Christmas, Part 1: Christmas in Japan.

I hope everyone had a merry Christmas! Moments of homesickness aside, I had a wonderful Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. This is going to turn into a 3-part post, so let me just say now, for those who might be worrying: I am being taken care of very well by everyone at JELA, the JELC, and my church, and I love getting emails, letters, and cards from home. I will reply to you all eventually! It's been very busy lately, and since we're coming up on our last few weeks in Tokyo, it's only going to get busier as we cram in our last activities with people who have become near and dear.

I've received several questions about Christmas in Japan recently. Do they celebrate it here? Are there Christmas decorations around town or in people's houses?

Mosaic Street overhead Christmas
illumination in Shinjuku Station.

The answer to both those questions is both yes and no. Yes, the Japanese are aware of the existence of both Christmas and Christmas Eve as holidays of Christian origin on the 24th and 25th of December, and yes, stores and homes alike deck the halls every year. Countless "Christmas illuminations" go up around mid-November in major tourist spots like Shinjuku, Roppongi, and Ōdaiba. But here are a couple major things about Christmas in Japan you should know:

• Christmas is not a national holiday. Nothing is normally closed or on reduced hours on Christmas, and if it's a weekday it's a regular work day. Caroline and I were able to grab burgers for lunch (surrounded by office workers on their lunch break) and visit a used bookstore on Christmas.


• Christmas is almost entirely secular. According to a church friend, many Japanese believe Christmas celebrates the birth of Santa Claus. (Santa-san, by the way, visits children's houses here, too.) Many people have a Christmas tree in their home, but all the people in my church who have nativity scenes had to buy them in other countries. Christmas decorations are void of anything sacred--you'll only find Santa, reindeer, snowmen, tinsel, Christmas trees, and wreaths. I've heard sacred Christmas music played in many stores and public places, but purely for atmosphere--either with English lyrics or no lyrics at all.


• Christmas Eve is date night. Even at the Christmas Eve service at my church, girls brought their boyfriends. And on the way back home, I had to work my way through crowds of couples holding hands at the train station. Caroline told me the story of a Japanese Christian she met who took Christmas off from work to travel back to Tokyo to be with her family. Her boss understood that the holiday had religious significance to her and her family, but her coworkers thought she was taking time off to just go date.

Christmas Eve line outside KFC.
(Photo courtesy of Cindy, a member of my church.)

There are also a couple of Christmas traditions here that are entirely Japanese in origin: Christmas cake and Kentucky Fried Chicken. Japanese Christmas cake is something I think the United States should totally adopt: it's a sponge cake with whipped cream and a generous amount of strawberries and adorable Christmas-themed plastic decorations--and delicious. And the latter apparently started with a phenomenally successful advertising campaign back in the '70s when KFC began offering bargain-priced chicken and wine on Christmas for the Westerners in Japan missing their traditional Christmas feast. KFC gets so much business on Christmas Eve in Japan that they start taking reservations in early November.

Even with the option of discount fried chicken, it's a little rough on Christians, Western expats, and especially Christian expats around here to see Christmas pass with mostly commercial fanfare and no standard vacation time to be with family. The New Year is a much, much more important holiday: businesses often close for multiple days as people travel to be with families, and the post office is urging everyone to send their New Year's greetings out soon so they can be delivered on New Year's day. People stock up on special New Year's food since stores will be closed for several days, and I'm told shrines will be packed with people waiting for bells to be rung and New Year's fortune to be bestowed on them.

My "Christmas tree."

Churches around here do have Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services--the latter tend to be very sparsely attended if they fall on work days--and they also have New Year's services as an alternative to shrine visits. Some couples actually attend church on Christmas Eve because it seems like the romantic thing to do--which does provide a good opportunity for outreach and at least clearing up the confusion about whose birthday we're celebrating. (Japan, the incredible love you're missing out on! It makes me sad.)

