapel. This December, the mission team from our home church will be singing at those places so this trip was somewhat a planning trip cum mini vacation for us. The scenery in the mountains of Norikura were pretty as you could pick out the red, orange, brown and yellow hues of Autumn.

Suicide country

2008-10-31T22:48:00.000-07:00

This is a link that we've received from a fellow missionary some time ago. The recent spate of economic woes have triggered a rise in suicides in Japan. This BBC news video clip is about a popular suicide site in Tojimbo cliffs in Fukuii prefecture. Other popular suicide sites include the Aokigahara forest in Yamanashi prefecture near Mount Fuji, where disconsolate Japanese would intentionally get lost in the dense forest.

On the trains, we've also noticed an increase in train delays because of suicides. Sadly most passengers would just bemoan the fact that they're late for work, rather than that another life was lost needlessly.

Check this out & pray for Japan especially in this time of recession.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7651518.stm

Crash course

2008-10-28T03:33:00.000-07:00

It was some time since we last put up a post on the blog. For 2 weeks since returning from Sendai, we have been engaged in a frenzy of activity, and did not have adequate time to collect our thoughts to write in the blog. Plenty had happened though: We resumed full time Japanese language classes in the mornings, met up with friends from Singapore in town, and carried on with our ministry. We will put up more posts once we find our footing.

Our language classes seemed to take up the most energy and time. We've signed up for a 2 month crash course to prepare for our JLPT2 exam on 7 December. There is a whole lot more to study for this exam this time as compared to the JLPT3 we took last year. For JLPT2 we have to remember: (JLPT3 level in brackets) 1000 Kanji characters (300), 6000 words (1500), and a lot of extra grammar.

That particular class progresses at such an incredible pace that it seems like we were at anytime about to veer off a cliff, collide and burn... (thus our definition of a crash course) At the end of each 3 hour session of sustained concentration, we leave the class mentally exhausted. Perhaps our brains aren't as nimble as they once were.

Please pray that we will be able to keep our concentration during class, and that we will stay effective in our ministry even after tiring days. We have approximately 40 days remaining to the exam. For everyone who is also taking JLPT this year, 一緒に頑張れましょう！

Sendai

2008-10-14T02:27:00.001-07:00

We have returned from a 10-day ministry visit to Sendai. Thank you for praying for us. It was an enjoyable time for us to visit churches, fellowship with the missionaries and get to see the sights of Sendai city.

OMF currently has 2 churches in Sendai: Sendai Evangelical Christian Church (SECC) & Izumi Park Town Church (IPTC). Both churches are located in the suburbs at opposite ends of each other.

SECC is located in the southern suburbs next to a kindergarten and a primary school, which gives the church a huge potential for outreach. The church seems pretty close knit and you can sense the family warmness within the congregation. Please pray for this church however, as lately there had been a number of members with serious illnesses, which is preventing them from coming for Sunday services.

IPTC is stationed further up in the northern part of Sendai in a fairly new residential area which was developed some 20 years ago. It is presently using the premises of a kindergarten, but is looking toward buying a piece of property for a church building. The church is seeing an increase in attendances because the kindergarten teachers and childrens' moms are starting to visit regularly. Please pray too for this church as it goes through a period of transition. Apart from considering the purchase of property, one IPTC missionary couple is also retiring next year and would like to call a Japanese pastor God willing.

Date Masamune

2008-10-14T01:31:00.000-07:00

Date Masamune was a much feared, one-eyed samurai warlord who ruled Sendai in the 16th century. After a successful war campaign, the Tokugawa shogunate rewarded him with the agriculturally rich area of Sendai. Masamune eventually became very powerful, and later built a castle on the edge of a mountain cliff overlooking the town of Sendai.

There is nothing left of the original castle now. Over many years it had succumbed to earthquakes and fires. It was dismantled (by the new Meiji government in 1868) and bombed (WWII in 1945). What is left in its place is only a park with Masamune's statue, a small museum and a shrine. It is quite a shame, because judging from a scale model of the castle, it must have been very grand and impressive.

Interestingly, Masamune was initially open to missionary work in Sendai. However he later began to persecute the missionaries possibly because of external pressures by the Tokugawa shogunate to eradicate Christianity, or had a change in heart, or both.

Sendai's famous samurai is now the city's icon, and is often depicted in many tourism related advertisements. Date Masamune wouldn't be too pleased with these cutesy pictures of him though...

Matsushima

2008-10-14T00:31:00.000-07:00

According to a famous ancient Japanese poet, Matsushima is one of three (best) views of Japan. 'Matsu' means pine, and 'shima' means island. Therefore this tourist attraction is basically a group of islands carpeted with pine trees. Although most would disagree, we would like to think of Matsushima as the Japanese version of the 12 Apostles (A similar place of interest in Australia).

Matsushima is not too far away from Sendai city, so on Saturday we decided to go there for a visit. We took a cruise which took us around the islands for about an hour. The ride offers a good view of the beautiful islands up close. However the main highlight for the passengers seemed to the feeding of the seagulls. You could buy a pack of prawn crackers on board. There is no lack of seagulls though: hundreds of them would flock to the cruise ship once we depart.

There was also an autumn festival that day on one of the main islands connecting the mainland. They had stage performances and food stalls as part of the celebrations. Sendai is famous for its gyuutan (cow tongue) and kaki (oysters), and we managed to have both of them at fairly reasonable prices. We got a plate of 4 oysters and a giant sized scallop for 550 Yen (SGD$7)! As typical Singaporeans, that was probably our main highlight of the trip.

October Update

2008-10-02T00:39:00.000-07:00

Autumn is here at last. The weather is starting to cool to a nice 20 degrees, and before long we should be able to see the orange and red colours of fall.

October will be the start of many things for us. We have signed up for another 2 month Japanese language course (like last year) starting on 14 October to prepare us for our JLPT exam in December. The university school term is also starting, which means we will be stepping up outreach efforts to students in various campuses.

We will be Sendai from 3-13 October for a short break and a ministry visit. We will be visiting 2 OMF-linked churches (e.g. Izumi Park Town Church & Sendai Evangelical Christian Church). Please pray for a safe trip as we journey there and back.

More to come in our next post will be updates and photos of our Sendai trip.

Totoro forest

2008-09-22T03:49:00.000-07:00

Does Miyazaki Hayao & Studio Ghibli ring a bell? There is a park called 'Totoro's forest' (トトロの森）near our home. It only takes about 20 minutes to get there with our bicycles. This place was where the famous anime director drew his inspiration for the 1988 movie 'My neighbor Totoro'. It's been said that the famous animation director used to live in Tokorozawa, and today still resides relatively nearby.

Mr & Mrs S lives just next to the forest. Some time ago, we visited them at their home for lunch, and Mr S was kind enough to take us hiking in the afternoon. The trek in the forest, which is actually located on the border between Tokyo & Saitama prefectures, took 2 hours, but we had a fun time walking and chatting (in Japanese...). Mr S brought his butterfly net and DSLR camera along. He didn't get to catch any nice butterflies, but he caught plenty of us on film.

Totoro forest wasn't a very spectacular place, but knowing that Miyazaki once walked in the same forest made it a little special. One can imagine the 'cat-bus' (a character from the movie) hurtle along the same forest pathway that we walked. After the afternoon trek, we cycled along the perimeter of the forest, but sadly much of the forest had given way to residential homes. Many big houses with large driveways now dot the Totoro forest landscape.

Oyaji band

2008-09-15T09:17:00.000-07:00

'Oyaji" means father or old uncle, and recently a lot of Oyaji bands have sprout out in the past few years. These bands comprise mainly of older folk in their 60s who decide to dust the cobwebs off their guitars and relive their teenage dreams.

Today is a public holiday, (敬老の日, Respect for the aged day), and we performed in an Oyaji band concert at a music store in a suburban shopping mall. It would be a good idea to spread the gospel message through song, and get to know more Japanese people. When we found out about this event, we quickly formed a band consisting of members from KHCN and Vineyard church. The only requirement was that at least one member must be over 35 years old. Louis & Steve were our passport to Oyaji-ness.

We named ourselves 'borderless' (ボーダレス) because we are a group of people from Japan, Singapore & America coming across borders. Incidentally, it also happens to be the name of the evangelistic arm of KHCN, in case you hear us mention it again in the future.

Our band was the 2nd of 10 bands to perform, and we sang three Christian songs. It turned out fairly decent considering that we only had 2 rehearsals and a hasty soundcheck. However, we believed the songs touched a handful of people who were there to hear us. We had fun doing this band stuff. It was also very entertaining, and we got such a kick from hearing retirees crooning to songs of Elvis Presley & the Beatles.

