Hatanodai #5 Post 3

Ok, our final post on section 5!  We begin this post with another “Cute” but narrow house with a very “Cute” car in from of it.   I personally would be too scared to actually try and drive one of these vehicles on the roads as I would feel so vulnerable, worrying in case I ran into a big truck.

We continue to call out people to come and experience the love of God in their lives and for Opportunities to open up f or us as a mission to reach out in effective ways to help them understand His great love.

Hatanodai 5 chome like section 4 has a large number of apartments or flats but no skyscrapers.  Buildings are rarely over five stories high.

Here on the right is the Holiness church which seems to be a fairly new building.  We are looking forward to an opportunity to visit them soon and learn from them about their work here in the city of Shinagawa.

As our custom is when completing a section of our prayer walking, Rhonda and I visited a local coffee shop for a quick coffee Latte before returning home.

We plan to complete the Hatanodai section of Shinagawa by having our team all join us to walk through section 6, so our next post will be a little different.  Hope you have enjoyed the journey so far.

Hatanodai #5 Post 2

This impressive building is both a culture centre and a children’s centre. Some community programmes happen here for all age groups but most programmes are for preschool and elementary age children including a preschool which one of our team member’s child attended.  It was through relationships made at this preschool that the team’s children’s club and club camp began!  These relationships have carried into elementary school as all graduated to grade one  :)

The aging population is an ever present concern in this nation, with the projected possibility of having two people in the work force for everyone over the age of 65 by the year 2025.  This gives a major headache to the pension section for the government yet also presents a challenge for the Church to reach out to all of those older folks with more time on their hands.

Once again I am giving you a picture of a very old wooden house.  I am continually amazed to see these buildings in modern Tokyo ,Japan and often right next to brand new buildings.

Here is another church right in the Hatanodai area.  It is of the Holiness denomination and has  a nice new building.  Rhonda & I did see this church when we did a prayer walk around the boundary of Hatanodai as it is right on the border of the area.

When we worked in Noda several many years ago  ( before we had a blog so you won’t find it in earlier posts!) we also visited the local Holiness church and had  good fellowship with them.

This now makes three churches in Hatanodai we have found so far which is not even one church for each of the 5 sections of Hatanodai we have walked.  There are many needs in this city with  much work to be done.

Hatanodai #5

YES!! we have entered section five of Hatanodai  In this picture you can see the entrance to a Shinto Shrine.  They were having a “Matsuri” or festival this day and had just finished giving everything a fresh coat of paint.  Later they would carry their “Mikoshi” or God box around the streets surrounding the shrine there would be music and lots of stalls selling “yakisoba” and other snack type foods.

Late August and September are a popular time of year for these types of festivals.  People dress up in their “Yukatas” or summer Kimono to participate in the festivals.

The Gods of these shrines are often animals and I think that this particular one is a dog but I could be mistaken…..

We did not stop at the festival however, but continued to walk the streets praying blessings over the hearts and lives of those living in this area of the city.

Parking Lot

Here is a site quite common in this part of the city.  A pay parking lot for just one car, sometimes there is one for two cars.  Space is very limited so this kind of thing is although at first unusual for us is now an everyday thing.  You can just see the Coke Cola vending machine on the right of the parking lot.

On the right is another of those kind of too narrow house that slips in here and there throughout the city.  Even though it is only one house there is a doorway on every one of the three floors.

Looking at this picture you can easily understand why many Japanese are unwilling to invite you into their houses even though  you may know them quite well.

In this picture, you can see the day care center that Claire, the   daughter of our co-workers  David & Maria attended.  There is a public park and community center that is a part of this complex.  While Claire now attends the elementary school her little sister Abbey is not yet old enough for the day care.

Even though we are still walking in the same vicinity not all the  houses are old or narrow.  This one on the right was so big that I could not get it all into the photos from the street.  Like the narrow house above this too is a three story building but there the similarity ends.

Hatanodai #4 Post 3

This section of Hatanodai caught us by surprise. The houses were very old, very small and the passage between them was very narrow.  This must be the oldest part of the area and is what I imagined Tokyo was like during the war, when much of the city was destroyed by fire.

You can see the washing machines for laundry outside of the houses in the street on either side of the lane.  We have seen a house here and another there in the other sections of Hatanodai but this is the first complete street filled with this kind of house that we have come across in Shinagawa City.

This is not a slum, the street is very clean; these people are not poor but these are the houses they have grown up in and the environment they have known all of their lives.  The washing machines are not old and you can see an air conditioner in the front left of the picture.  The crowded lifestyle of the people leads to many very creative innovations for using space and every possible space is used for something and crowded so that there is no room for anything more.  I sometimes feel that this is true of their souls too; they are so crowded that there is no room for God anywhere.

