Camp time

My wonderful evening chat

In preparation for the talk I am giving on saturday night on Moses at the Family camp, I had my Japanese corrected tonight by a lovely girl called Aki, 28 years old. She had a beautiful face. She had never met me before (but we'd be introduced over text messages for this task through a mutual friend), but she came with such a willing attitude. She didn't even want me to buy her a cup of tea, whereas I'd wanted to buy her her dinner as a way of saying 'thanks'! She sat with me til 10.30pm (for 4 hours)!

After the long translation work, she asked me lots of questions about how I'd come to faith and how I decided to be a missionary here. She was kind of in awe - she literally had tears in her eyes at the thought of me learning Japanese and trying to give a message to the Japanese people. But (and maybe this is just me being Christian), actually I was overcome by her and her attitude of selflessness. She was sooo generous. I accept and expect some kind of drink or something for thanks for my time at times when I am in her position, but she didn't. In addition, she had genuiness in her questions to me, and honesty in her answers to my questions.

She is going to get married in November, to a man she met at uni CU (KGK) as a student, who wants to work for three more years in his company and then they will both go to seminary and he will become a church pastor. This was a big decision for her - could she be a pastor's wife? She really feels no adequacy in herself for this role, or even desire for it, plus she knows they will stick out in this country where the Christain church is such a minority and she wouldn't have chosen that. Therefore deciding to marry someone that wants to stick out like that was a tough decision. But he reassured her she could be herself, and she added that she 'appreicates' him. And I guess this is the Japanese way of talking about love; not the 'love love' (romantic) approach that is normally talked of here by all yong people - but a real appreication of a real person. So meeting with her tonight has just given me lots to think about.

I also realised she is the first Japanese Christian I've met in this city (apart from one lady in my church), and the first in my cohort - 28, single, working. It was a real pleasure to be blessed by her in such an incredble way, and there's likely more like her out there!

Are you transactional or interactional?

I was having a conversation with a friend last week, where we discussed the advantages and pitfalls of growth-in-numbers-orientated Christian mission, otherwise known as the rapid church growth model. In short, does having quantitative targets (of the numbers of churches we aim to plant, and the numbers of members we aim to have in them), provide a focus for us as mission workers (or we could say for anybody who's part of a church) to strive towards and thus achieve more, or does it negate the uniqueness of the individuals being 'reached' and thus dishonour them along with the God who made them unique?

I was on the numbers side, having being trained in that when I worked as a fundraiser and had to answer to people giving big sums of money in order to see 'results'; my friend was on the individual's side; but we both gained new perspective through talking it over. I think I saw that the numbers model really only applies to the planning stage at the start, and as a way to review our vision as things move on. It cannot be used on an everyday level, when relating to people. What's more, we cannot control those numbers, only God can.

However we could have something like this when preparing our vision-statment:

# I want to help people who are depressed out of depression, using individualised approaches appropriate to thier needs.
# I aim to help 5 people out of depression every year for the next three years.
# By having this aim, I hope to get off my backside and into the area of my intended action, and will review if I started to do this in three months time by seeing if I have found (or seriously looked for) one person to help :-)

Today I had another conversation where someone had a choice of which approach to use. What happened was this: I asked a friend how his daughter was, as she has recently moved abroad. He asked in reply, 'Do you mean her visa issue?' No, I didn't mean her visa issue. I wanted to know how she was! But my friend naturally focussed on a task associated with that person, rather than the person themselves. He is in a great interactional relationship with her, and yet when conversing with me about her, she became the subject of a transaction for him - in this case a visa one (rather than a numbers one).

So the question is:

Do we deal with people, or relate to people?
Do we treat people as transactions, or interactions?
Are we transactional, or interactional?

How are Japanese schools?

