DTS Graduation

2010 DTS

Sadly, but surely, it sooner or later  had to come… the DTS would have to come to an end.   Here are our students holding their graduation certificates which enable them to become  YWAM staff members and/or continue on with their studies in the University of the Nations.  Yes!  All of them made it and have now left us to return to their homes, seeking God for their next step.

IT is always a sweet sadness to see them complete the course and then leave us when they have been so much a part of our lives for the last five months.

DTS with Staff

Here they are again with the staff who prayed with them, lived with them, cried with them and did outreach with them during their time with us.  Some of the staff were graduates of our first two schools and others were blessings that God sent along the way.

It has been awesome to be involved in the students’ lives and see them grow and grow as they opened up their hearts to the love of Jesus.  And then add to that seeing the joy they had in sharing that love in Japan with high school kids and University students and then in the Philippines with bar girls and others in the red light district.  They should not be content with the ordinary now.

English Camp

Playing Rainbow

As you may know, the week of Aug. 8-14 we held an English camp for the kids in our neighbourhood. Twenty grade one friends of team member Maria’s daughter Claire  attended and almost all of our staff were able to get involved.   We decided that at this stage we could not use the English camp to share the gospel the way we hope to in the future but we were able to prepare the way for that by building relationship and trust with these kids and their parents.

On the first day, we taught the kids ‘hello’, ‘what is your name’, and ‘my name is’.   We also taught them the phonetic sounds of the first 8 letters of the alphabet.   Each day, we gradually taught them more and more  until they knew all the phonetic sounds and could ask questions beginning with “how” ( ‘how are you” ,  ”how old are you?) and “where” ( ‘where is it’ , ‘ where is your home’)’

Maria, Derick and Rhonda teaching the kids vocabulary words.

Every day began with a game to reinforce the previous day’s teaching, to build relationship and to have fun. It was like “fruit basket” but we called it “rainbow”.  The kids seemed to really enjoy this game and it was a great ice breaker.

Then we got into our teams with the children to listen as Maria, Derick and Rhonda used little skits to teach the new phrases.  First they would teach them the phrases (e.g. how old are you?). The leaders then helped the children practise in their teams and then play games like ‘Duck, Duck’ using their new phrases!   As we taught the children vocabulary words we were able to review them together before learning new words later!

If you look closely at the card in the picture to the right, you can see that it says, ‘God’. This is the only time we mentioned God to the kids, merely saying that God is not a ‘what’ but a ‘who’ and that you cannot see God. There are many festivals on now in which idols are carried around in what looks something like the ark of the covenant! (mikoshi).  Children are encouraged to carry these.  Many of these idols are in the form of animals.  Although the facts that God is a person and we cannot see Him are very basic, we hope that this will affect their view on God, and eventually lead them to him.

Blue Team with team leader, Mary

Red Team with team leader, Katie

After this, we had break time. This time was set aside for the kids as a bath room  and water break, but many kids saw it merely as

an opportunity to rough house with their new friends (below).   We all enjoyed this time as well and had a great time playing with the kids.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           After break, we all gathered together to watch a dvd which taught the kids phonetics.  The fun part came next!  Maria and the team had made props to act out the DVD characters who made the sounds of the letters!  It was great fun and the kids learned phonics, too!

The last part of the morning was spent doing crafts and hearing a very special story , “You are Special” by Max Lucado, translated into Japanese.  ’You are Special’ was our theme for the week and we prayed daily for the children to feel and believe that.  Throughout the week, we asked the kids what they thought about this story, and their answers were quite interesting. When we asked the kids if they were special, many said that they were just ‘normal’.

Derick playing with one of the kids

When we asked them if they had anyone like Eli (who represents God although we did not tell this to the kids), they said, “you mean someone who’s nice to me?” And many mentioned their grandparents. When everyone finished talking, one girl looked around and then said, “I don’t have anyone like that.” So heart wrenching.

Crafts

The craft was making their own finger puppets! The children drew 2 fathers, 2 mothers, 2 brothers, 2 sisters, and 2 babies’ faces. We then took these faces and glued them onto gloves to make finger puppets.  However we ran into a problem.

Orange Team

Some of the children were not drawing their fathers. When we asked why they weren’t drawing them they said, “I don’t have a father, so I can’t draw him. ” This was really sad. Eventually, we were able to convince the children in question to draw their grandfather instead as quite a few Japanese children often spend more time with their grandparents then their actual parents.