Conversion

2008-09-04T05:44:00.000-07:00

Today by the grace of God another name was added into the body & kingdom of Christ. N-san came to know us through an English conversation club in the university and after graduation continued to study the bible with Daniel, Louis, and Yao Yu (1 month short term volunteer). This week we met at La Pausa, a pizza & pasta eatery joint and studied the bible together as usual.

N-san has been open to Christianity for a while and tonight we explained the gospel to him again: How man is reconciled to God by grace through faith in Christ Jesus, and that it involves the steps of A-B-C (Admit you have sinned, Believe in Jesus Christ, & Continue in the faith).

We were so thrilled and overjoyed that N-san responded positively when asked if he would like to pray and receive Christ into his life. He prayed, albeit unsteadily but sincerely that he believes in Jesus. Praise the Lord!

Please pray for N-san as he now begins his new life in Christ, and that he will be consistent in his walk with God. Please pray for us too (missionary team), that we will have the wisdom to help him in the Christian faith. Statistically speaking, almost 80% of Japanese Christians lose their faith after a few years. Please pray that N-san will not be just another statistic.

Japanese funeral

2008-08-19T01:04:00.000-07:00

Mr S is a member of Matsudo HC who lives in Ibaraki prefecture, about 2 hours away from Tokorozawa by car. Some time ago, a family member of Mr S passed away and we (L&C and us) were asked to help with the proceedings of the wake and the funeral. This is the first funeral in Japan that we are attending so we were quite apprehensive, but also a little intrigued by what we will see.

Japanese funerals are mainly buddhist in nature, and involves a great deal of ceremonies and rituals. It almost always involves a buddhist priest chanting in front of a huge wooden shrine with a photo of the deceased and lots of incense on it (Google 'japanese funeral' to see a typical shrine). This was the first Christian funeral the parlor handled, so they were understandably confounded. We asked for a screen to be placed in front of the shrine (see photo of Joy on the keyboard: you can catch a glimpse of it). We were also careful not to have any buddhist customs in the wake or funeral services

There is a strict dress code for funerals. For men, apart from the white shirt, everything else has to be black: suit, pants, shoes, and tie. For women too, black attire. The only jewelry allowed is the pearl necklace. We were practically sweating buckets in the hot summer heat. Everyone was extremely formal too. We had to take low bows and repeatedly say "よろしくお願いたします" (formal greeting) every time we bump into Mr S and his family.

The wake service went smoothly. Most of the people who attended were non-Christians, so it was a good opportunity to tell them about the love and hope that Jesus gives. The funeral and the cremation took place the following day. After the funeral service, cremation took less than 2 hours while we waited and had refreshments. After that, we all proceeded for mid-afternoon tea at a restaurant. At the restaurant, there was a suggestion to make a toast or sake offering to the deceased, but we declined.

With so many customs concerning Japanese funerals, it can be difficult even for a mature Japanese Christian to discern which ones are okay and which are contradictory to the bible. This seems to be the case especially when a country's culture is so closely tied to its religion. That day was our first Japanese funeral, and also an introduction into the perplexing world of death and the Japanese.

Yukatas & Fireworks

2008-08-11T19:48:00.000-07:00

Last weekend Ikebukuro HC had a picnic outing at a lake in the Kawagoe district to catch the fireworks display. Major towns would have their own fireworks celebration to mark the summer season. We were by the lake as early as 4 pm. to reserve a vantage point from which to catch the fireworks scheduled for 7.30 pm. However, by the time we got there, the Kawagoean locals were already there in full force. Thankfully, a group of Japanese senior citizens kindly allowed us to squeeze in alongside them.

This was the first time Joy got to wear a Yukata (Japanese summer dress). Karen Yee (in picture), a fellow Singaporean and one of the HC leaders, has an extra set of Yukata and loaned Joy one to wear for the occasion. Although not as elaborate as the formal Kimono, the casual light cotton Yutaka takes almost an hour to put on.

Yukata literally means 'bathing clothes' in Japanese, but most people wear it out to traditional Japanese festivals because of its relative ease of use. You would almost always see it being worn at summer events like fireworks displays. The Yukatas fit nicely on Joy & Karen, and they blended in with the rest of the Japanese.

The whole fireworks show took an hour and a half, and it looked magnificent in its varying shapes and colors. Daniel was happily snapping way on his Nikon D40x, although he wished he had his tripod from Singapore with him. The photographs turned out fairly ok, albeit a bit of camera shake.

There were probably a few thousand people congregated by the lake that night. After the show, the queue for the bus back to Kawagoe station was so incredibly long that the HC decided to stay on and bought snacks from the many roadside festival stalls. We had yakisoba, takoyaki & yakitori (you'd notice the word 'yaki' repeatedly because it means 'fried' in Japanese). Seeing the fireworks, eating & talking among ourselves was a nice memorable time for the Ikebukuro HC.

Singapore II

2008-08-08T18:24:00.000-07:00

The 3 weeks spent in Singapore was a time of frenzy activity. It was not exactly a restful vacation as most of the time we were scrambling to meet friends and stuffing ourselves silly with local food. We were especially glad to see our families again. Both our families had a get-together at a restaurant.

We were half expecting to vegetate at home watching dvds, but that didn't happen. We even brought Japanese language textbooks to study, but it turned out to be a waste of space in our suitcase. It was not a bad thing actually, because instead the time was used to catch up with old friends and to touch base with them. A lot can happen in over a year. People change jobs, get married, have kids etc. Many of our friend's toddlers have grown so much it surprises us. We wish we could stay on longer to catch up with more friends.

However, we are relatively pleased in the food department. We managed to eat those foods that we crave for: Hokkien mee, Laksa, Char Kuey Teow, Chai Tau Kuey, Rojak, Kuey Chap etc. For those Singaporeans out there, check this out: We had Durian on 3 occasions in the first 5 days, went to Simpang Bedok 5 times and Crystal Jade 3 times. You now know our favorite eating places.

On the last night in Singapore, we joined a Japan focus prayer group that meets every month at OMF IHQ at Cluny Road (near Botanical Gardens), to pray for the people and ministry in Japan. There we finally got to meet How Chuang & Kaori, missionaries serving in Hokkaido. We've heard so much about them, but did not get to see them because we were in Tokyo. The prayer group was a great time for us to hear about their work and to meet fellow like-minded Christians with a burden for Japan.

It was with a tinge of sadness that we left Singapore. It would be another 8 more months till next April when we return. This is the part about missionary life that we find hard to get used to: leaving your family and friends.

Singapore

2008-07-21T22:23:00.000-07:00

After 1 year and 3 months on the field, we are back in Singapore for a 3 week break. We touched down in Changi Airport last Friday morning shortly after 1 a.m. With a few friends we then embarked immediately on an eating frenzy at Simpang Bedok, gobbling down pratas, mee goreng and roti johns (Malay food).

It is good to be back and re-connecting with the 3F's (family, friends & food). Over the weekend, we were at a friend's wedding, and this weekend BFEC (home church) is having its 50th anniversary Jubilee celebrations. Next weekend, we will be heading to Malacca, Malaysia for more eating... :) In between weekends, we will be meeting and catching up with our family and friends.

When we meet, you will know that we've been in Japan too long when you see us do one of these. Be prepared when we:
1) bow and nod our head a little when we say hi to you
2) pepper our conversation with Japanese words when we speak to you
3) inadvertently return our food court trays after meals (we always do that in Japan)
4) have massive problems text-messaging on Singaporean handphones (no English predictive text system in Japan)

After a good deal of time in Japan, we are doing a little re-adjusting back to Singapore culture. It seems a little surreal typing this post from the living room of our 3-room apartment, hearing the sound of construction in the background and the occasional squabble from next door neighbor.

But it feels good to be home.

Mount Fuji

2008-07-15T00:17:00.000-07:00

We've written about trips to the Mount Fuji vicinity countless times in our previous posts already. We have visited that area with our parents (both Daniel & Joy's) and with other friends. This time we decided to take this saga one step further. Today we climbed to the peak of Mount Fuji... and managed to return to tell the tale.

Jill & Sandy are here to visit us this week before we fly to Singapore for a short break. We thus took the opportunity to take them with us to hike up the 3,776 meter high mountain. Yesterday, armed with our backpacks filled with warm clothes and provisions, we drove to the 5th station (midpoint of Mt Fuji) and started our ascent at 1 p.m. Fresh, eager and excitable, we managed to arrive at our mountain hut at the 8th station in approximately only 4 hours. This was in spite of taking regular stops and posing for photographs. Our plan was to have dinner and stay overnight at a mountain hut before heading up to the summit to catch the sunrise.

Because of the very early start the following morning, we were expected to sleep in our bunks at 6 p.m. and get up at 2 a.m. to begin our trek to the summit. This proved to be almost impossible for us because:
1) On most days, we only usually go to bed at 2 a.m.
2) Our bunk beds were housed in crammed spaces
3) It was hot and stuffy (not enough ventilation)
4) 3 people in our bunk were snoring emphatically in unison
Expectedly, we didn't get much sleep if none at all. We had to rely entirely on adrenalin to get us up Mount Fuji.

