Phuf, it's too late!

I have a collection of thoughts, and it'd probably be best to wait til next week when exams are over and I have time to process them and think and write well, but I kind of have been waiting too long to have good internet access so I am being impatient and grabbing my chance tonight, before I sleep shortly!

So...COLLECTION OF HAPPENINGS AND RANDOM THOUGHTS...

the highlight today: meeting a nice south african girl. she lives on the corner just next to the footbridge near my house. i have seen it is a foreigners house, so today i said hello, after being asked by god to do that before but courage failing me, but after promising him, 'next time', last time! She was stood with the door open, stuffing her washing into the washing machine (no room for them in people's homes here, so many machines, like hers, sit outside.) i liked her; they always have cool music playing; its a bit like a travellers den. Reggae style, although different kinds of music. She also has a Japanese housemate.

My classsmates have been having problems, some with me, some unrelated. Heating issue with one, whose friendship I have enjoyed, so its been difficult to be honest. The verse 'try and live at peace with everyone as much as it is depends on you' is ringing in my head, and I am realsing how relevant these issues are when you are living in/out with other people. Its not just for our benefit either, but for His glorification. For Christians that don't experience these issues, it annoys me. It means some of us are putting in lots of investment and time with others, (and no-one's lives are going to be perfect, so that will bring problems I think), and some aren't. Another friend has real things going on. I mean, like things you normally only read about in strange ladies magazines, when you're sat in the doctors surgery. I feel like my head and life could be a total mess if I was really in her life, in her place, or hearing all the stories first hand. I'm pleased I'm not in that sense, (relief), and yet i feel sad she hasn't told me herself; I hear it all from another friend at a chinese restaurant. hmmpp. There is possiblity for Jesus to help her, indeed racidically, with very radical consequences. Yeh, I've never come across these issues before, but she has never met with Jesus before either. I remember a testimony a lady (Katie, before she was Lean!) shared in my church in Oxford once, about praying for a colleague at work who was really helped, and that makes me wonder. I also remember Jesus talking about different kinds of sickness though, ('this one only comes out through prayer'), so I guess I need to spend time seekig him first before i approach my friend with anything solid. It's an incredible opportunity, if I trust him and pray enough.

And i have been doing some things wrong. not everything - some things i am pretty well adjusted to about working and 'being' with asians, in Japan - but i make regular mistakes, probably daily. Sometimes I know, and can be lazy to make the effort to be 'right'. Like yesterday for example, i ate some lunch while walking down the street, but i knew that in japan, people dont really do that. It looks odd. But other times i just have no idea that something isn't right! Like I heard my friend was annoyed at how I did my kanji test. And because of that, i am feeling a bit out of place sometimes, even with taiwanese foreigners who are also foreign here. I am grateful to those people (like Elaine who I saw last weekend after my testimony) who offer me kind advice. We (new ones) need that, it's really good. At the same time, even when each person just makes one small comment, when there are quite a few people making small comments, it feels a bit bigger, like I am constantly disappointing people in some way and that they are struggling over. It's not so nice. It needs to be balanced I think with formal encouragement and praise, with someone 'in charge' to say that, say in a review with Martin, and I haven't got that; at least not at the moment due to timing etc.

Along with this, I have been feeling a bit the pressure between law and grace as christian family... unspoken law seems to pend harder (or maybe just as hard) on me than the spoken ones, as I dont know if I'm pleasing people or not, and there is a certain level of judgement going on I feel. Need to think about this some more - our responsibility versus our freedom in Christ, as His followers, and then live with that more happily.

I have another blog forming in my head, 'What is hard about being a missionary?' as this is a phrase I keep hearing (actually my own answer is not what you might expect from the question), but that can wait til after the tests hey :-)

Early mornings

from Friday Feb 16th, written but not posted then:

Well today (Feb 16th) has been a little strange. It started at 3.30am, with the sound of a text message arriving from a certain Simon Jackman from church back home. Lovely to get, to hear about him playing in the snow with his son! (I need to keep the phone on as i use the alarm clock, but maybe i'll think otherwise!) As a result I was, well, awake. Nothing more I could do. The room was cold, my mind was whirring. So i thought I could go to the daily church prayer meeting, 5am. So I went (first time), but there was no-one there. I stood outside in the cold for 20 minutes, then walked around and about to Macdonalds near my school, and I knew I was early as even that was shut (its shuts between 3am and 6am only). I stood in the entrance hall of a block of flats, after seeing that the doors opened automatically when a delivery-man went in, and I felt pretty miserable truth be told. I was alone; in a foreign country; I knew what it felt like to be an international student. (And I really feel for those studying in england now - i'm sure it's much the same for them in 'my' country). But at 6am I was in, breakfast in one hand (Ko-san from my language school gave me all these money-off coupons for meals before 10.30am, great!), and Japanese course books in the other hand, for 3 hours of study before school started at 9am. I recognised the man who served me. He liked me, I think. He wanted to speak in English, he wanted to smile at me. It felt good. I even got a free coffee, not sure that is allowed. So today I have studied for 6 hours (3 very early, 3 in afternoon). I have also had lessons for 3.5 hours. And tonight I played football for a few hours too. There was a new English guy there - Daniel. He wants to meet up; his girlfriend wants some english & female friends. I am the one. So I expect we shall, once exams are over (last 2 days in Feb, 1st day on March). So I've been awake since 3.30am, and it's been a good day. Productive. Most of what has gone on in my mind is not recorded, as like I say below, its a waiting game, I dont yet know the answers, but the questions are growing fainter. People in the Bible encourage me. God encourages me. Here (below) is what I wrote in my noteback, while sitting in MacD's today:

