| | こんいちは
(Konnichiwa)
Well, I am in Japan!! Praise God! Thank you so much to all of you
for helping get here. I am beginning to settle into my room. It is
TINY!!! It is about the size of a walk in closet!! At least it has
heat because it does get quite cold here. Right now I am living in
something like a dormitory, but soon I will be moving into a small
apartment. I get around town on a bicycle, and I am beginning to get
a feel for the city. I have a grocery store 200 yards from my room,
and department-type stores are only about 5 minutes away. If I really
want to treat myself, there is a Starbucks about 10-12 minutes away.
I apologize for not having any personal pictures, but my camera has
been broken. I just got a new one, and the next update will certainly
have pictures of my place. In the mean time, I am working on a
website/blog/online-photo album that I can update regularly. When I
get this up and running I will let you know.
Learning Japanese
If our team hopes to evangelize among the Japanese people, it is
imperative that we become fluent in Japanese. So I have started
language school at The Aichi Center for Japanese Studies. They have a
very respected
school and always have a diverse group of students from many
different countries. If you want you can click here
[http://cts.vresp.com/c/?MustardSeedGlobalFel/6671683044/TEST/c66bd076aa]
and learn about the school and its programs.
I am in class from 9 in the morning to 2:30 in the afternoon. I also
spend between 3 and 4 hours each day studying and reviewing the
material. It is very, very difficult! In fact, I feel that I should
be studying RIGHT NOW!!!! We will have to learn the Kanji as well
as the Japanese alphabets. Kanji are borrowed Chinese symbols that each have different
meaning. Kanji is just one of the forms of writing in Japanese.
There are also 2 different alphabets to spell out words (notice the
word "konnichiwa" at the very top). Learning all of these, the
vocabulary, and the grammar is quite overwhelming for all of us. We
could use your prayers.
Story
A couple nights ago I was studying in the lounge of my "dorm," and I
met a guy named Dan. Dan is an Australian student who dressed all in
black and spoke with colorful language. He asked me why I was
studying Japanese, and I told him that I was here to teach the
Japanese people about what it means to follow Jesus. He went on to
tell me why can't stand Christians, particularly the ones who try to
convert others to Christianity. This is what he said. "The very
reason I came to Japan is because there are NO Christians here!"
I told him I came for the very same reason! We went on to have a
great conversation, but he made a great point. If you want to go
somewhere the odds of you coming in contact with a Christian is next
to ZERO, Japan is the place. This conversation was a confirmation to
me that we are indeed in the right place. |
| | Posted 1/30/2008 6:57 AM - 71 Views - 2 eProps - 1 Comment
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