The sky was still pitch black, fierce winds were howling, but by 2 a.m. the next morning, most of the hikers were already snaking their way along steep, narrow and rocky paths to the summit, all clamoring to catch the sunrise on time (the sun rises at 4.30 a.m.). Their headlamps illuminating the path for us (in our group, only Jill was wearing one), and when you look at the trail above us, it resembles the lights of a christmas tree in the starlit sky. We got to the summit with some time to spare before sunrise, and seeing it afforded us a great sense of satisfaction and achievement.

The descent however, was probably the most excruciating part of all. Once the euphoria of reaching the summit wore off, fatigue and sleepiness began to set in. The descending trail is a continuous series of loose gravelly pathways zig-zagging back to the 5th station. The impact of digging our heels into the gravel made our knees hurt, and the sleep deprivation caused us to walk unsteadily. It seemed like an eternity climbing down Mount Fuji, but in actual fact took us only 5 hours. We are now wondering how badly our muscles will ache tomorrow.

There is a popular Japanese saying, "You are wise to climb Fuji once, and a fool to climb it twice." The person who coined the phrase probably hated the descending trail too. Nevertheless, climbing Mount Fuji is a once in a lifetime experience worth remembering, and we are glad we did it.

Friends in town

2008-07-06T06:00:00.000-07:00

Here are some of our friends whom we met in the past 2 months while they were here in Tokyo.

Leck Peng requires no introduction to OMF Japan or BFEC. She too is from our home church and is serving as missionary in Sapporo, Hokkaido. She was in Tokyo for a station visit to learn more about the work in this area. We were glad to be able to meet up and exchange notes... :)

Daryl, uncle William, and aunty Peck Eng were in town for a vacation, and we managed to have fellowship with them over dinner. We chatted, and shared about our work in Japan. By the way, they stayed in this really nice and fairly reasonable place in Shinjuku called Oakwood Apartments that overlooks the entire city.

Xin Yi, Desmond & Lindy were here for about a month with a short-term mission team from Campus Crusade for Christ (at around the same time the WEFC team was here). They were reaching out particularly to college students in several universities across Tokyo. We met up with them and their team for Ramen, did a some catching up, and got to understand a little of CCC's work in Japan. It's great to know of teams from other organizations serving the Japanese for Christ.

Arene & Chern Ee (with Luke & Laura) have always been firm supporters of us and our ministry. They were here for a nice, relaxing family vacation. The Kohs were here too with the BFEC mission trip in December last year, and Arene will be coming back again this Christmas period. This means he will have come to Japan 3 times in the span of 12 months. We were at this nice outdoor crepe restaurant which offered blankets on a cold day. It does look like we were at a slumber party though.

Agnes and Shuhui were Joy's colleagues back in CCF. They were planning this grand reunion trip for a while now, and Joy was elated when they finally came. The girls managed to squeeze in a lot of activities together: Sightseeing, cycling, hiking and plenty of baking...

WEFC team

2008-07-01T23:01:00.000-07:00

It was sad to see the mission team from Woodlands Evangelical Free Church (WEFC) leave 2 days ago. We have been guiding the team along and simply hanging out with them for the 3 weeks while they were here. Although it's nice to have peace and quiet restored after a hectic month of June, we miss their joy and laughter permeating the air.

Many thanks to Leah, Joanne, Wee Theng, Mavis, Renfred, Dean & Daniel (Wong) for helping KHCN with its ministry. In a short time, the team with their unique set of skills and gifts, helped organize events for house churches, kid's club and the old aged home, participated in various English conversation circles, and did some prayer & evangelism in Kawagoe and in several university campuses. Consequently, they managed to make friends from almost every demographic of Japanese society: kindergarten kids, college students, old folks and others. Well done, team!

Thanks again, WEFC team, for coming to Japan... We hope this mission trip was a positive experience, and that it made some kind of and impact for you.

Crashed...

2008-06-24T06:44:00.000-07:00

Announcement:

Looks like we would have to remain offline for a while longer. During the OMF conference in Nagano, our ibook hard disk crashed on us. Miraculously, in our attempts to perform CPR on it, the hard-disk stayed stable long enough for us to save our important documents onto an external hard drive, before it died for good.

At the Shibuya branch Apple shop, we were told that we had to replace the hard drive and it would take at least a week to repair it. We are currently using Louis' computer to check our emails and do administrative stuff.

Anyway, here are a few pictures from our time in Karuizawa, Nagano. Many Japanese would come to this European-style mountainside resort in summer to escape the heat. It also been said the royal family come here for their tennis sessions. We stayed in Megumi Chalet, a Christian campsite that runs many outreach Christmas events each year.

Hectic Schedule

2008-06-06T05:08:00.000-07:00

June and December are the most hectic months for us because we always have short term mission teams coming. Besides having our regular HC meetings, English and bible study sessions, we would need to help guide a team from Woodlands Evangelical Free Church (WEFC) from Singapore. It is a little challenging to balance our existing schedules, but yet exciting to have so many things happening at the same time.

Please pray that we will be able to cope with the additional workload, and be able to meet the other demands that come with it, especially in the area of language. Louis & Chris will be away in Singapore too, so there is cause for some apprehension, since we are so inexperienced on the field...

Anyway, here are just some of the things that are happening this month.

10-30 June: The WEFC team will be with us for 3 weeks. We will be guiding the team, and the team will be doing street evangelism on most days in different HC areas. We will also be organizing larger scale events on weekends to meet new people.

8 June: Tokorozawa HC is now studying the book of 1 Timothy and Daniel is sharing his thoughts on chapter 2. The passage is rather tricky, especially the part about women, salvation & childbirth!

15 June: Combined HC celebration. An Ikebukuro HC member, LW is getting baptized! It is a cause for great celebration: It is the first baptism of the house church.

16-19 June: OMF conference in Karuizawa, Nagano. Daniel is helping out on the conference committee.

13 & 27 June: Joy's kid's club. WEFC team will be helping Joy with the programs for the children.

We will try to update the blog as often as we can in the meantime. Cheers!

Baptism @ Matsudo HC

2008-05-31T07:05:00.001-07:00

Matsudo HC is one of the house churches in the KHCN. Every Sunday afternoon it meets in an apartment above a clinic where Dr. Ichikawa (HC leader) works. Around 12 to 15 people would meet weekly for singing and bible study. 2 weeks ago, an exchange student from Belgium who attends the house church, decided to recommit herself to Christ and be baptized. She was baptized in the Ofuro (Japanese bath) which was quite an interesting experience. It is quite cool to know that not just the Japanese, but friends of other nationalities coming to faith in Jesus Christ.

900

2008-05-19T01:43:00.000-07:00

Note:
This is not some cheap movie remake of Spartans fighting Persians.

It is an OMF video calling for 900 new workers into the mission field. There is a big need for willing individuals eager to spread the good news of Jesus Christ to the unreached peoples of East Asia. Do continue to pray for workers to be sent out into the harvest field, and perhaps if you sense the Lord is leading you into missions, do not hesitate to take the next step...

May Update

2008-05-13T06:11:00.000-07:00

This is the regular update on what we've been doing:

Tokorozawa HC. You may remember YM from our Easter update. Last week, he prayed to receive Jesus into his heart! Louis sensed that he was ready and one day asked if he would like to pray to be a follower of Christ. YM is continuing to study the bible. Please pray that he will grow quickly and steadily in his walk with Jesus.

Hana Koganei. The kids' club will be having its 8th session this Friday, and the kids have been coming regularly. The kids will get to draw postcards for their mums to remember Mother's Day. We are starting to develop relationships with the kid's and their mums. Steve is also conducting English classes for the mums on monday mornings 2 times a month while the kids are in kindergarten.

Joy is presently doing English conversation cum bible study with 4 ladies (2 housewives & 2 college girls) whom she met mostly from the work at Hana Koganei. One college girl, YK, studied in a Catholic junior high school, and agreed to study from the bible sometimes. Last week, they both looked at the story of the prodigal son and talked about the unconditional love that God gives. Please pray for YK's continued interest in the bible.

E-Fanatic. Classes at universities have resumed for some time now, but we have not heard anything from the E-fanatic captain (or chairman). We met the ex-captain, MS for a few lunches and we found out that the current captain was too busy that he forgot to register the club in the school's magazine! As volunteers to E-fanatic, we can only wait for the members to round themselves up and perhaps create awareness through word-of-mouth. Please pray for this English conversation club.

In the meantime, Daniel is meeting MS for language exchange. Daniel will get to practice speaking in Japanese, while MS would like to practice his Chinese as he has taken the subject as a module. Please pray for these meetings, and especially for Daniel's Chinese. His skills of the language (or rather the lack of it) is legendary, and it would require a divine intervention of the highest degree...