So what did I do for Christmas? It's a long story, featuring sermons (preached by yours truly), singing, parties, gifts, The Hobbit, Korean TV shows, and me embarrassing myself in public. Look for "Christmas, Part 2: Christmas Eve," coming soon to a missionary blog near you.

He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.
John 1:10 (NIV)

Shout-outs.

I've received so many wonderful cards, gifts, letters, and other good tidings in the past month that deserve some acknowledgement.

To the children and St. Bertha Circle women of St. Luke Lutheran Church in Florence, South Carolina: Thank you so much for the Thanksgiving greetings! The cards and the artwork and hand turkeys made my day. Thank you all for your support and prayers! Global mission couldn't happen without you all!

Pretty sure these kids are the best.

To my church (and grandparents and mom's friends): Thank you so much for the flood of cards you've sent me, either in the box my mother sent or directly to my apartment. Every single one was beautiful, I nearly cried. In a good way. Thank you also to those who sent me longer letters or small gifts. The (lovely) couple of Christmas ornaments I received are currently hanging around my apartment and have really helped bring the Christmas cheer. As soon as I get time to sit down and work on it, I'm going to string up the cards on some ribbon, too. (Just got a hole punch from my mother in the mail today!) You have always been and still are such a gift to me. I am truly blessed to have grown up in such a wonderful church family.

Christmas card deluge!

To my friends: Thank you for the "quality" "handcrafted" Christmas tree and ornaments that were a tribute to our year in California together. You guys never fail to brighten my day and make me laugh. I miss spending time with you guys, playing Telephone Pictionary and 1000 Blank White Cards, laughing uproariously at Parks and Recreation (Knope 2012!), making makeshift Japanese cuisine, and going on adventures to San Francisco together. We shall have more adventures together in Japan someday soon! I decree it.

My friends are arts-and-crafts masters.
(The cat with the stubby tail is my dearly-missed Ebenezer.)

And, finally, to my mother: Thank you for everything, especially the praying shawl and the the 3-pound Costco jar of peanut butter. The former is lovely and super cozy and the latter is hilarious and will make me many a sandwich in the months to come.

Guess which one is from America.

God's blessings to you all! Your generosity is much appreciated. Merry Christmas!

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen.
Philippians 4:23 (NIV)

Japanese class.

All the new Japan missionaries have been taking a Japanese class courtesy of the Japan Evangelical Lutheran Association, but since I've already studied it I get individual tutoring twice a week. Every session starts with a reading from Yohane ni Yoru Fukuinsho, the Gospel According to John, in my new copy of the Shin'yaku Seisho, the New Testament.

Cutest New Testament ever?

These are stories I've grown up reading and hearing, but somehow reading and discussing it with my teachers in a different language than English puts everything in a new light. The Wedding at Cana, where Jesus changes water into wine for example--once in high school or college I heard a speaker say "Jesus' first miracle was to keep the party going," and he thus affirmed human fellowship and celebration--and good wine. It was a sentiment I held on to for years. But when I was discussing the story of the Kana de no Konrei with Morikawa-sensei, he explained, in Japanese, how he saw the miracle of the wine--the good wine--as foreshadowing the saving blood Jesus would later shed at the Cross. I'd never made that connection before. And then I noticed that the jars were for ritual purification (kiyome)--more symbolism! The Japanese Bible also takes pronounciations and place names from the original Greek and Hebrew, so some of the names and locations are unrecognizable at first glance--Kaferunaumu is Capernaum, Petoro is Peter. It's a gift. The words are no longer just a chant I've long been desensitized to.

Then after a break, we crack open my brand new Japanese textbook. It's intermediate-level, something I originally thought would be too easy for me. (This was before I was humbled by my rice cooker.) But what I neglected to notice when Morikawa-sensei picked out the book for me at Kinokuniya was that this thing is entirely in Japanese, with no precious glossary or translations to help me, either. After I stumble through a short essay and verbally answer questions about it, we go over grammar points and new expressions. Homework is leftover questions (more when I have a particularly "slow" day) or a weekly essay... which I have the bad habit of starting at 8pm the night before it's due. College all over again.