It was hard to  try to identify with this area and the people who live there.  It was beyond my experience and imagination.  But it is not the lack of space that they have to live in that causes me to cry but the lack of the love of God that they experience in their lives.

I think these contrasts are a little mind boggling for me and I would like to pretend that they are not real, that people do not exist in these small wooden units while in the same section of the city others are living in nice new apartments and houses.

In the picture on the right the pathway on the left is actually the walkway that I used as I passed along that day.

Now this is a nice house and surprisingly it is situated just one street away from those above.  It has a lovely garden and you can drive a car down the road in front of this house.  They are neighbours separated by only one street.

This is a very pretty and spotlessly clean park in the same section of town.  The parks are all small but very well tended.  They provide a safe place for the children to play and you will often see several mums and kids playng there during the day.

Here is the public bath.  I guess all of the people living in the first houses would have to use this daily.  You may notice that there are also washing machines outside so  you can get your laundry done while you are inside taking your bath.

This elementary school is attended by some of the children who came to the English camp that we held last month and appeared in a previous post along with the volunteers.

Well, we completed section four now and this is the local coffee shop we discovered in this section.  In this shop you can buy the beans, have them roasted to your taste and then ground ready for use.  The owner was very friendly and has traveled to many countries to pursue his love of coffee.

So here we are supporting the local economy and enjoying a freshly brewed caffe latte.

I think we might visit this coffee shop again.

Hatanodai #4 Post 2

Older Apartments

As we mentioned in the first blog on section #4 there are loads and loads of apartments in this section of Hatanodai.  In the first photo you can see a fairly standard older type of apartment building.  There are three apartments both upstairs and downstairs in this building.

In the second picture you will notice a much more modern look.  With parking space available at the bottom.

We are deeply aware of the number of people condensed into this section of our neighbourhood compared with the other sections we have already walked through.

Old Folks Center

Another reality of life in Japan is the ageing population.  By the year 2025 it is estimated that there will be two people in the work force for every person over the  age of 65.  In this picture you will see a centre for activities especially for the aged.  There are opportunities for volunteering at this facility which may prove to be another avenue for us in the area.  We believe that many of these older folks will be a powerful force in the kingdom when we find ways to bring the kingdom into their free time.

Young People Will Come

Finally while walking through the shopping street we noticed, hanging in the street for all to see, an amazing T-Shirt with the words “The waves will never stop coming”  For those who know how Loren Cunningham was given a dream of waves crashing on the shores and those waves becoming young people carrying the gospel.  This was an incredible exciting  affirmation of our heart to see many more young people come to work here in the city of Tokyo.

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.

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.

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.

Hatanodai #3

Yes, we are back to prayer walking again and it’s time to enter section three.

The biggest part of section three is taken up by Bunkyo University.  This University is one that has a tiered structure that occurs here in Japan.  They have everything from the pre-school through the elementary,  junior and senior high  schools and finally the university, all bearing the Bunkyo name.  The theory is that if you begin at the pre-school then your progress to University is practically assured.  Some sections of the Bunkyo system are located in other parts of Tokyo.

There is a very picturesque shopping street right next to the station that includes a KFC.  This picture was taken in front of the coffee shop where we concluded our time in section two.   The railway line provides an easy border between the sections.

There were many, many very old houses in this section as well as some very narrow streets.  Here is an old house with several vending machines in front, including the small white one that vends newspapers.

Here on the right is a very narrow house; there are not too many of these but every now and again you can find them tucked in here and there.

Hatanodai #2 Post 3

In the last post I mentioned the big road running right through Hatanodai.  Here is the sign post on the Nakahara Kaido in number 2 chome.   Almost at the point of this sign is our first church here in Hatanodai.  It is called Senzoku Church and  I will tell you more about that word later.  The church is part of the traditional denomination that was formed during the war when the government forced all the churches to become one denomination.

We all gathered in front of this church to pray blessing over them and their ministry before gong into the streets to complete our prayer walk of number 2 chome.  This church is right across the road from the Shimizudai elementary school.

Here is an example of what I mentioned in an earlier post of the love for flowers and beauty that is such a part of the Japanese culture.  There is not enough room for them to have a yard or even a small garden so this has to suffice and surely does bring a touch of warmth to the crowded concrete city.

Now I get to show you the fine coffee shop I mentioned earlier that is right across the road from Hatanodai station entrance.  The coffee shop is on the first floor and you can see several small stores right underneath on the ground floor.

Here we are in the coffee shop enjoying the nice air-conditioning and a blend coffee at the end of our walk through section 2 of Hatanodai.