The Play

On the final day of the camp, the DTS performed a skit version of “You are Special”. Many of the kids were very excited to see the play and seemed to really enjoy it. However when, after the play, we asked the kids if they thought that they were special, they replied ‘no, we’re just normal.’

Over all we were blessed to help in this camp and feel that we were able to create meaningful relationships with the kids. As the new school term begins we look foward to fostering relationships with these kids and, hopefully, leading them to a meaningful relationship with Jesus.

Camp Picture

The 2010 DTS’ Love feast =)

A love feast is a term that is often used in YWAM … let me explain. A love feast is basically a big meal that we all share in-the idea being that we enjoy each other’s company and affirm that we love each other =D

I, personally, am a big fan!

This year’s love feast was a little sad as it was the last one that we would ever have with this group of people =<

To the right we have Mr.McDaniel cooking up the steak which was AMAZING!!! 0_0

Here is a picture of some of our students , staff and friends after the meal =)

… and here are more pictures of some students and staff!!

Thank you for checking out this post!

Sarah Somers-Harris

Hatanodai Section 4

This week we entered section four of Hatanodai.  For us the first impression was that there were so many Apartments or flats in this section as compared with the first three sections.

Apartments

I have only included one picture of an apartment building but it really seems that so many people are crowded into this older section of the city.

There is a pretty busy shopping street running right through this section with lots of little stores, coffee shops and restaurants.   There is no parking on this street though so most of the shopping has to be done on a bicycle or just by walking to the store.  Some of the stores are reasonably priced and we were able to get a few things we really needed.

One of the coffee shops was rather expensive though so we have definitely decided not to visit there at the end of our walking in this section.

Yakitori Sold on the Streets

It was almost time to eat when we walked through the shopping street and the beautiful smell of the Yakitori  store was almost too good to resist.  I am sorry the camera can only capture the sight and not give you the exquisite smell as well.

Public Bath

Rhonda & I did manage to resist though and continued our prayer walk  past this public bath that probably many people from the area frequent as the older houses still do not have their own bath.

Foot Washing Ceremony

Saturday,  August 15th,  is the day the Japanese recognize as marking the end of the war.  Chiori Kawamoto a.k.a. Mighty Woman of God, who is the National Office manager had it on her heart to do something meaningful on this day.

Heavy on her heart was all the wrong that Japan had inflicted on her neighbours during the war.  Chiori wanted to mark this day by Japanese brothers and sisters reaching  out to bless people from other nations.

Rhonda and I were invited to participate. In this picture you will see Chiori and another Japanese sister, Fumi, now a missionary to Kosovo,  washing Rhonda and fellow Canadian Sandy’s feet.  It was a very special  and also  humbling time to receive this honour from our Japanese brothers and sisters.

English Outreach.

Ichiki

This year we had a new outreach for us.  We provided an English home stay for three high school boys all seventeen years old.  During the day they studied a little but mainly hung out with some of our students and staff.  This boy on the rights is Ichiki; he is a train buff and knows almost all of the train stations in the greater Tokyo area, which is a major accomplishment as there are over 200 stations to be remembered.  He can begin at the first station of just about any line and read all the stations on that line out in order.  It really is an incredible feat of memorization.  Ichikii lives in Hamamatsucho right here in the heart of Tokyo.  The monorail runs from Hamamatsucho right though to Haneda airport.

Jun

This boy is Jun and he is from Kanagawa, which is just south of Tokyo.  Each of the boys improved so much in their English communication skills that their teacher whom we arranged this home stay with really wants to do it again next year.

It seems from talking to them that the boys also highly enjoyed themselves during their week with us.

Jun was really warm and friendly and had union Jacks on his Jeans so I guess we kind of bonded rather quickly.

Katsu

Finally I introduce you to Katsu.  He comes from the furthest away and his family runs a wedding chapel in Fukushima.  However they are not a Christian family.

I asked Katsu if he was a Christian and he said no but that he had originally thought that the Bible was not a very interesting book but having been introduced to it through this week of learning English he now wanted his own Bible to read.  Katsu will be coming to Tokyo Baptist Church tomorrow.  I will be meeting him at Shibuya Station

TBC@Misato

Welcome at the Station

Last Sunday Rhonda & I visited the extended site of Tokyo Baptist Church. This extension site was launched just four months ago.  While Rhonda had visited before it was the first time for us to go together.

Part of the reason for our visit was say goodbye to Sazi Mhlanga who was David’s high school Physics teacher and a member of TBC.  Sazi is moving to Dawson Creek in British Columbia to teach at a Christian school there.

Goodbye Sazi

We were met at the station by the man holding the welcome banner and waited until the pick up shuttle van arrived to drive us to the church location.

