Japanese Joy

Hey there again everyone. Sorry for the delay since my last update. I'm still figuring out the ins and outs of this whole blog culture. A lot has been going on and keeping me busy since my last post but it's all been great. So I guess that's where I will start. I am feeling great. I had a very encouraging week and I have really enjoyed this past month. Blessed is a good word to describe how I'm feeling. I think a number of things have contributed to this, the first being prioritizing and valuing my time spent with God. A few weeks ago, I was feeling this sense of disconnectedness from everything. I felt disconnected from my team and ministry, my close relationships back at home, God and even myself. Relationships in general just felt static. What made the situation even worse, I couldn't figure out why. Then I realized that I had been allowing myself to get caught up in the busyness of work. I think the most significant time I had allowed to depreciate was my time spent with God and in His word. I thought about my times I had been reading scripture and spending in prayer and not only were they rushed and brief, but I usually had crammed them into some lull in my schedule, hardly allowing me any opportunity to be engaged. This wasn't the first time I had discovered myself doing this, but I felt fortunate to have recognized the need for adjustment in this spiritual discipline. Since reevaluating and being intentional about spending quality time with God, I have seen vast improvement in my relationships as well as an increase in my joy. This week during my team’s Wednesday night dinner, we discussed a chapter out of The Life You've Always Wanted by John Ortberg. In the chapter, Ortberg discusses the topic of joy. He paints a really neat picture of how joy is the most intrinsic quality of God's character; above anything else, God is joyful. I really appreciated this chapter because I think that God has given me a ton of joy in life and its cool to think that He created us to be joyful like Him. So with that being said, I would like to share some of the joys I have had recently.
1) Ministry time. Ministering to college students, in a nutshell, is the reason I am in Japan. My team's goals are to see new students make decisions to place their faith in Jesus Christ, and to see the faith of these new believers as well as current believers built up and sent out to share their faith with others. Unfortunately as many of you know, Christians are about as common in Japan as carne asada (I am trying to avoid all of the petty "rare" and "tough"-to-find meat puns that are coming to mind right now). Because of the spiritual condition of students here, the team's primary role for now is to go to the university campuses and share our faith with others. This can be a difficult task, especially when one considers both language and cultural barriers. I have found both to be obstacles at times, but like I said I have been very encouraged as well. Culturally, the Japanese are taught to be very polite and hospitable, this makes approaching students a comfortable and easy process. The problem however, is that their desire to not offend you, combined with a fairly high shyness factor, creates a recipe for a student who will agree with everything you have to share with them (i.e. God's existence, His Love for us, Man's sin nature, Jesus Christ's sacrifice and compensation for our sin nature, etc.) and then they either, "suddenly have to go" or seem to become extremely busy when the time comes for follow-up meeting number one. This week though, I have really enjoyed my time spent sharing with students. One guy, Yuki, questioned why it is I would come all the way to Japan just to meet with college students and talk with them about a God they don't believe in. He thought it seemed pretty meaningless, especially for someone like me already in my mid thirties. After clearing up that I'm actually a modest 22 years old I got to explain to him that from a materialistic perspective, my prospects didn't look too bright, but from an eternal perspective, getting a student to realize that our life on earth is temporary and that we have the opportunity to spend eternity with the Good and Perfect God of the Universe, I have a pretty sweet gig. I have had a number of similar, real and authentic conversations with students this week. Granted people weren't placing their faith in Jesus left and right, but the discussions have been honest and engaging, and I have come to accept the reality that if I can connect with students and share truth with them effectively, then God is the one who is going to work on that planted seed. It's been great. But I will add that I would be stoked to see some new believers. I was reading a proverb the other day and it says that a man who tends to a fig tree gets to enjoy its fruit, and I can't help but think that with all this sowing the team is doing, I hope we don't have to wait too long for some figs. I invite you to pray with my team that God is working on student's hearts out here. So the honesty (sometimes a bit blunt) of students has been a blessing and a source of joy.
2) Rana. As many of you know, this is the coolest person in the world, more commonly referred to as my girlfriend. She is an intern with Campus Crusade for Christ at Michigan State and often my greatest source of both joy and encouragement. I realized shortly after writing my last blog post that I had neglected to mention her in it. This error was both highly unusual and slightly unjust. Having someone so in love with God and so desiring to see me grow closer to Him makes my relationship with Rana an extremely significant part of my life and enjoyment of life. God has truly blessed our relationship so much that I can't think of a single negative thing about it, except maybe the thirteen time zones between us.
3) Surfing in Japan. I got to surf every day this summer. It probably wasn't the roughest transition out of college. Needless to say, packing up and coming to Tokyo put a hitch in this routine. But about two weeks ago, my good friend from USC, Jon Whitmore (he and his wife lead the Tokyo Stint Team East; my team is Stint Team West) and myself took the six AM train out of Mitaka. Two hours, two train transfers, and a three-kilometer walk later, Jon and I were standing on the black sand of Ichinomiya Beach in Chiba staring at steady and consistent eight foot sets (waves) rolling in with about fifteen surfers sitting in the lineup. We were somewhat relieved because we chose to surf this weekend due to a typhoon swell that had been building for about a week (meaning good/big wave conditions) but when we stopped by a board shop near the beach, the guy said he wouldn't rent boards to us because the surf was too big. After finding a different surf shop willing to rent us a couple of junk boards, we paddled out and it was a blast. Sure the sets looked gigantic once we made it out and the occasional ten footers weren't exactly settling on the nerves, but I managed to catch a few waves early on and get a feel for my board as well as the waves. After about six waves caught, five mental adjustments and three tumbles, I was feeling pretty confident. Fairly soon, a nice peak rolled in and I was in a pretty awesome spot, so I paddled, aimed my 7'6" plank to the left, dropped in, and rode the longest wave of my life. It was awesome. I still get goose bumps when I think about it. I ended up paddling in, because the shore was so much closer than the lineup, and running down the beach to this jetty area that formed a sort-of protective bay that made paddling back out super easy. We surfed for about three hours straight before hiking back to the train station where I slept all but about 3 minutes of the train ride back. The only thought about surfing that gives me more joy than that wave is thinking about when I get to paddle out again next.