This week I went to Gifu prefecture, Japan, specifically to the town of Tajimi. Why? Well my language school organised it, for our language and cultural benefit. And it was brilliant! So well organised - I see now why people like bus holidays just be taken direct to restaurants that are waiting for you, and then off to some sightseeing spot, just saves time so you can do more in a short time. (NB. Obviously it's fun to search for your own restaurant; this is just a different choice of holiday!)

Our trip was quite high-profile; we even met the major of the town, went in the city offices, and were clapped by all the pupils of the high school we spent 24 hours with. We each spent time with a designated class (mine was Class 3B, the 15 year olds of Heiwa ('peace') Junior High School), and it was fascinating to see the differences between UK and Japanese schools.

First of all, there's a lot more student-led activities in Japanese schools compared to UK schools. There were two class leaders (they are changed every six months), a oy and a girl, and they led all the non-study times. This included the school song in the morning, keeping timing of the private study period before the first lesson started, they organised two class games in the break, they gave greeting practices to the class, and then played them out for real as they welcomed the teachers to the front when it was their turn. On their command, we all bowed, and then chanted, 'Onegaishimasu', which kind of means 'thanks for taking the trouble to help us from here'. At the end of the lesson we stood up again and bowed, saying 'arigatou gozaimasu' (thank you very much) to the teacher. The same student-led approach happened in the sports time. The students do sports every day, and choose which sports club they are in. I joined the girls’ volleyball team. No teacher was present in our club, so the girls arranged it themselves: ball 'digging' practices outside, and then inside, and then playing dodgeball, (until we were told off by a teacher for not putting up the volleyball net).

Second, there were more varied activities than just lessons. For example there was the class song after the lunch break, (different to the school song in the morning). They always have one on the go, practicing it about six times before moving onto a new one. Each classroom has a piano in it, and the teacher told me there was always one student who could play the piano. So one student did, and the rest of the class sang, producing a wonderful sound in four-part harmony! It was absolutely incredible to listen to. And for 5 minutes either side we could hear the other Year 3 classes also singing the same song in their classrooms! The students seemed to really enjoy it, one or two even had their eyes closed they were so into it! Now in the UK, I don't think you would get all the tough 15-year old boys singing like that, or even the male teacher joining in loudly, in his PE kit! Another activity (apart from the games mentioned above) was the school cleaning. Now Japanese schools don't employ cleaners - the students do it all. For us, 20 minutes each day, after lunch. Each student knows which area they are responsible for, so just get on with it. This means kids don't drop litter, and again they respect the teachers by even cleaning their offices.

Third, because of the student-led decisions, there was a real group culture, and didn't seem to be the unfriendly cliques that come up in British schools, (or at least in mine, way back when). Everyone seemed to be friends, (apart from one little boy who kept very quiet and had his head engrossed in Harry Potter in every break, and was wearing an old wholly t-shirt, inside out, which made me feel quite sad for him). Even lunch was eaten in the classroom: the students moved the desks together to make two large tables, then each student brought out their own little colourful cloth and chopsticks, spread the cloth out on their desk, and then the student volunteers dished out the lunch at the front - rice, stew, yogurt and a carton of milk. Afterwards they did scissors-paper-stone game to see who would collect everyone's dishes - and that person took all the dishes to the sink, broke up the milk cartons in the right manner for recycling, and then a small team went out to the sinks outside the classroom to do the washing up. Impressed?!

After the school experience I went back with one of the teachers for my 'homestay' experience. The family was so relaxed, I was so surprised. I was also surprised that the husband really pulled his weight - we all went to the supermarket together, the husband then made sushi and sashimi (raw fish), rolling it out on the mat, while the wife made tempura (deep fried fish) and salad. The leftover sushi was ready for breakfast! They asked why I was learning Japanese (of course!), so I told them I hoped to work in Japan, for a church, (hoping they wouldn't feel too embarrassed seeing as they'd already told me how they liked drinking!) As a result, they thought they'd take me to see one of the town's main highlights: Japan's main Catholic monastery, which is actually where they got married 20 years ago. The monastery produces it's own wine from a vineyard outside, so all the wedding reception guests can also have wine from there! They were also kind in that the wife had got some books out from the library on England, so we could look at them and I could show her where I was from; and she also had some Roybos tea and milk ready for breakfast!