Baseball game

2008-05-05T09:16:00.000-07:00

This is 'golden week' in Japan, which means we have a stretch of national holidays. Most people would return to their hometowns or take a vacation outside of the country. For us, we decided to go have a closer look at Japan's national sport: Baseball. Together with our neighbors, Y&TK, we took a short 10 minute train ride from Tokorozawa to Seibu Dome, to watch the Seibu Lions take on the Nippon Ham Fighters. This was the first time we have ever been to a baseball game of any kind.

Although the game took almost 3 hours to complete, it didn't feel as long because it was a high scoring game with a number of good plays and home runs. At the middle of the 5th inning (there are 9 innings in all), the Lions were trailing the Fighters 0-6, but they eventually came from behind to win the game 8-6. It was a highly charged, entertaining game. Joy is starting to take an interest in the game. She likes the atmosphere and excitement of it. Daniel however, still prefers soccer (naturally) and wants to catch a J-league soccer game sometime somehow.

Language studies II

2008-04-30T06:28:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday, Daniel was asked to give a mini-talk about the bible in church at Tokorozawa HC... in Japanese. It was a very short message that lasted about 20 minutes, and it was spoken in really simple grammatical sentences, like "Please read Luke 10:27", and "Jesus give teaching. We obey. Let us obey together" :P

It was not a fantastic or eloquent delivery, but Daniel still felt pretty smug about himself. Considering the limited command of language that we have, it was an achievement of sorts. In our time here, we try to tuck under our belts tiny victories like this to spur us in our language learning. Language is always an issue when you are away in a foreign country. A British colleague in his dry wit once commented, "Oh, not to worry. You'll get used to the language... perhaps after the first 20 years..."

We bought ourselves a new Japanese-English electronic dictionary, and it has been our constant companion since. Joy uses it to decipher her baking recipe cookbook (she now bakes apple crumble, cheese cake, chocolate banana pie... the works) and Daniel uses it to understand words while watching the news on Japanese TV. It is a very useful piece of equipment, and we would recommend it to any serious student of the language.

As you have read in the earlier post, we are looking for community language classes. We are currently attending one such class every Friday morning. Our sensei, T-san looks like a nurturing teacher and we are hoping for good progress under her guidance. Please pray for our language studies, as we are aiming to sit for another JLPT exam this year end.

Language studies

2008-04-20T23:00:00.000-07:00

This is a picture of our Japanese language class at a dinner outing. It seemed like an international forum of some kind because the countries represented in this picture are Korea, Indonesia, Myanmar, England, Italy, Austria and of course, Singapore. Because the only medium of communication was Japanese (not all of us could understand English), we had to listen to each other butcher the language with various accents and inaccurate intonations. I supposed our Japanese language teacher had it worst. She had to endure listening to us in class everyday.

We attended a 3 month, 2 times a week program at Sendagaya Japanese Institute in Takadanobaba (for the Tokyo savvy people reading this; the school retained the name although they moved to a different location) from January till March. It was a conversational practice class but we later wished that we had joined a grammar class instead. One can always practice speaking the language while living in Japan, but you would not be able to figure out grammatical concepts unless someone teaches it to you.

The course had finished and we are now looking out for volunteer-led language clubs at nearby community centres. Lessons at such centres are cheap (100 yen per session) but are often unstructured and unpredictable: you may not get a teacher if classes are packed. A full-time course would definitely yield better results for us but that would clash with our work schedule. In the meantime, we have to discipline and kick ourselves to study on our own...

Family holiday

2008-04-13T04:13:00.000-07:00

Joy's parents and brother were in Tokyo this week. This was their first time coming to visit us. We also took them to the usual places of interest like Mount Fuji, Tsukiji market & Kawagoe. The whole week was cloudy but we are so thankful that the sky cleared on the day of our Mt. Fuji trip so we could get a good view of the mountain. At Tsukiji market, we drove to the city at 5 a.m. to see the market hustle & bustle. It was also our first time seeing the warehouse where the tuna auctions are held. After that, It was an interesting experience driving around the city centre (Ginza & Shinjuku area). We also had nice family dinners at our place, and cycling trips with Adrian. It was a good workout after all the eating we have been doing in the week.

The family joined us for a Tokorozawa HC Sunday meeting and a Kid's club program. This week's theme for kid's club was kindness: we did a mini skit of the good samaritan and asked the kid's to do a hand paper craft. This was to encourage them to lend a helping 'hand' to people around them. The pun applies quite well to the Japanese language too. In Japanese, 'to help' is 手伝う, which literally means to 'tell with our hands'.

Friends in Tokyo

2008-04-03T08:45:00.000-07:00

The nice thing about living in Tokyo is that we get friends coming in from Singapore for visits. It's so nice to catch up with them and hang out, plus we would also occasionally receive indigenous rations such as Indomi instant mee goreng, prima deli mixes or chili padi...

Pictures in descending order:
1) Dorothea & Joy in Ikebukuro. She and Melvin were here for a short holiday before going onto Hiroshima.
2) Sean & Daniel in Ueno. This was his first flight to Narita while on a training rotation with Singapore Airlines.
3) Uncle Danny & us in OMF auditorium. He makes regular business trips to Japan and he joined us one night for a combined HC meeting.
4) Linda & Anthony, and us. They came to Tokyo after Anthony's conference in Chiba. We met them in Shinjuku for lunch & coffee. It was really good to catch up with them because we have not seen them since a Thailand house building trip in April 2006.

Cherry Blossoms

2008-04-02T01:47:00.000-07:00

As you may have read in our Spring newsletter, the cherry blossoms around Tokyo opened earlier due to the warm weather in recent weeks. It peaked sometime over the weekend and the flowers will begin to fall over the next week, which is another pretty sight.

Cherry blossoms is one of the most recognizable symbols of Japan, but it also signifies the start of all things new. The brand new school term begins next week, and graduates are entering into their first jobs. Here are some pictures that we took from a trip to Ueno park. The park is very well-known for its cherry blossom views ('Hanami') and many companies have picnics after work under the cherry trees. Office workers (Salarymen) would actually charge into the park and reserve their spots with blue tarpaulin early in the day. It kinda messes up the whole atmosphere of the park but nevertheless the Japanese still amass themselves in droves there.

Apparently, there are two easily distinguishable types of cherry blossoms. The more pinkish one blooms earlier that the conventional white ones... There are many other species of cherry trees in Japan, but obviously we are no experts.

Easter Update

2008-03-23T19:31:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter! The Lord is risen indeed... Quite a number of things happened in ministry over the Easter & Good Friday weekend, so we thought we'd share them with you.

Tokorozawa Youth Church. We had a small, cosy crowd on Good Friday. One guy came to our meeting for the first time. YM is a colleague of one of the YC members, and we happened (God planned this of course) to bump into them a week ago during dinner. We found out that YM actually had been attending church as a kid till middle school, and Louis invited him to YC. He seemed interested in the bible, and read through it for 30 minutes during the meeting. Please pray for YM, that he would continue to join us more often.

Ikebukuro House Church. We had the privilege of having Steve come to speak to us about the Lord's Supper and offering, because we were doing it as a church that night. We also celebrated LW's birthday. Please pray for him as he is considering baptism. Ikebukuro HC met in our members' school's meeting room. We are hoping to do this once a month so others in the language school can join us if they are keen to know more about Christ. Please pray for a favorable response as we approach the school authorities regarding this matter.

Tokorozawa House Church. We finally plucked up enough courage to ask our ex-language helper, Mr. KW, and our neighbors Y&TK to our Easter celebration on Sunday. They came (PTL!) and we think they had a good time getting to know the church. The sermon was about Joseph of Arimathea: His belief in Christ & boldness in asking Pilate for Christ's body. We had potluck lunch Singaporean style: fried bee hoon, curry chicken, minced pork eggplant plus others.

Akitsu Home. This was our second time at the home for the aged, and we were so happy that some folks remembered our names! We sang traditional Japanese songs about springtime since the cherry blossoms are about to begin, and one of our HC members performed a traditional dance decked in the full works (kimono, fan, sash etc). Louis then gave a brief and simple message about the Easter story. The main part of the program would always have to be the fellowship that follows over snacks and hot drinks. We enjoyed ourselves, and we think the folks back there did too.

Hakone

2008-03-20T22:24:00.000-07:00

We have seen and heard so much about the onsen (hot spring) resort area of Hakone but have not set foot on it since we got to Japan. There was a spring public holiday this week so we decided to take an overnight trip there to see what the 'fuss' was all about.

The 'Hakone Freepass' allows you access to transportation around the area for a fee of 5000 yen. You board the train from Shinjuku to Hakone-Yumoto station, take a bus to Lake Ashi and catch a fancy 'pirate' passenger boat across it. Ride in a cable-car and another train back to where you started in a single loop. The rides were pretty interesting and on clear days you could get a good view of Mount Fuji. Unfortunately, Hakone was shrouded in fog the day we went and sometimes we couldn't even see 3 metres away from us.