'I feel like I'm in a waiting game. Except it is hard - not like a game - not like the video game-play Alex Garland's 'The Beach'; or maybe, sometimes. The nice man in McDonalds was a pleasure to meet with today, at the counter. He smiled; I need smiles. He wanted to speak my language. He wanted to bless me. I got a free coffee for the price of a hash brown (plus a hash brown).

I think of Beth in Albania, and I'm grateful for her. I think of Lin here; she tries to smile, even though inside her life is a worry - future, acceptance into a career art university, parents disapproval. She encourages me to keep going.'

Going all out.

Opposite my language school is a kyu-kyu en shop. This means that everything in it is the equivalent of 50p (or a couple of pence less). I try and shop in there as much as possible; in fact, it's got to the stage where, if anything is ever over 50p, I think it's too extravegent to buy it. Don't know why; it just happened. But In Sook encouraged me to eat more meat - she said that it will make me plumper. I think she's right - I don't need to get plumper, but I could do with more meat; otherwise meals of rice and vegetables leave me feeling a bit hungry. So today I plunged out, and bought two chops, and one mince packet. The mince I had tonight, and it made a HUGE difference. I now feel positively FULL, and satisfied with it!

What else has been happening? Well yesterday was a meeting open to all the members (and leaders and missionaries) of SFDD churches; like a mini Spring Harvest. It seemed quite good, although I couldn't understand the majority so it wasn't that life-giving. However, God enabled me to get all my work done around it. I have some catching up to do from last week when I missed a day, and two weeks ago when I missed two days (when I was ill), but today went well; I worked hard and the lesson was good too.

My friends are dropping low. They started off full of fun, out for a laugh. But now one is seriously worried about his future, and money to support his studies here; another is worried too about getting into a university course here. A few of us are just TIRED. Not just from overwork, but just from being. Here. I am one of them. Not that I don't wish to be here, not for one moment, but the loneliness at occasional times coupled with the strange language most of the time (even on the radio), and the friends who for the most part come from such different cultures, is wearing a little thin. I'm glad I'm not alone if feeling like this. Ko-san does too, and Evgenia said the same today. On the other hand, some are still running high; holidays to Thailand are being planned for the Easter break, new flats being sought and found. I will be here, (here in Kyoto, and here in the same house!), but will have the lovely visit of Toni in April, friend from Barnie (Barnstaple - hometown), yeh!

Saying that, I am having plenty of missionary contact lately. Edi (British) is being lovely. I like being with her family. On Saturday I joined their town for a community work morning in the woods. I stucks bits of mushroom fungus in holes we'd created in old treetrunks, (it'll sprout into mushrooms for soup in a few years!), I watched the kids making dens using green branches, and made a knife from a bit of wood. It was gloriously sunny and we had a fun trip getting there, involving a local farmer having to rescue our car from a slight collision with nature! (big dip on grass verge, known as a river, hee hee).

My parents go to Corfu today, followed by a couple of weeks visiting their siblings in the south-east, and then my brother and his wife, who are struggling through the last month before baby number 2 arrives!

So that's my life. How about yours?!

A credit

I want to give a word of credit to God. Twice lately he's encouraged me to do things, and I've really seen results through obedience. He is able to open doors that none other could: it's like we might try to prize doors open with a screwdriver and sledge-hammer, but when it's time and Jesus is willing, no sledge-hammers are needed.

SFDD Pastors Meeting

Today was a meeting for all the church pastors of the WEC-related churches (those churches strated by WEC-ers and now under Japanese peoples' leadership), and all us 'lot' from other countries here to help the work forward! People were allowed to vote for the committee of this church network (SFDD) for the next year, so we now have five people in place to lead the work forward. Despite being one of the more boring meetings I have been to in terms of 'pezazz' or body movement (in other words worship was pretty static; it could have been more looking to God for prophetic guidance in my inexperienced view), I actually came away the most refreshed of any. It was nice to see their faces, hear some of their stories (and they were pretty honest about struggles as well as encouragements I thought), see some of the ladies I like, enjoy the spring air coming through the windows after lunch. Yeh, I felt good.

I am currently preparing a testimony for Kinamoto church for 2 weeks time.

Well supported

I was a bit ill with a virus of some sort, so have spent the last two days mostly at home. I felt, yesterday morning, like I was all alone, and wondered if anyone would care or help me. How I was wrong! In Sook and Seong-Jae came round with food and prayers and love, Simon prayed and rang me, Sally texted me, and classmates Ko, Man and Lin each phoned, emailed or texted me!

On a completely different note, do you ever find yourself wishing the whole world could know something, but it's not yet time? well i can see a small but wonderful firework about to happen, and I wish I could say more, but i can't as it's not my business. ah, friendship is great, but confidentiality is hard work!