It was a super hot day and the walk would have been about 20-30 mins., so the ride to the church was greatly appreciated.  Another blessing was that they had a BBQ that Sunday so after the service there was a lot of time to eat, fellowship and get to know people.

Oswald & Naomi

We had become friends with Oswald and Naomi at TBC recently.  They came to Japan from Singapore and were saved and baptized at TBC.  It was great to be able to meet them again.  Also there was a team from Saddleback Church in California, two of whom we had met from a visit they made last year.

TBC@Misato

This is a picture of the building.  It used to be a warehouse and we sent several of the outreach teams over there to help with preparing the building for its conversion and current use.

Umbrella Vending Machine

OH!  and in case you decide to go to TBC@Misato on a rainy day!   Don’t worry you can purchase an umbrella from this Handy-Dandy vending machine right at the entrance of the station!

TBC@Misato Van

So our final picture is the TBC@Misato van that is used to shuttle you to and from the station.  All in all we had a great time visiting the TBC extension campus.  Who knows we may even go back for another visit some time in the future.

Hatanodai #3 Post 3

We discovered our second church in Hatanodai.  It was not listed in the Church Information Service but here is  Zion Church which  is only one minute walk from Hatanodai Station.  Unlike the previous church they do not have a home page nor is there an information paper outside the building.  We were able to talk with one of the members there during our prayer walk who let us know the times of church meetings.

Of course our prayer walking tradition was firmly established in sections one and two which means that we just had to visit a local coffee shop.  However, we could not find a coffee shop in section three (other than Kentucky Fried Chicken – which is not very Japanese) so we went into section 5 and ordered two Lattes.  Here is the picture of Rhonda’s coffee.

We had something like this in an earlier post when it was Rhonda’s birthday.  If you did not see that one it is probably a couple of years ago.
Here we are a little hot and tired but thoroughly enjoying the air-conditioning and the coffee.  Also we are making friends with several coffee shop owners in our community whom we hope to visit again.

We are looking forward to when the team can join us to pray at the Shrine/Temple in the area.  They were built in the early 1200s, before the town of Edo was made the capital of Tokyo by the Shogun Tokugawa.

Smile School, 6 August, 2010

After we finished all our prep work during the previous five days,  we set out to the local school to hold a one hour English class for the kids. We were partnering with the school’s Smile School, or after school day care program.

We were given a hour in which to teach the kids some English. We decided to teach them numbers and colours. But before this, we engaged them in a game of Head, Shoulders, Knees, Toes. The kids really enjoyed this, especially as we did it faster and faster.

Afterward, the kids broke into teams with one person from our group each. These teams then went around the room stopping at “stations” around the room where they played games to practice their English. All the kids really seemed to enjoy this and it seemed to work very well.

At the end, we played “Capture the Bacon”. During the whole time the director of the Smile School was smiling excitedly and taking pictures.  When we finished he told us how pleased he was with our program. He was impressed that we played games to teach English, he felt that it would sink in better that way, and was just in general very happy with our program.

Overall, this time was really fun for all of us and was a good learning experience for us. Also, we are excited to come back again, which we hope to do very soon.

Hatanodai #3 Post 2

As well as being home to the Bunkyo University #3 Chome also has a Shinto Shrine and a Buddhist Temple side by side.

Shintoism is a Japanese Religon and handles at least the weddings and the ground breaking ceremonies for buildings.  Most traditional houses will have a Kamidana or God shelf in their living room.  Shintoism, however, has no place for death so the market for this is firmly held by the Buddists.  So along with the Kamidana each family will also have a Butsdan, or alter where they will pray to their ancestors.

This brings a lot of pressure on a first born child who might be considering becoming a Christian as he will be expected to take on the family Butsudan.  The big worry for his parents is that if he becomes a Christian there will be no one to take care of them when then die.  These are concerns that being raised in the west we often have no idea of just how powerful the culture can be concerning these things.

There are also many small family businesses in the area in this picture you can see a rice store with the inevitable vending machine outside. Notice again the plant pots on the street too.

Here is another public bath, it s located right next to the Bunkyo education complex.   It seems a little unusual in that there is no tall chimney, so they must use a different method for heating the water.  Maybe they drilled down and found natural hot mineral water.  I will check it out later, but when I do don’t worry  I wont post any photos……

On the right you will see a small shrine that we passed.  This one like others is actually a part of someones house.  you will see the flowers that are constanly kept there.  There is presently no food out but it is common to see food and drink on the stone at the front of the shrine.