Essay on Thanksgiving, corrected by
Morikawa-sensei.

Morikawa-sensei and Narabu-sensei have been really great teachers, and I'm grateful to them for taking two hours out of their week to listen to an American girl stumble through the story of the Feeding of the 5,000 and a short essay on world food customs, and then teach her the appropriate use of the "(verb)-to (verb phrase)-yōde (adjective)-naru" construction. Narabu-sensei even prints out pages from guidebooks and gives me suggestions on where to go in Tokyo on my free time along with some insider info. (Did you know the founder of Panasonic donated the giant lantern at Kaminari-Mon ["Thunder Gate"] at Sensō Temple in Asakusa? His name is on the bottom of the lantern.) I really do love being a student... but the last class is this Friday and in a few short months I'll be a teacher myself. I hope I can have half the patience and positivity of my Japanese teachers here in Tokyo.

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
2 Timothy 3:16-17 (NIV)

Food.

It's been just a little more than a month since I arrived in Tokyo and I think I've established something of a routine. Sunday is church, Tuesday and Friday are Japanese class, Wednesday is study hall while the others are in Japanese class (I do one-on-one tutoring), and the rest of the time is... well, maybe I don't have a routine after all. In my free time I've cleaned my apartment, done my homework, cooked one-person meals or gone grocery shopping. I've also discovered cheap (and not so cheap) restaurants around my apartment... and I've eaten at the 24-hour McDonald's down the street more than I'd like to admit.

When I want to save money (and don't want to make the twenty-five-minute trek to the only cheap udon noodle place in the vicinity that I know), I usually subsist on peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches, Kōn Furēku Shugā Taipu ("Corn Flake Sugar Type," the cheap store-brand equivalent of Frosted Flakes), bananas, hard-boiled eggs, rice, and miso soup (with tofu, if I remember to pick some up!). For dinner, it's either spaghetti or yakisoba, the stir-fried noodles you may recall me raving about in my entry on Hongo Bible Camp.

Ridiculously proud of this.

Yakisoba was the first meal I ever cooked here. Though not nearly as good as what they serve in restaurants (the noodles come prepackaged with a separate seasoning packet--much like instant ramen), it's still easy to make and filling enough to make a decent dinner much cheaper than any restaurant in Tokyo (including the McDonald's!). Throw in a quarter-head of cabbage for 38 yen and you get a cheap serving of vegetables, too! (Well, stir-fried, but that still counts, right?)

To make miso soup you need 22.5 SPOON of miso.

When I finally decided to look for a real recipe (as opposed to the instructions on the back of the package), I discovered that my apartment actually lacks a set of measuring spoons. I needed them to make miso soup, so when I found them at our local (tiny) grocery store, I threw them into my basket without a second thought. Japanese recipes use ōsaji ("big spoon" or tablespoon) and kosaji ("little spoon" or teaspoon), so I figured they wouldn't be too different from what I used in the States.

But then I got home and untied them from the card they were on, I discovered that they were labeled in the most cryptic way possible. The biggest spoon was "15 SPOON," then "5 SPOON," "2.5 SPOON," and "1 SPOON." The back of the package was no help--just a wall of Japanese. It was only after some Googling and deduction that I realized the numbers were milliliter measurements. Did you know a tablespoon is 15 mL? Now I do.

It means "0 hours since the rice was done"
but I still like thinking it's startled.

I had another little victory when I figured out how to use my rice cooker... with a little help. Six years of Japanese language study may have allowed me to be able to articulate the homeless problem in Osaka or talk about the importance of eating together with family at mealtimes, but I still had to Google how to work the thing. (Turns out it's essentially "plug it in and push the giant red button.")

So there's a glimpse of my daily life here. In future entries I'll talk about my Japanese class, my church, lectures I've attended, English classes, and even more reflections on my life in Tokyo. For now, though, I'm gonna soak some rice and make me a PB&J.

