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My First Week In Japan
5 October 2004
Outside shot of Sagamino CP Church. The pastor of this church,
and my friend, is the Rev. Iwao Satoh (I just call him Satoh).
This church will be my home base for the next years, and for
now it's actually where I'm living -- which brings us to... |
... my room at Sagamino. This was the first photo I took in
Japan -- no reason, just "for the record" I think.
I'll eventually move into an apartment -- we've already found
one but it will take some time before it's ready for me to
move in. Please pray about this, if you are that type of
person, as I will have at least two more weeks in this room,
and while we don't want to rush things, I also know there's no
WAY I can feel settled and relaxed until I get my own place.
You know? |
On my first day here on my own (Wednesday, I think), I took
off to explore -- and the first place I went was Shibuya.
Somebody had told me this was the place where "the kids
all like" -- so I knew I needed to check it out. Sure
enough, I wandered into the best music store I've ever been to
in my LIFE, outside of New York. Anyway, you can see Shibuya
is a pretty hip place. |
This is Satoh's daugher, Fumika, on Sunday afternoon. Our dear
brother Haga from the Denen church brought these BLUE roses, and we thought there was no better
person to pose with them than her -- so cute! |
Now, the good stuff -- this was the crowd at our International
Fellowship on Sunday night. If you check the news from August/September
2004, you'll see the group as it stood a month ago -- now
look at THIS mob -- it's already growing! This night, we added
three new people, as newcomer Victor and his wife (with
teenage son) came along for the ride.
The pastor is Pastor Garcia
(far right in photo) with his wife Michiko. They have been in
Japan for 13 years -- he preaches in Spanish, which I'm
surprised how much I can catch... but he also sprinkles a bit
of Portuguese in for good measure, since some are from
Brazil.
Click HERE
for a quick video clip from our singing...
"Glenn, just how
'international' is that thing?", you ask... Well, we sang
songs in Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese, and English. In one
night. Seriously -- we have people from Japan, America, Peru,
Brazil, Switzerland...
Yeah, it's CRAZY... crazy
like a fox!! ... crazy enough it just might work!!!
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Here's Manuel (from the fellowship) playing guitar and singing
with his friend April (who teaches English at a famous
Christian school several hours north of here).
Now Manuel is a story, dude. His
parents are Swiss and Mexican, he grew up in both places.
Speaks Spanish, Swiss, French, German maybe, Japanese (a bit),
and of course English with a more native accent than YOU do.
Anyway, Manuel moved to Japan 6 months ago, and studied Japanese for three months before getting
a job in engineering (his degree).
Okay, so catch how this
worked (and I hope I tell this right!):
Satoh and another guy from
Sagamino church go up to this famous Christian school (where Manuel's friend April teaches) to
check things out. Manuel, meanwhile, who is also living in
Sagamino, is there at this school visiting April. Through an
amazing act of Providence, they just happen to meet there
(Satoh and Manuel, I mean), and find out that even though they
are HOURS away from home, they both live in the same tiny
place!
"Yeah, I'm looking for a
church," Manuel tells Satoh. "We have one!"
says Satoh.
"Well, yeah, but I'm
looking for something in SPANISH," says Manuel. "We
HAVE one!!" replies Satoh.
Basically, Manuel had no
choice but to accept the invitation! But can you see how wild
that is, for him to go hours away in order to finally find a
Spanish-speaking church near where he lives?
Pretty cool, eh?
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On Sunday night, after the International Fellowship, I went
with a brother named Haga and the pastor of the Denen CP
Church (I call him Hiro) to a "dinner meeting." Pastor Hiro
(in the photo above) is in charge of the
preparations for the 2008 General Assembly which will be held
here in Japan, so some of you church-type-people might know
him.
Anyway, we three went for a
meeting to discuss some new projects we'll try in the coming
weeks. It was a good meeting -- but even BETTER food! Really,
it was one of the coolest restaurants I've ever been to. You just
order up the meats you want and grill it right there --
PERFECT. This particular item was beef tongue.
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Just one more thing -- Hiro's car has an "HDD"
system in it. Now, I have no idea what "HDD" means, something
about "hard drive" or whatever. But talk about cool.
This interactive, TALKING computer puts all the electronics of
the car under one central command center.
You can see, in this shot, the
navigational maps. It tells you where you are within about 3
feet in Tokyo (GPS). Okay, and when we were deciding on a
place to eat, he just typed in where we were, and what
"style" of restaurant we were looking for, and out
popped all their suggestions, including the navigational aids
to help you get there -- SWEET.
Then it also has all his
mp3's on there, and controls his CD player and stereo in that way -- you get
the idea...
But the kicker for ME is that
it's also a TV -- seriously. At one point after dinner we were
sitting in traffic (Sunday night traffic jam? Only in
Tokyo)... But Haga reaches up and turns on a live broadcast of
soccer (Japan vs Qatar, in case you're wondering).
COOL. Very, very cool.
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