One of the highlights of our trip would have to be our stay at the Ryokan (Japanese-style hotel). This Ryokan has a long, rich history dating back to the late 1800s. Our room looks pretty authentic (albeit a little run-down) and has a nice view of a river that runs along the building. Like most other Ryokans, this one offers sumptuous traditional Japanese dinner and breakfast. At first they served us only a nabe (steamboat) dish with a few appetizers and we thought, "What? That's it? We're going to 7-eleven for more food tonight!" only to find out later that it was the first of five courses. The Ryokan has nice onsen rooms too. Among them is a private one for families, and a bath that was hollowed out of a cedar tree. It was nice to experience a stay at a Ryokan and we would recommend it to anyone who likes traditional Japanese culture and cuisine.

We had a good relaxing break from work during this spring vacation and will soon be getting ready for the new university school term that starts on 7th April.

Neighbors

2008-03-12T00:18:00.000-07:00

Ever since we moved into Eastern Heights (our apartment), we have been steadily building relations with our neighbors. There are 6 units in our landing (2 units each on 3 floors), and our contacts with each neighbor have been rather pleasant. We've heard horror stories of missionaries having really unreasonable neighbors, so the fortune of having nice ones should never be understated.

Over time we got to know neighbors Y&T fairly well. They speak English too, and we do stuff together like going for meals and to the gym. There is also the H family whom we get to see around regularly. Their 2 elementary school boys like to play downstairs of our apartment. Our immediate neighbor, the T family are nice to talk to but we don't bump into them as often as we'd like to. As for the other 2 neighbors, the illusive M and Y family, we've probably only seen them 3 times in the past year.

We would like to get to know the rest of our neighbors better in the remaining time we are here. It would not be easy because Japanese families tend to keep to themselves. There are also a good number of young families, particularly in our apartment block and we are hoping to know them better through various means. We are hoping to do a few children's programs for the kids, but that's quite speculative at the moment. Please pray for opportunities...

On a different subject altogether: phonetically, our Lau family name Ra-oo (see bottom right hand letterbox), sounds more like a Spanish name, Raul, than anything else. We're not complaining however, the name sounds sounds cooler :)

Graduation trip

2008-03-03T03:36:00.000-08:00

Some time ago a group of us went to the lakes around Mount Fuji with some of the graduating students from our house churches. Shion & Mayumi (Tokorozawa HC) are graduating from Waseda university this March. David (Urawa HC) is returning to Australia after a one year exchange program in Saitama university. We also had two language exchange students from Belgium (Matsudo HC) who joined us on the trip.

We went to Oshino, a little known tourist attraction that is made up of small but crystal clear watered lakes made from Fuji's volcanic eruptions. Daniel & Joy can't get enough of Mount Fuji despite having been to there 4 times: the view of the mountain is simply awesome. Along the way, an elderly Japanese gentleman tagged along, and we managed to share a bit of the gospel to him.

Shion & Mayumi will be starting their jobs in Shinagawa and North Saitama respectively, and we won't be able to see them as often as before. Please pray that they will be able to settle into the fast-paced and competitive Japanese marketplace, and that they will continue to keep a close relationship with the Lord. We thank God for their faithfulness in leading the Tokorozawa youth church, and now a new season beckons. Please pray that God will raise up new vibrant leaders for this church.

Akitsu home for the aged

2008-02-24T04:47:00.000-08:00

Today Tokorozawa HC paid a visit to a 老人ホーム (home for the aged) in Akitsu, just one train stop away from Tokorozawa. The head volunteer of the nursing centre approached us when 'Unison' was singing in the streets over Christmas last year, and invited the team to do a performance there the following week. The concert went well, and thus a relationship struck.

This afternoon, Minori (HC member) played some familiar traditional Japanese tunes on the keyboard and sang with the crowd, and Louis shared about having a friend in Jesus. Daniel then gave a simple language lesson in English and Chinese greetings (despite his terrible Chinese grades in school, he managed to look fairly professional...) After the program, we mingled with the old folks over snacks and green tea.

Everyone seemed to have an enjoyable time talking with one another. Old people just like to have someone to talk to, and we are glad that we could be there hear their stories. One lady we spoke to is Ms W whose age is a staggering 96 years old! She was born in Otaru, Hokkaido and moved here in the 1930s. Incidentally, her son is the pastor of a nearby church (very rare). There are many more folks like her in this home, and we want to know them one by one.

KHCN will make similar visits like this once every month. We are planning to have more songs, games, testimonies and simple gospel messages. One HC member may even do a traditional Japanese dance. Please pray for these visits to the home, and that the people we meet may come to know Christ in their twilight years.

Note to Unison: The thank you card that the team gave is framed on the notice board (at the back of the hall between the ladies in orange and white), and stone cross ornament present is prominently displayed on the nurses' counter. Your hard work and service to God and to Japan really counts!

CNY in Yokohama

2008-02-12T18:35:00.001-08:00

Last week on the first day of Chinese New Year (7th Feb), we took a trip to Yokohama city. Yokohama was only a small fishing village until 1853 when the Americans forced Japan to open up their ports to foreign trade. From then on, the town started to expand rapidly. Western influences reached Japan through Yokohama, including the country's first newspaper, gas powered street lamps and railway.

CL and her mum was in town, so we arranged to meet to explore the place together. Our first stop was Chinatown, where Chinese provision shops and restaurants line entire streets 4 blocks across, making it the biggest and most renown in Japan. In the festive atmosphere we managed catch a lion dance troupe in action (see video). Sorry you would have to tilt her head to watch this video in portrait. However, note the array of camera handphones in the crowd.

We then walked a short distance to the Yokohama seaside, and along the bay to the city centre. The Yokohama city skyline is rather pretty at dusk, especially the ferris wheel and the triangularly shaped office building. Yokohama has a modern feel to it. You won't see a lot of ancient Japanese architecture in here. Instead, you would see lots of colonial western style buildings and tall skyscrapers. Good place to go for a day trip...

Chinese New Year

2008-02-05T20:05:00.000-08:00

To celebrate Chinese New Year we invited the members of Ikebukuro HC and other friends over to our place for dinner. Most of them are international students from China, Malaysia, and Taiwan. The rest are our Japanese or American friends interested in Chinese culture and wanted to have a bit of fun. It was a good opportunity for a little gathering since a good number of us are away from our families here in Japan.

Firstly, we prepared little goody bags consisting of mandarin oranges and Chinese New Year goodies for our guests. The pineapple tarts and prawn rolls were kindly sponsored from Singapore (Thanks Aunty KC). We also had some friends who were touring Tokyo bring us some Yu Shang (salad-like traditional dish) pre-packed ingredients (Thanks TL & KS). This was so that we can add some kind of authenticity in our celebrations.

It was a first experience for many to try Yu Shang, because it is popular only in Singapore and parts of Malaysia. We tried to explained the meaning behind each ingredient and how blessings are spoken as the salad is mixed. It was fun to see our friends attack the Yu Shang, toss it about and make a mess out of the whole place, which by the way is part of the experience itself. Dinner was Bak Kut Teh (pork ribs in herbal soup) and homemade sushi from fish bought from Tsukiji market.

We had a great time and we thank God for that. We are grateful too for the 4 pre-believing friends who came to the party and we hope to have more gatherings like this in the future so we can get to know them better.

Snow in Tokorozawa

2008-02-03T06:23:00.000-08:00

Today is the first real day of snow in Tokorozawa! We woke up this morning to see everything outside blanketed in snow. It was quite a delightful sight. It snowed last week too but only for a couple of hours. However, this time it continued to snow throughout the day.

It usually snows only once or twice a year during winter in these parts of Japan, plus last year it didn't snow at all (it was Tokyo's first snowless winter) so there was no small commotion in the neighborhood. Kids were out in full force with their snow boots and sleds. Walking in the snow can be quite an arduous task though: it would take 3 times as long to get to anywhere maneuvering through ice and slush.

KHCN homepage

2008-01-30T00:14:00.000-08:00

We've adopted a new look for KHCN homepage. In it we have updated details, added new photos, but more significantly we have introduced a new web template! The current one is now more reflective of KHCN's vision: Spreading & building Kingdom focused communities in Tokyo and beyond. Check out the revamped homepage at: www.kantohousechurches.com
(see sidebar 'Japan Links')

Joy's Kidz Club

2008-01-26T06:22:00.000-08:00

Last Friday, KHCN started a new initiative in the Hanakogane area. Encouraged by the positive response of a similar program done by 'Unison' over Christmas, we introduced a children's program for kindergarten kids living in the neighborhood. Steve and Mrs K (see post 'Thanksgiving dinner') brought a group of mothers with their children in for an hour long program consisting of songs, stories, activities and food. Joy spearheaded most of the planning and execution, thanks to her experience in children's work from previous jobs. It's no wonder Mrs K aptly named this program, 'Joy's Kidz Club'.