A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment?
Ecclesiastes 2:24-25 (NIV)

To my email subscribers.

Hello, email subscribers from Heritage! My mother tells me that some of you have tried to comment on my blog posts via email.

Unfortunately, it's not possible to comment via email. I don't send out the emails; Google/Blogger does it automatically, so any email reply will go to an email address at Google/Blogger that no one monitors.

So, if you would like to comment on individual entries, click on the post title in the email (in blue up top) and it will take you to the blog post on the Web, where you can post a comment in the box at the bottom of the entry.

In addition to email, you can also subscribe via RSS. (Click on the Google logo at the top of the email.) Or, just add http://30monthsinjapan.blogspot.com to your bookmarks and be sure to check it sometimes.

If for some reason you would like to stop receiving email notifications of blog updates, there should be a link to unsubscribe at the bottom of this email.

Thanks for reading!

Thanksgiving at Tokyo Lutheran.

I think this is the most I've ever celebrated a single Thanksgiving: on top of the taco lunch at Erik and Tauna's on Thursday, Tokyo Lutheran held a Thanksgiving potluck Saturday evening.

"Ou, zaa rou izu guudu tu mii!"

After Caroline and I deposited our meager contribution of chocolate candies to the wondrous spread of traditional and non-traditional Thanksgiving foods, we sat down, heard Psalm 100 in English and Japanese, and then all sang the "Apple Seed" prayer--which was copied down on a whiteboard along with Japanese phonetic transcription. Always a good time with that one, especially when the leaders draw out the "aaaa" in the last "amen." Which, of course, they did.

Carving the turkey.

It was two hours of delicious food and wonderful company with Japanese and non-Japanese churchgoers alike. Included on the menu were lefse (a Minnesotan Thanksgiving staple that I miss dearly), Kraft macaroni and cheese (naturally the Americans shoveled this onto their plates), some kind of Korean pizza with seafood and onions, varied sushi platters, a big ol' pile of inarizushi (fried tofu pockets of sushi rice), green bean casserole, an adorable turkey cake (baked by Tauna), persimmons, Milk Duds, Andes Mints, and, of course, mashed potatoes and turkey, the latter carved by Tokyo Lutheran's own Pastor Sekino. As Sekino-sensei had no prior experience carving turkey, Erik had to help him a little bit. Good-natured laughter and obligatory "How many Lutheran pastors does it take to carve a turkey?" jokes ensued. (No judgements here! I have no idea how to carve one myself.)

Thanksgiving dinner of champions.

So I can now say that I've eaten turkey, mashed potatoes, and macaroni and cheese with chopsticks. It was actually more fun this way. My family can reasonably expect me to tote a pair of chopsticks to any future Thanksgiving dinners. And possibly some inarizushi. That stuff is straight-up delicious.

After washing dishes, cleaning up the table decorations, distributing leftover sweets (I dumped an entire platter of the chocolates into a purse) and finishing off the last of the wine, we grabbed our coats and said amiable goodbyes while making hasty plans to meet up again. There is indeed much to be thankful for this season in Japan.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.
For the Lord is good and his love endures forever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.
Psalm 100:4-5 (NIV)

Hongo Bible Camp.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! On Thursday the other J-3s (yes, Caroline is finally here!) had some tacos with chips and guacamole for lunch courtesy of the new long-term Tokyo missionary couple Erik and Tauna. Good food and good fellowship--it was a lovely afternoon. Also, tonight was a Thanksgiving potluck at Tokyo Lutheran, complete with a turkey (very expensive here!), but more about that in a later entry.

View from the beach next to the resort.

Last weekend was English Bible Camp for Hongo Student Center, an outreach of Hongo Lutheran Church here in Tokyo that offers English classes and an English Bible study for all ages and skill levels as well as an English Coffee Hour. In past years the camp has been held at a retreat canter out in the mountains west of Tokyo, but this year it was held at a sports resort in Chiba, east of Tokyo across the bay. Fittingly, the theme was "God's Love is Like an Ocean."