4) Basketball. Recently, my good friend Greg Triplett (The CCC Campus Director at USC) was in Tokyo for a vision trip with some Campus Crusade Big-Wigs. On the morning of Greg's departure, he, Jon, Jared (one of the guys on my team) and myself went to this outdoor park to play a few pick-up games of hoop with the locals. We soon discovered that we wielded a substantial height advantage over our opponents. All four of us are at least 6' tall and there may have been two other guys all day who were close to eye level with us. If you've seen One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (If you haven't, please do because it is a brilliant film), it was like four Chiefs running around the court. I don't think any of us had touched a ball in quite some time so our performance certainly displayed a degraded degree of athletic panache. But a polished game was not necessary. We would drive to hole time after time and grab all the offensive rebounds which opportunity afforded. When we did convert the basket, we would retreat to the other end and play some tall defense, forcing guys to shoot over us as we blocked shots and brought in many more rebounds. At the end of the session, I think we went undefeated through six games. Dominant and fatigued, we retired to the sidelines leaving our many defeated and downtrodden foes to duke it out for a distant second place. We concluded that in the six games, our team made a total of three outside shots, two of which were made by the 5' Japanese guy we picked up as our fifth. Too many details about this experience were too hilarious to not be joyful.
5) Friendly locals. Since I can remember, I have always had this inexplicable tendency to find an establishment in which I become a regular and befriend the work force (it’s kind of like I inherited some sort of “Cheers” syndrome, only I never watched the show). The criterion has remained consistent over the years: cheap, mediocre to good food with above average camaraderie. In Chino, it was Chill Bill and his two Greek sons at Super Chili Burger. In Ocean City (NJ), it was Angelo and Pascuali at the Dollar Slice. In Antioch (IL) it was Boris, at the café appropriately named Las Vegas. Even at USC, I knew Terri at Calmart and Jesus at Chano's. I suppose it's only fitting that after a month here, I've already made a couple buddies. Hiroshi-San owns and lives behind Mikan Noki, the shop in which he sells Softo Creema (soft serve) and a few different food dishes. Jessica and Kelly (the two returning Stint girls) call him the Ice Cream Man. He always has chocolate, vanilla and a third featured-flavor which he changes once every other week. I always try to get the new flavor on opening day. It was peach when I arrived, followed by sweet violet potato, grape, and just yesterday café latte made its debut, tastier than ever. He also cooks really good Gyoza(Chinese pot stickers), Ramen, Yaki-sobu (similar to ramen but on a plate rather than in a soup), and a delicious fried rice omelet. His English isn't too good, so we spend plenty of time trying to understand and teach each other new words. These drawn out single-word lessons don't help the fact that rapid food preparation isn't one of Hiroshi’s strengths, but it does increase the time I get to hang out with him. The second joint I am growing fond of is Indra, an Indian curry restaurant owned by a Nepalese fellow named Emerit. As it turns out, he was always super nice to the Stint team here last year and usually gives them all sorts of free bees. The first time I went, he gave us a big old platter of cheese nan (like cheese melted in a pita bread), and last week, he gave my roommate and me a free bowl of curry. I try to go at lunch because that is when you get all-you-can-eat rice and nan with your curry. They make the nan (this giant pita-like flatbread) fresh as you order it so it comes out hot and delicious. I also really enjoy the company of the cook, Bondy. He's also Nepalese, but looks Indian, and just stands looking over the counter with this endearing smile like he is really enjoying watching you eat. I think he makes the girls a little nervous, but I love him. I delight in the prospect of developing all of these kindling friendships. Plus, I think I‘ve always had a desire to be that guy who saunters into a crowded establishment and simply orders, “The Usual.”
Anyhow, I realize I have been writing quite a bit, so I will finish this post with another cultural tidbit. In Japan, they have three written alphabet's Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana. Kanji is the alphabet most people are familiar with. This alphabet has something like 2000 characters, and it’s the meaning of the different Kanji symbols that gives words and sentences their meaning. Hiragana is the alphabet used for phonetic spelling of Japanese words. (In case this is unclear: Their, They're and There would all be written the same in Hiragana because they are all pronounced the same way, but it is through their different Kanji symbols that the meaning of each is distinguished.) This is why books use both alphabets simultaneously. Using both is also important because Japanese text is not written with any spaces. This makes my head hurt to think about, so I'll continue. Katakana is the third alphabet. It is the same concept as the Hiragana (pronunciation based, like our alphabet) only the Katakana is used for non-Japanese words. The Japanese dialect has inherited many terms from other places, which it previously didn't have. Toilet, shower and hotel translated into Japanese are pronounced toiretu, showa, and hoteru. Hopefully all of this has made sense. I tell you this only because in an effort to further integrate with the culture, I have learned Katakana. I walk down the street and stop every few steps to read what a sign says, and I love it. To me, it feels like doing one of those logic puzzles I thoroughly enjoy, only when I solve these, it has a tangible and useful result. I will admit practicing as I go about my day does effect the duration of a simple commute, but it has been helpful. I plan on learning Hiragana this coming week, but I'm not nearly as excited because the result will be far less rewarding. Learning Katakana is like learning a new form of English. Learning Hiragana will be kind of like how I already know how to read French. I can recite every word to you, just don't ask me what it means.