We were pleasantly surprised by the fairly good turnout at the Kidz club. There were about 7 mothers and 17 children aged 1-5 years old. First of all, we sang action songs to break the ice with the kids. We then played a game in which they had to put jelly beans into paper cups using chopsticks. Joy then played another game asking the kids to paste paper cut-out shapes of animals (e.g. bird, fish, dog etc) onto their correct habitats on a sheet (e.g. sky, sea, grass, beach). The kids then had to make clay models of their favourite animals (see video). The lesson of the day is that God created animals big and small, and He created us too. We hope to impart simple biblical principles such as love or patience to the kids after each session in the future.

There are numerous possibilities for this club. The club venue is next to a park where many kids usually hang out after school to play. The mothers could also have a simple program tailor-made for them later in the year. However right now, Joy is thinking about the next Kidz club program coming up in 2 weeks. The mothers like it so much that they are thinking of having it two times a month. Please pray for God's provision of strength and stamina, for fresh new ideas in each session, and for great things to come out from this club.

Ikebukuro HC

2008-01-14T18:23:00.000-08:00

The bustling district of Ikebukuro lies along the west side of the famous Yamanote train line that circles Tokyo. Countless train and subway lines run through Ikebukuro, plus many shopping malls congest the area, thus making Ikebukuro one of the most crowded places in Japan.

In November last year, KHCN started a new house church in Ikebukuro. Together with Ando, we run bible study meetings in a karaoke room next to the train station (pictured: blue building with red kanji) every week from five to seven on Saturday evenings, after which we adjourn to the nearby fast-food restaurant for dinner. We have 9 members attending Ikebukuro HC at the moment, about half of whom are international students studying Japanese, and preparing to enroll into college here. Admittedly, initially before Ikebukuro HC opened, we were expecting more Japanese members to come join us. God knew however that we wouldn't be able to cope with the language yet, so He sent international students so we could study the bible in Japanese together.

Ikebukuro HC had a Christmas evangelistic party when 'Unison' was here in town. We were totally unprepared by the good response. Among the 27 people who were at the party, 8 of them are pre-believers. They got to listen to Unison's breathtaking music, a testimony in 3 languages (English, Japanese & Mandarin), and a simple but effective gospel message of Christ's love. We really had a good time and we thank God for that. PTL!

Please pray for Ikebukuro HC as we...
1) try to build on the friendships we made at the Christmas party
2) seek wisdom and guidance in leading Ikebukuro HC this year

Happy New Year

2008-01-03T01:24:00.000-08:00

It was an interesting experience to see how the Japanese celebrate New Year's day. They would eat Japanese traditional food, send out postcards, give out otoshidama (packet money) and make a trip to the local shrine. We however, spent our New Year's holiday in the presence of good company. Jill extended her stay another week while our church small group member, Chad flew in to also spend some time with us.

The Japanese New Year break was from 28 December till 3 January, so Tokyo city was not crowded. However, that meant most of the shops were closed as well. Nevertheless, we managed to explore different parts of the city, and drive to Nikko (a traditional Japanese town). Among the things we did in Tokyo were eating sushi in Tsukuji market, having a drink in Park Hyatt (Hotel in ’Lost in Translation’) and seeing the Emperor's family in the Imperial Palace. We welcomed the new year by eating Udon and Tempura while watching a special variety program on TV.

We wish everyone a blessed New Year!
新年あけましておめでとうございます！

Unison Highlights

2007-12-23T00:55:00.000-08:00

We’re back! 2007 December 10th-23rd has truly been a amazing experience for us and the mission team. Thank you for your prayers for us during this time. God has kept us safe and sound throughout the entire journey. Here’s a little update of what we did.

Nagano. BFEC since Campus Crusade for Christ Love Japan 2000 has been in touch with Jon Junker, a TEAM missionary serving in Nagano. Subsequently, Acapella music teams in 2002 and 2004 were organized to help with outreach efforts in the area. This time, Unison helped other evangelical churches connect with each other. Unison performed concerts in Azumino Family Chapel, Matsumoto Bible Gospel Church, and Abundant Life Church. The team also made a special trip up to Nirokura Kogen to visit Dan Junker, Jon’s brother and director of Northstar adventure lodge. That was also the first time for some members of the group to see snow!

Kanto region. Unison embarked on a grueling schedule of wide-ranging activities over here. We caroled at train stations, universities, and various house churches. We gave out Christmas evangelistic CDs on the streets. We sang to kids as young as 3 years old (children’s program at Hana Koganei) and older folk up to 82 years old (hospice at Akitsu). Thanks to Unison and by the grace of God, we also had encouraging turnouts at Tokorozawa YC and Ikebukuro HC. There were a good number of visitors and we hope to be able to know our new friends better in the future.

To every member of Unison we say “お疲れ様でした。Thank you for your hard work!” The team has for over a 2-week period performed no less than 20 times in Nagano and the Kanto region, and as a result most of us have lost our voices. We are grateful to the ministry of Arene, Chern Ee, Alawn, Cherylyn, Jill, Derek, Mark, Cheryl, Emerald, Xinyi and Toshi (not forgetting Luke & Laura!) Each of you has been a tremendous blessing to us and we thank you for your sacrifice of time and effort. You guys have made a significant impact over here and will be sorely missed… Arigatou Gozaimashita!

BFEC mission team

2007-12-09T00:11:00.001-08:00

The mission team from our home church (Bethesda Frankel Estate Church) will be arriving tomorrow morning for a 2 week mission trip (10-23 Dec). The acapella singing group "UniSon", will be here to help spread the true Christmas message in churches around Nagano and Tokyo. Daniel & Joy will be joining in and singing along with them. Why are we called "UniSon" you wonder...

a. Unison has a musical association, and it sure is something we do when we sing.
b. the Son sits inside Unison, and this is evident in everything we they do and sing
c. Unison also means singing in one voice, which is biblical because we are of one body, and we serve One Lord.
d. Incidentally many in the team are from the UNIversity (someone suggested we follow a Japanese theme and call ourselves UniSONY!)

Anyway, everyone involved have been preparing for this trip for quite a while now, so it is great to know that we are coming to it very soon. Joy's sister Jill is in the team as well, so it will be a nice family reunion of sorts.

Please pray for:

Good health & protection. Winter season is on and somedays we will be doing street evangelism (singing outdoors at train stations). Please pray that God will preserve our voices and not succumb to the bitter cold. The team will also be taking the 5-hour drive from Tokyo to Nagano, so please pray for safety on the roads.

Responsive hearts. The team will be singing at numerous places and churches. Please pray that the Japanese who attend these concerts will be receptive to the Gospel message and respond to Christ's love. Most importantly, pray for the Lord's name to be glorified in all things.

JLPT

2007-12-02T01:44:00.000-08:00

Today was our JPLT exam. The event that we have been anticipating so long for has come after hours of language classes, mugging through past exam papers, sleepless nights, downing coffee by the truckloads... The days leading to JLPT were a little nerve-wrecking especially since neither of us had sat for an exam like this for a long time, so we were relieved to have finally fulfilled our academic obligation for the year.

There were JLPT test centres all across the country. For us, we had ours at Saitama university. Apparently quite a large number of people were taking the exam there, as the buses to the university were incredibly crowded. Upon arrival, the drove of examinees filtered out to their test rooms located in various buildings in the university.

The Japanese Language Proficiency Test（日本語能力試験) consists of 3 sections namely vocabularly, listening and grammar, and there is a break after each one. Inclusive of breaks, the whole JLPT level 3 exam starts from 9.45 am till 2.35 pm.

Interestingly, there is a 'yellow card' and 'red card' warning system for exam regulation violations. If you engage in improper behaviour such as opening the question booklet before being instructed to, you will be 'cautioned', and if your handphone were to sound out during the listening section (questions are asked over the audio system), you will be immediately 'sent off'. Naturally, like soccer, if you are cautioned twice you will be ejected as well.

Anyway, many thanks to everyone who were praying for our JLPT exam. There were some difficult and tricky questions in the test paper, please pray that we will be able to pass. Results will be announced in mid-Februrary. Now we can finally concentrate in full on preparations for the busy program leading up to Christmas. The BFEC mission team will be coming up to Tokyo next week FYI. Things will get exciting when they come.

Thanksgiving

2007-11-27T22:32:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday we had a nice thanksgiving lunch with the Weemes and their Japanese neighbour family. It is not every year that we get to have a home cooked American-style Thanksgiving meal so we were glad that the Weemes invited us to share the occasion with them. We had Turkey, mash and pumpkin pie among other delectable dishes, and ate to our hearts' content.