Ladies' cabin!

It had been raining all Saturday morning, but when we reached the seaside that afternoon the winds made it feel much more like a storm. After eating a delicious fresh seafood lunch (which one of the Japanese camp attendees graciously demonstrated to me how to eat) and arriving at our destination, we were nearly swept off our feet on our way to our cabins. The windows rattled and you could hear the rain pound on the roofs! It was quite exciting, though unfortunately the wind actually slammed the door of the men's cabin into the wall and broke the glass in the door. (Everyone was fine; they just had to move into a room in the "hotel" portion of the resort for the night.)

Despite what the name might suggest, the attendees were all adults (youngest was a college student), though one couple brought their bouncy three-year-old son who kept everyone smiling the whole weekend. He was a big fan of the icebreaker game we played, which if you're familiar with "I Love My Neighbor" (I'm looking at you, attendees of this year's Heritage retreat!) was quite similar, except this one required people to grab partners after every turn. There was lots of gentle tackling and and at one point I actually got picked up off the ground! It was crazy, active, fun, and the perfect way to start getting comfortable with one another.

No regrets about studying this language.

We split up into small groups, read some Scriptures in English, and talked about how huge and incomprehensible God's love is. Hannah, a woman who works as a translator at a missionary organization in Tokyo, put it best: we can't even comprehend how deep and wide God's love is; all we can do is accept it. When we all gathered together again, one of the Hongo English students, an older gentleman, pointed out that the Japanese character for love, 愛, is made up of two characters: 受 (to receive) and 心 (heart). Interesting, ne?

In talking with my group and stumbling through trying to articulate God's love, I found myself stuck right there in the incomprehensibility of it all. My speech started to go into recursion ("it's wonderful because it's so big, because it's so wonderful, because it's so big") and everyone's faces were blank--even the Christians in the group. Oof. It makes me feel a little better that the apostle Paul was also not so great at talking.

After-dinner fellowship. (Photo by Caroline.)

The food and fellowship outside the main sessions were marvelous. Mápó dòufu (Szechuan tofu) and ajifurai (fried mackerel) are my new favorite dishes. After singing and a candlelight service in a squash court (yes, you read that right; this resort was not really designed for Bible retreats), we gathered in the café attached to the resort and talked about everything from our favorite TV shows to our hometowns to recommended sightseeing spots in Tokyo. Good times, good cocktails. Though at one point the windows overlooking the ocean were rattling so hard in the wind that the staff moved us away from the windows to the back of the room lest they shatter right on top of us! (They didn't, thankfully.)

Tokyo Bay from my bunk Sunday morning.

The next morning dawned relatively sunny. We had the opportunity to walk along the seashore and take some pictures before attending our last session where we read some more Bible passages on love. It was a productive and interesting intercultural discussion--the word "love" is used very differently in English and Japanese. In English we say "I love you" all the time to our families and even our friends, but in Japanese... it's very strange for even a couple to say that to each other, even in private. It's something I've known for years, but still can't quite wrap my head around--you're reading the blog of a girl who for years as a child made sure the last thing she said to her parents before going to bed was "I love you" lest one of her parents die during the night. But a lot of communication in Japanese is actually subtext. Translated literally, many set phrases sound quite strange. Otsukaresama deshita, which would be an appropriate phrase to say to someone who has finished their work for the day, literally translated means "You look tired." But in practice it's used much more like "Good work!" I've heard it used to compliment a musician after a performance. There is still much for me to learn about this culture. I'm looking forward to it.

Sunset view from the bus.

The last event of the camp was a barbecue. We shared platters and platters of pork, chicken, squid, scallops, sausage, carrots, peppers, potatoes, eggplant, and finally, yakisoba (stir-fried noodles) before climbing aboard the bus to go back home to Tokyo. Unfortunately, there had been a traffic accident earlier that day and the normally two-hour bus ride took four-and-a-half. We occupied ourselves with conversation, naps, and, later that evening in the back of the bus, a couple of rounds of Mafia. (Some know this game as The Werewolf Game or Witch Hunt.) Rather interesting to play a game that involves accusations of murder with a group of people you just met at a Christian retreat. But it was a good time with much laughter. ("We were just taught that we should love each other!" protested one attendee, after being accused of my murder. He actually didn't do it--it was Luke, the J-3 who's been teaching at Hongo since last year.)