I slept in the spare room - a tatami mat room downstairs. Not a very good night's sleep as it was hot, and I thought I had been told the teenage boys were in the room behind the screen so I wasn't very relaxed; as it happened I was wrong! The whole family love basketball, and also having fun - before the couple had their two children (now 17 and 14), they liked going to Spain for the bars there! Just not very Japanese at all. They did give me a gift when I left, some bath salts; I had embarrassing forgotten to bring mine (English tea!), so sent it through the post yesterday.

How do you wash your hair?

My colleague Deborah is gradually being sucked in by all these personality quizes, which is actually quite fun cos then she does them on me when I go to visit her, and we both get to giggle lots. The latest (last night) was what part of my body enters the shower-water first: shoulders, face or hair. I replied probabaly my big toe, and from there up; shoulders the first of the three. For her, her hair is wet before she knows it, she said. Two different approaches to life?!

The other one shared last night was, if I saw a picture of a rectangle, a triangle, a circle or a heptagon, which would I pick? I hummed and harred between the cirle and rectangle, then chose the circle. Apparently this means I am very diplomatic. If I had chosen the rectangle, I would instead have been very domineering.

The last was about my blood type. I am A-positive. I can't actualy remember what this says about me - maybe cautious or cheerful or something?!

The Shiga Jesus Festival

Today was a public holiday in Japan. I knew nothing about the earthquake until just now, although of course I feel sorry for those affected further north.

Instead, today in my neck of the woods was The Jesus Festival. This was for Christians in Shiga ken, neighbouring county to Kyoto. WEC played a good part in it, as well as choirs and speakers and exhibitionists from other churches and organisations. Pictures can be seen on this website
We ran a mission simulator; three people were dressed up representing three make-believe cultures, and visitors to the booth had to enter by getting their mock passport stamped at 'immigration', then view different objects that we take for granted here (like toilet roll, clean water, school-books) that not everyone has in other countries, before meeting people from these other cultures. It was great fun. People particularly enjoyed seing Juergan dressed (undressed!) as a fisherman and seeing how they could engage with him! As for me? I was drawing in the crowds, along with two others, by giving out passports around the site, and pouring people drinks.

べんきょう

Did fine if not well in my test this week: 88%. :-)

I did a presentation yesterday (in Japanese), on Jesus. I showed this YouTube video first and then did a powerpoint thing and then had some questions from the class and teacher which were all very good ones.

Yesterday we were given our homework for the holidays: to complete two 10-page booklets of vocab, read a short story (that looks very long when it's not in your first language ) and answer questions on it, and also to do an essay on an aspect of Japanese culture of our choice, and prepare a presentation on it. As the class groaned over the thought of the essay, I can't wait to do this one only! I started this morning, in English first, then I'll translate. I'll post it on here when done (probably!) So there goes my free time this holidays! ;-)

Chatting

I haven't written for a while so here goes. I met one of my neighbours last week; we had very strong coffee and cheesecake together. I hope to see more of her when time permits.

I also spent the weekend with the Wilsons (another WEC family here). It was cool. We saw Andy (aged 8) being a mascot for a company football team on Sunday afternoon; the match was televised and apparently my face was on screen! We also acccumlated loads of mosquito bites as we played in the woods and ate ban-gohan outside the day before; my leg is currently bruised and swollen. But the experience of being in natural scenery of woods and waterfall was lovely.

Had a test today; I quite enjoyed it. It wasn't too hard; just vocab on personality characteristics, jobs and types of company; and grammer constructions you use when describing the same topics. Mariko is going to be skiving off class two days a week from now on as she has a new arabeito. From now til the end of term I am the only Western face in the crowd!

Not long to go... then holidays! Here's my latest pic with some of my class.