The Japanese neighbour is the K family who lives just above the Weemes in the same building. The parents speak pretty good English as they each studied in America before. As a result, the Weemes managed to connect quite easily with them. During the Thanksgiving meal, Steve shared about the history and significance behind Thanksgiving, and everyone shared about what they were thankful for the past year.

Steve and Kathi Weemes from California, USA, are fellow KHCN team members based in Hana-Koganei. They have started an weekly English tea time session that people could gather to chat in English. Do keep them in prayer as they reach out to the neighbourhood and plan to start a HC in the area.

Picnic at the Park

2007-11-23T00:35:00.000-08:00

Today is a Labour Thanksgiving Day in Japan. It is a national holiday which commemorates labour and production. It is a bit like Thanksgiving in America; being grateful for the year and for a successful harvest.

Anyway, since the Autumn leaves are out, and the forecast for the day is bright and sunny, the Tokorozawa HC decided to go to the nearby park for a picnic. There were some visitors who joined us (friends and relatives of the KHCN team members) and we got to know them a bit.

It is going to be a while before we can go out on a picnic like this. The average temperature is dropping as Japan approaches winter. It is already snowing heavily in Hokkaido and northern Honshu.

Hectic schedule

2007-11-15T05:25:00.000-08:00

Sorry we haven't been updating our blog for the last 2 weeks as we were rather busy of late. Truth be told, we don't really know where our time went... It just goes by so quickly. Anyway, check out our weekly schedule so far until mid-December and you be the judge:

Mon-Fri mornings: Japanese language classes
Tue afternoon: English club @ Waseda university
Wed afternoon: Street outreach @ Takadanobaba
Thurs night: Bible study with working professionals
Fri night: Youth church @ Tokorozawa
Sat night: Karaoke BS @ Ikebukuro
Sun morning: English tea time @ Hanakogane
Sun night: House church @ Tokorozawa
On some days: Meet people at cafes or elsewhere
Other available times: Study study study!

Recently, we also had some short-term missionaries who came for a visit and we took the time to take them around. We have come to the realization that we have not been studying for our upcoming Japan Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) on 2 Dec. In addition we have a mission team from BFEC (our home church) from 10 Dec. Things are going to get hectic around here pretty soon.

Rush hour

2007-10-31T06:51:00.000-07:00

Every morning we see these scenes on our way to school. You would most definitely have heard about Japan's infamous rush hour crowd at subway stations. It was overwhelming going through it ourselves for the very first time. However now we are so numbed by it that we would fight for every square inch of space in the crowd without a moment's hesitation. In trains, sometimes we are packed so tightly to each other that checking our wristwatches involve a great deal of gymnastic contortion.

It is a little troublesome to get to our language school. It probably takes only about 40 minutes to get to Kichijoji from Tokorozawa, but we need to make two transfers (from one train line to another). At stations, we are practically carried along with the sea of people from one platform to another, shifting our feet one at a time like penguins. We suppose this is all part of the experience of living in Tokyo.

These pictures were taken at train stations outside of the city. Imagine how it would look like in central Tokyo...

Language school

2007-10-28T07:05:00.000-07:00

It has been 3 weeks since we started full-time Japanese language classes. Prior to that we were attending neighbourhood community classes two times a week. The classes at these volunteer-taught establishments are unbelieveably cheap at 100 yen per session! However, progress was slow and after a while we realized we are not getting very far with our Japanese at this rate. Furthermore, our Japan Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) exam is coming up in December and we needed to get into decent shape quickly.

We therefore signed up for a 10 week program at Kichijoji Language School (KLS). Classes are held 5 times a week from 9 a.m. till 12.30 p.m. Everyday we practice our grammatical forms, speaking, reading, writing and listening comprehension (our weakest aspect so far). This regime is quite tiring but enjoyable. We also got to know people of various nationalities. From our class of 12 students, we have people from Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Canada, Peru, France and Italy (surprisingly no one from China).

Can you locate our classroom? Our class is on the 4th storey of the brown high-rise building where the balcony is. It only takes a couple of minutes to walk there from Kichijoji train station, but the train ride there from Tokorozawa is erm... we'll tell you in our next post.

Parents' visit

2007-10-24T07:04:00.000-07:00

Daniel's parents were here with us for a week. It was nice for once to catch up with each other face to face rather than doing it over skype all the time. They also got a chance to see how we lived, who we worked with, the ministry we do... not to mention to check if we are eating well. (The usual stuff that parents do :P ) Nothing beats the feeling of family members coming back together again.

We were rather busy with language school during the week to be with them all the time, but we had the opportunity over the weekend to drive up to Mount Fuji and tour the five lakes that surround the mountain. We praise God for clear skies as we managed a get good view of snow capped Mount Fuji in its full granduer. The red leaves of autumn were also beginning to show so that was an added bonus.

Over a hundred photos of Mount Fuji were taken during this trip. Mount Fuji was so memerizing that we couldn't help but just point our cameras and snap uncontrollably at it from every possible angle. It is no wonder why this mountain holds such a tremendous significance to Japanese culture.

Countryside drive

2007-10-13T22:07:00.000-07:00

Louis suggested we borrow his car for a day just to drive out into the countryside and relax. We didn't know where to go at all since we haven't been out much. Nevertheless we took our map along with us and embarked on a road trip to nowhere.

Our original intention was just to drive to some nearby park at Hanno (飯能) and head back. However we located some interesting places on the map, then another some distance away. One thing led to another and before we knew it, we ended up in the mountains near Chichibu (秩父) some 40km away.

We visited Arima dam (有間ダム), a canoe factory and a fishing station. Daniel loves driving into the mountains and taking nice photographs while Joy like to take in the scenery and breathe the fresh air. Although the trip took up a good part of the day, we were glad we did it because it proved to be well-timed break from ministry work and language studies...

Friend in town

2007-10-02T20:15:00.000-07:00

Choon Ling is Joy's long time friend from swimming club and now a regular prayer partner. She has been to Japan numerous times, and was in Tokyo for a short trip last week to hang out with us for a while.

We brought her to nearby places of interest around Tokorozawa. We've noticed now that people coming to visit would usually be brought to these places (partly due to our lack of imagination):

1) Prope-dori. 200 metre long shopping arcade near the station
2) Saiyama Lake. Scenic views of Tokorozawa
3) Conyeyor-belt sushi restaurant (100 Yen per plate)
4) Donkei Hotei. A terribly congested yet colourful store that sells everything
5) Treasure Factory. Sells used but cheap items (Singaporeans love to shop)

Our first river baptism

2007-09-24T17:30:00.000-07:00

On Sunday we witnessed our very first river baptism. It was held in the scenic countryside of Hanno, some 20 minutes drive from Tokorozawa. There were about 30 people who came to share in the joy of the baptism of Mr S (in white shirt). We gathered along the stoned lined river bank to sing songs, hear Mr S's testimony and pray for him.

Mr S is a 65 year old retiree who made the committment to Christ a couple of years after his wife did. Mr S first read the bible when he was 19 years old, and after coming into contact with Chrisitanity on several occasions, eventually opened his heart to accept Jesus.

Coming from a place where people come to be baptized in droves and baptism itself seems like a commonplace event, it is an eye-opener to have witnessed one in Japan. Baptisms are rare here, and it is a cause for great celebration whenever one happens. It reminds us how God rejoices over the one sheep that is found (Luke 15).

FYI, Mr S loves fishing and photography. For decades, he worked in a fishing gear company travelling to places taking photographs for product catalogues. How cool is that?

Kanto House Church Network

2007-09-17T15:44:00.000-07:00

The Kanto House Church Network (KHCN) is a ministry under OMF Japan. Its vision is to start and build up small communities of Christians around the Kanto region. (The Kanto region includes prefectures surrounding the greater Tokyo area). Bible study sessions are held in readily accessible places near train stations such as homes, cafes or karaoke rooms.

KHCN currently has 4 house churches: Tokorozawa (where we are based), Urawa, Matsudo and Takadanobaba. It is looking to form 4 more house churches in Ikebukuro, Hana-kogane, Kawagoe and Nagareyama within the next year or two. Do remember to check out the KHCN website (see "Japan links" on left side of our blog) for more information about this ministry.

As a start, we are now trying to reach out to people who might be interested in studying the bible through the use of a picture postcard. These are given out to promote awareness about KHCN and to give a simple gospel message.

Please pray for:
1) people to respond positively to this invitation
2) creative ideas to reach people effectively for Christ
3) faithfulness and perseverance in our work

FYI the words on the front of the postcard means "Jesus loves you!" while the back has some searching questions and a brief explanation of John 14:6 ("I am the way, the truth and the life...")