We finally reached Tokyo at 7:30 that night. With waves and "otsukaresama deshita!"s we parted and went home to have a good night's sleep. There was much love and joy in that group; I was a little sad it ended so soon. I wouldn't have minded another day by the sea with them. But I know the love and fellowship of the Body of Christ doesn't end when the retreats do. They're just a nice reminder.

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Ephesians 3:16-19 (NIV)

Settling in.

Life has been so busy lately that it's hard to believe I've only been in Tokyo five days. And I haven't even started my "real work" yet!

They thought of everything!

The flight was good. Ludicrous amounts of in-flight entertainment made the twelve hours go really fast. Morgan and I waited in line for half an hour to get our Japan Resident cards (in the ironically named "Priority Lane"), then we sped through customs and met our contacts from the two Lutheran organizations here in Japan who very kindly bought us refreshments before driving us out to our apartments. They'd already been stocked with groceries and supplies, including such American staples as peanut butter, Snickers, and Frosted Flakes--which, I might add, are quite a bit more expensive here than in the States. And this is just a fraction of the hospitality I've been offered here. More about that in a second.

My name in Japanese... backwards.

The last few days have been a lot of administrative and literal housekeeping. I'm officially registered as a resident of my ward of Tokyo; have my own name stamp (the Japanese equivalent of a signature), bank account, and cell phone; and have successfully washed my first load of laundry without blowing anything up! And my little apartment is a little less cluttered than it used to be, though I still have to keep my clothes in my suitcases since I have no dresser. I've attended two services at a Tokyo church (one in English, one in Japanese), met my supervisors, been treated to countless delicious meals, taken a Japanese language placement test, introduced myself to the board of the Japan Evangelical Lutheran Church, and even managed to do a little shopping.

It's been lots of fun--but in some ways unexpectedly tough. I've run full-speed into the language barrier multiple times. When I opened my bank account they found a teller who spoke English and I still messed up my application three or four times, using the Japanese alphabet when I should have used the Roman alphabet and then using lowercase when I should have used uppercase, which required me to cross it all out, correct it, and then stamp all the corrections with my name stamp. Then while doing that I managed to smudge the name stamp that served as my signature so I had to stamp it yet again. Talent.

Thankfully I've been treated with nothing but kindness and patience. Paul, the representative from the Japan Evangelical Lutheran Association who's in charge of getting us acclimated to Tokyo life, has been especially amazing, doing everything from teaching me how to work my washing machine to spotting both Morgan and me the unexpectedly high up-front cost for a cell phone. (I intend to pay him back as soon as I get down to a bank!) I've been greeted with warm smiles and hot tea and pastries by Japanese churchgoers and board members. Even cashiers are accomodating with me when I hand them bills of obnoxiously large denominations or read the wrong number off the cash register display and accidentally shortchange them.

There's a million more things I want to write about my new life in Japan, but I think I need to chew on my experiences a little more. For now, some lessons that I've learned so far:

1. Peppermint tea is excellent for when you forget how spicy Korean instant ramen is but eat it anyway.
2. To get to Tokyu Hands (giant home goods store) or Kinokuniya (giant bookstore), go through the south exit of Shinjuku Station. South. Otherwise you'll be wandering around the station for an hour.
3. For a largely Shintō/Buddhist/secular country, Japan seems to love piping sacred Christmas music (complete with English lyrics) into its shops around this time of year.
4. Japanese church services are conducted much like services back home, except with a lot more bowing and a lot less "greet each other with the peace of Christ" hugs-and-handshakes time. It's just as welcoming and hospitable, though.
5. Japan is really interested in the U.S. election. Really interested. It keeps coming up on the news, and there's a whole shelf of books about Mitt Romney and President Obama in the English-language section of Kinokuniya in Shinjuku. (I've been asked who I think will win the election. I have no idea.)
6. My numerous gaijin (foreigner) failures (like when I think I might have used my name seal incorrectly or take an hour to figure out my hot water boiler because all the instructions are in Japanese) are not end-all be-all. Thank the Lord. I seem to be terrible at giving my anxieties over to him.
7. The words for "to wipe" (拭く) and "clothing" (服) are homophones (fuku). This is fertile soil for terrible and hilarious puns. (Sunday night I caught a TV show featuring some comedians from Kumamoto. Every time I got a joke--which was about three times in the whole half-hour--it was like a miracle.)
8. It really is okay to eat that raw egg on top of your katsudon. Really. The hot rice and pork under it cook it, and eggs are much fresher over here anyway.
9. The Velcro closure on my umbrella will destroy my pantyhose. Oops.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:6-7 (NIV)

Made it!

Alive and well in my new (tiny) Tokyo apartment, though thoroughly exhausted after my 18 hours on and off planes.

Posts of substance coming soon!

Visa!

It's not quite a surprise to anyone who's talked to me in the past week, but I wanted to wait until I had absolutely everything I needed to board the plane to Japan. After a trip down to the consulate today, that happened.

If all goes well, the next time I post I'll be in Japan! Exciting times. But for now, back to packing.

Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.
Proverbs 13:12 (NIV)

Postponement.

Have you ever heard the saying, "If you ever want to make God laugh, tell him your plans"?

The Pacific Ocean as seen from the California coast.
Soon, hopefully, I'll see it from the other side.

I was hoping that the next post I would make would be after I got on the ground in Japan, but things have come up and, unfortunately, my departure has been postponed to hopefully no later than the end of October. I've told countless people that September 25 was my departure date, and I've already surprised one acquaintance with my still being here today, so here's the official announcement.

In the meantime, I get the feeling I'm about to learn one or two things about patience. I need all the help I can get--I'm like a five-year-old on a long road trip over here. Can I be in Japan yet? How about now? Now?

Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that."
James 4:13-15 (NIV)

The FAQ.

Still busy shopping, filling out forms, and adding to my ever-growing pre-Japan to-do list. Meanwhile, here are some questions I've often been asked about my upcoming service, and my answers:

Why Japan?
Short answer: It's the country I've been studying academically for six years.

Long answer: I'd had a passing interest in Japan ever since finding out some of my favorite things like Super Mario World and the movie Kiki's Delivery Service originated there. But my interest would have stopped at Nintendo and Studio Ghibli if not for my friends in high school.

Kiyomizu Temple, Kyoto, Japan, April 2007. I'm in the front row in
the purple. Aforementioned friends are to my right. We'll be together
in Japan again someday soon, guys!

They were the ones that convinced me to sign up for a spring break trip to Japan my senior year. And they were the ones that took a semester of Japanese with me at a community college the summer beforehand. By the time I returned from my week-long whirlwind tour of such cities as Osaka, Kyoto, Nara, Hakone, Kamakura, and Tokyo, I was hooked on Japanese language and culture. In college I ended up majoring in Asian Studies (as well as English) with a concentration in Japan Studies, and I had the opportunity to return to Tokyo for three weeks in January of 2009.

Problem was, being in Japan for such short periods meant that all I could really do was shop and people-watch. During both visits I was always in an American bubble, and while I did have the opportunity to meet and converse with Japanese people my own age, there weren't any opportunities to form any sort of deep relationships. That's one of my hopes for the next two-and-a-half years in Japan--to meet and connect with people there in ways I couldn't before.

Why not Presbyterian mission if you're Presbyterian?
My answer to this is no more complicated than "I was looking for mission work in Japan, and God opened a door with the ELCA." The PC(USA) has a fine mission program, and many Presbyterian missionaries are working hard to spread the Gospel all around the globe. A good friend of mine recently finished a year with the Presbyterian Young Adult Volunteer program. But the PC(USA) doesn't have anything like the J-3 program. And I figured we worship the same Jesus, so...