Celebration Sunday

2007-09-17T02:17:00.001-07:00

Yesterday we had a combined house church gathering at Shin-yahashira in Chiba prefecture. We held the worship service in a rented neighbourhood dance hall, and a pastor from Ando's church spoke to us about going out into the harvest field to spread the gospel for Christ.

Members from different house churches of the KHCN would come together like this every 2 months. It is good to have sessions like this because we can encourage each other in a big group setting as house church memberships are relatively small. Knowing that there are like-minded Christians in Japan is a huge support for those who feel they are alone in their walk with God. We are all part of the worldwide family of Christ.

Friends in Tokyo

2007-09-07T19:50:00.000-07:00

This month we had more friends come visit us in Tokyo. We met up with Danny Chua, an Elder from BFEC, for dinner at Shinjuku and he treated us to Shabu Shabu! Sluurp! He comes to Japan once in a while on business trips so we hope to meet him every now and then...

We also had a contingent from Joy's youth group stay with us for a week. Joel, Tricia, Pressie & Abigail were great to have around. They brought us our usual rations of mi goreng noodles and mai ling luncheon meat, and in turn we brought them around Tokyo :P Despite spending a good deal of time at 100 Yen shops and UFO catcher machines (using mechanized claws to catch prizes) they managed visit our karaoke house church, spend a day Disneysea, and buy Krispy Kreme donuts in controversial fashion! Ask them for full story.

Japan Update

2007-08-22T06:01:00.001-07:00

Dear friends,
If you have received this in your inbox it means that you are on Daniel & Joylyn's Japan update mailing list! We decided to post this to you for a change and tell you that:
1) We are doing fine in Japan!
2) We have a blog! Come visit this link often...
3) The "mail contents of this page" function in Safari works!

Time has passed us by rather quickly. It's been exactly 2 months since we arrived in Saitama from Sapporo. Although it would take a further few months to fully settle in, we can say that we are now starting to get into the flow of things around here. We thank the Lord for keeping us safe and in good health thus far. During the school summer break, we managed explore our surroundings in the Kanto region, and to concentrate on our Japanese language studies. The KHCN has some exciting plans on the way and we will be sure to let you know in future posts or in our upcoming Autumn newsletter.

A big thank you for remembering Japan and us in prayer (especially the Frankelites who prayed last Sunday during missions month). We trust the Lord in faith that He will do a marvelous work among the people of Japan.

Blessings,
Daniel & Joylyn Lau

Heatwave

2007-08-19T16:29:00.000-07:00

Summer has really hit us hard this past week. Last Thursday the mercury hit 40.9 degrees in Saitama prefecture, making it the hottest day in Japan in 74 years (since 1933). Temperatures are cooling to around 32-33 degrees this week, but it is still enough to make you break in sweat after walking 5 minutes on the street. Coming from Singapore, we used to think that summers in Japan would be a piece of cake. That assumption evaporated...

The sights and sounds of summer here are nice though. On weekend afternoons in the park, you will see people in their yukatas (casual light cotton kimonos) lapping up their kakigoori (Japanese style ice-kachang) to the endless call of cicadas.

Tokorozawa HC

2007-08-13T07:26:00.000-07:00

Our house church in Tokorozawa meets every sunday from 4 to 6.30 in the afternoons, and we alternate our meeting places: one week in a church building, and another week at a karaoke room. KHCN has a good working relationship with a vineyard church near the train station and are currently using their premises for our house church meetings. We are thankful because we could use their nice hall, musical instruments, and an overhead projector. We would sing Christian songs, listen to sermons and testimonies, have refreshments... the usual workings of a typical church.

The house church also meets at a karaoke room. It is a great way to meet new people because the place offers a more relaxed atmosphere for singing and chatting. We would sing together, have a simple bible study and pray for each other. It is also a very inexpensive way to gather. Besides a small rental fee, all that is required is the cost of a drink per person (non-alcoholic, that is...) :P

Life on the express train

2007-08-05T06:23:00.000-07:00

We have been in Tokyo for over a month now and all we can say is that the time we spent since has been well... hectic. We feel that our life in the past month is like riding on the express train racing furiously to your destination. Since coming we had to settle into our apartment (or "mansion") quickly, find language schools, help out short-term workers, plan to start new house churches, and take on added ministry responsibilites (until our team leader returns from a short break). Our work here is really exciting, but tiring.

It's the summer holidays now. Most of the students have gone back to their hometowns to visit their folks so it is a little quiter here now. We have also some time to explore our neighbourhood and the city at our own leisure. Furthermore, another missionary couple, Steve and Kathi Weemes are back from their home assignment and have joined the team! Hooray! It looks like we are transiting onto the semi-express train for now. Phew!

Tokyo train system

2007-08-03T00:11:00.000-07:00

Let us tell you about the train system here. There are hundreds of train stations and lines linking the surrounding suburbs into the heart of Tokyo. Take a look at the Metro subway map. This however only shows you the subway stations of central Tokyo alone. The train system is really massive: it carries about 6 million passengers a day.

There are several levels of services in the train system. The local train ( 普通 ) stops at every station but it would take an awful long time to get to your destination. Other services like the semi-express ( 準急 ) and rapid service ( 快速 ) trains skip some stations. The express train ( 急行 ) stops at even fewer stations but takes a much shorter time. The limited express ( 特急 ) has plushier seats and stops only at major stations but costs much more. Train fares are generally very expensive. A round ticket from Tokorozawa to Tokyo station would cost over 1000 Yen (SGD $13).

It can get very confusing trying to find your way around the system especially if you want to get to a relatively remote station in the shortest possible time. What makes it more confusing is that some private subway operators have their own terminology: a rapid express (fast sounding) may actually be slower than a semi-express!

Kawagoe Summer Festival

2007-07-28T20:18:00.000-07:00

Last night we went to our first "matsuri" in Japan. The town of Kawagoe, which takes 20 minutes to get to by train from Tokorozawa, is having their summer festival this weekend and we went to catch the excitement and the fun. Kawagoe is known as little Edo (Tokyo) because the city still retains the ambience and the charm of the period with its historical buildings and festivals.

There we saw lots of people dressed in kimonos and other traditional garb walking along lantern lit streets filled with snack and game stalls. There were also street and stage performances featuring traditional dance and drum acts. The festival atmosphere was simply remarkable...

The KHCN team is praying and planning to start a house church in Kawagoe in the future. Things are still a little sketchy at the moment but please pray for the church planting efforts to bear fruit in this traditional town.

Friends in Tokyo

2007-07-26T07:24:00.000-07:00

That's Daniel's polytechnic mate and Joy's friend from church. The good thing about Tokyo is that we get a good number of visitors on their work trips or holidays. We were glad to have friends over once in a while to catch up and to find out the latest happenings back in Singapore. Just last weekend they were in town and we spent time exploring places like Ginza, Shinjuku & Ueno with them. It was great because we usually wouldn't take the long train commute to these places. This gives us the added incentive, heh.

Eastern Heights

2007-07-20T18:24:00.000-07:00

Many people have been asking us about where we live and how it looks like. We are renting a place in 3-storey walk-up apartment named Eastern Heighs. It is a 3DK (3 rooms with a dining/kitchen area) with an area of 56m2, which is smaller than our 3-room flat in Singapore. Although small in size, it is big on coziness: the wooden floorboards and the tatami mats give a very nice Japanese atmosphere to the place.

We have to get used to the Japanese terminology of housing here: apartments (apato) in Japan are small units in old buildings whereas mansions (manshon) are larger apartments in modern buildings. Technically we live in an mansion although we still can't get used to using that word (think big house with Corinthian styled columns... ).

Most of our household items were passed on from other missionaries or bought from second-hand shops. We are thankful that we managed to keep our home setup expenditure to a minimum. Our place looks pretty decent now so we decided to put up a little video of our apartment before clutter inevitably starts to invade. Actually it already has, as you shall soon see.

Note: We apologise that the video shakes a lot so you may want to take an aspirin if you don't take too kindly to motion sickness... :)

Natural Disasters

2007-07-16T07:44:00.000-07:00

At approximately 10 a.m. this morning, we experienced our apartment sway for several minutes. Daniel thought at first that he was getting giddy from sleeping too much. Joy knew what it was immediately: Earthquake! One measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale rocked Niigata prefecture on the west coast of Honshu. 7 people were killed and over 900 were injured. Authorities are now trying to restore power and water in the affected cities.

On another note, a powerful typhoon created havoc in Okinawa last week and meterologists forecasted that it would head upwards toward the Kanto region. The typhoon was due to arrive in Tokyo on Sunday but subsequently veered away and petered out.

In this week alone we tasted our first typhoon scare and earthquake (ok not quite an earthquake, but tremor) in Japan. We were a little surprised that in spite of these no one here seems to be too worried. No excitement, no fuss, no big deal. The locals must have been used to all these over the years. It was a good induction nevertheless for a Singaporean couple on their first 3 weeks in Tokyo...