Why not JET or a private English school job?
I first heard about the J-3 program less than a month into my freshman year at St. Olaf from a ELCA Global Mission recruiter who spoke at a daily chapel service. Afterward I asked her if the ELCA had any programs in Japan. She handed me a flyer for the J-3 program. It seemed like a perfect fit for me and it has been in my mind ever since.

The J-3 program flyer. I had it up on my
bulletin board for the rest of the year.

Fast forward to my senior year. I actually applied to the JET (Japan Exchange and Teaching) Program at the encouragement of one of my professors. It's a solid program backed by the Japanese government that's been in existence for decades, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to apply. I didn't even make it to the first round of interviews, but being rejected from JET so early turned out to be a blessing.

I mentioned my summer camp in the previous entry, describing it as "super awesome." I completely understand if you took that as clichéd hyperbole, but I meant every word: my three summers of serving on staff at that camp have had a huge impact on my life and spiritual growth. Westminster Woods was the first intentional Christian community I'd ever lived in. Think the last part of Acts 2 about the fellowship of the early church, praying and eating together and praising God. It was like that with my fellow staffers, except with more campers, silly costumes, and pool noodles. Working there stretched my limits, brought me to tears, and fulfilled longings I never even knew I had. I saw the Holy Spirit do amazing things in the lives of campers and staffers alike at that place.

With the JET Program or a private English school, it would be very hard for me to find Christian fellowship anywhere. With the ELCA J-3 program, I would have Christian fellowship at my very workplace. Now I realize I wouldn't have it any other way.

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
Acts 2:42-47 (NIV)

Introductions and such.

Greetings from not-quite-Japan-yet! I might be jumping the gun, as I'm not leaving for Japan until the end of September, but I just got back from a brief orientation to the J-3 program and the ELCA Summer Missionary Conference this past weekend and have been itching to create this blog ever since. So I'll start with an introduction to myself and the program I'll be on.

Three months in Tokyo, then 27 months in Kumamoto.

My name is Laura. I'm from a small town in the San Francisco Bay Area. I graduated from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota last May. After a short sojourn back at home I'm headed to Japan this fall as a missionary with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA)'s J-3 program along with two other marvelous ladies I met last week. We'll spend three months in Tokyo and three months in the city of Kumamoto (on Kyushu, the southernmost major island) for orientation before starting work teaching English at one of the two Lutheran junior/senior high schools in Kumamoto in April. We will also each be assigned to a church, but the details on that are TBA. We'll all be in Japan until the end of March 2015 if all goes as planned.

In this blog I plan to share reflections, photos, and stories from my 30-month stay in Japan; keep in touch with family, friends, and other missionaries; and maybe introduce a few Internet wanderers who find their way here to the world of mission work in Japan. I'm trying not to hold too tightly to any preconceived notions about what the next two-and-a-half years will be like before I go, so I'm hesitant to say anything more than my intentions for the blog itself. God does amazing things we can't always anticipate (more than we can ever ask or imagine, as Paul says in Ephesians), so I'm inclined to lean back and let him do the awesome stuff; I'm just thrilled to be along for the ride!

A note about my "Presbo-Lutheranism": I was raised in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), but the ELCA-affiliated St. Olaf College introduced me to the wonderful, four-part-harmonious, real-wine-using world of Lutheranism. It was the first time I'd ever regularly attended services outside my home denomination. Since then, having also regularly attended Baptist church services and worked at a (super awesome) Presbyterian summer camp, I've come to really appreciate the different ways people worship the same Jesus. I'm eager to see Japan's take on Lutheranism. Ecumenicalism* is fun!

*One of the many cool words I learned at the Summer Missionary Conference, "ecumenical" means "pertaining to the whole Christian church."

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. 
Ephesians 3:20-21 (NIV)