Day 3 and 4--Porta-Squatties*, Strawberries, Concerts, Peppers, and Karaoke

It's Tuesday night here in Yamomoto-cho. We just finished a rousing round of karaoke with Watanabi-San's set-up he brought over. Some favourites included the Hallelujah chorus, Bridge Over Troubled Water, a Carpenters' selection, and Danny Boy.
Today we went to two separate work sites. Anybody remember those highly dangerous weed whackers our chivalrous men desirous of stealing all the fun for themselves wouldn't let us women use last year? Yeah, well,      some women got to use them this year. Cal Cummings even showed up and showed me how to. I whacked merrily away for about ten minutes and then got distracted by a tree frog.
Actually, we had finished our work for the day by then--I just like wielding dangerous objects.

Anyways, one team weed whacked somewhere and the other team (my team) went to a local pepper farmer's field and picked large rocks out of one small-ish field.
We came home, weary and filthy, to find Edie Cummings preparing yakisoba for us all; it was oishii desu (delicious)!
It was full of moyashi (bean sprouts), carrots, meat, mushrooms, soba (buckwheat noodles), and had pickled red ginger on top. Yet another popular Japanese dish I hadn't had before, but now have! It was awesome.
Edie is our hero. And for more reasons than the fact that she cooks us food! She and Cal are always so cheerful and encouraging and fun to work with. They're a great blessing to everyone who knows them.

On a semi-related note, Yui is sort of the acting head of the Nozomi center and a small force of nature. She works constantly and is always willing and enthused to help people in the area. This morning she and some of our team left early to help a neighbour in her garden. Yui has been getting to know this lady for a while now (her husband died in the tsunami), and was amazed that this morning the neighbour expressed interest for the first time in learning more about the Christian faith. This neighbour lady has felt that her duty is to encourage her neighbours by always staying cheerful, but she's had a hard time keeping up this facade. Now our team is here and has been encouraging her by helping her out, and that blessing has helped along God's work in opening her up to the gospel.
Hooray!

Yesterday we worked at the pepper farm and at a strawberry farm. I joined the strawberry team and the  Otsubos (the farmers) set Amanda, JB, and me to potting stray strawberry plant runners while the rest of the team helped work in another greenhouse. To amuse ourselves we former three debated paedo baptism over credo baptism and talked about how annoying the general public can be (from a worker's viewpoint).
Monday (yesterday) was only a half-day because we were hosting a concert for the community featuring Rutsuko Honda, a nationally famous Japanese gospel singer. She was beautiful, very sweet, and had a very clear, lovely voice. For those of you who are keeping up to date on my posts, this is what the late-night cake-baking was for that I mentioned in my last post.

Yet again it is late and my brain is dying! Also, I have weirdly-mottled sunburn on my legs due to lazy sunscreen application early in the day.
So! Pictures!

At the concert. Joe, Anna, Ethan, Mike, Cal, and Honda-san with her guitar. 

Concert in progress. 

Lyrics for a couple songs. I was pretty psyched I could read a good deal of it. Understanding it was a completely different matter. 

We were cleaning up and decided to lock Joe in the chair closet. He stayed quietly in there for a good ten minutes before we got bored and let him out. 

This morning, getting ready to head out. 

Ethan looking perplexed.

Anna looking cheerful.

Joe, Mike, Yui, and Amanda working at the pepper farm. 

Ken doing karaoke. 

Some of the appreciative audience. 

*For those of you who don't know, Japan has toilets with so many buttons they'll soon be able to cure cancer with the push of a button, or send a small person to the moon...

The arm of your average toilet in Japan.

Still not enough buttons, you say? Japan has got you covered. 

 Japan also, though, has "squat pots"... 

Not our idea of fun.

Now imagine the horror of a porta-potty... only with a squat pot. Ethan dubbed these terrors "porta-squatties," and has caused me endless mirth because of it. I had to share my joy with you.

Thank you, and goodnight.

Sunday night, Japan

It’s now Sunday night here in Japan. At one corner of the table Ben and JB are engaged in deep conversation about history and politics:

Ken is researching music for devotions, Ed is teaching Anna and Ethan how to play Carrom, 

Amanda is quietly surfing, 

and Mike and Joe are doing the dishes.

Yesterday we worked in some strawberry fields, helping set up greenhouses, and also weeded a garden for a lady near the Nozomi center who recently had hand surgery. I was on the gardening team and very much enjoyed the work and talking to Mike, Ben, and Ethan about Life.

Today we split up into two groups and attended two different churches. One group went to the Sendai church with Cal Cummings and the other (my group) went to Canaan with Edie Cummings. The people at Canaan were incredibly friendly. I met several members: a really sweet and beautiful girl who recently moved to the area and is a nurse in a Sendai hospital, and a lady who (I think) told me I look like one of Edie’s daughters because something about my hair (my Japanese is scattered and lacking). A group of ladies banded together and foisted cold wheat tea on us (much needed, since today was horribly hot and sticky), and different cookies and snacks. 

On the drive back to the Cummings' Edie gave us a synopsis of the sermon, which was on Matthew 6:25-onwards:

²⁵  “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? ²⁶  Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? ²⁷ And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?^[g] 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, ²⁹ yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. ³⁰ But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? ³¹ Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³² For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. ³³ But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. ³⁴  “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

The pastor made a really good point and said that if we are anxious or worried about something, that is an easy way for us to know what sin issues we are dealing with; worrying constantly about things is a sign that we're not trusting God and are too focused on controlling Life--something that we're incapable of actually doing. 

After church we all met back at the Cummings’ for another delicious meal and fun fellowship. Nothing else particularly exciting happened today for me to talk about and that is sometimes a very pleasant and needful thing.
Also, I am barely conscious and unable of making anything mundane, interesting. Bedtime!

Ed and Ethan at the Carrom board.

Ethan asks how his rat face looks.

P.S. Apologies for any weird formatting issues--after I copy pasted the Bible verse, everything else went crazy and refused to be remedied. 

P.P.S. Just kidding about bedtime... we need to make a few cakes for a concert tomorrow, so we'll be up a bit longer to do that!

Japan Day 1--Travel

Well, we have all arrived safely in Japan. There were a few near misses (no trip is complete without them), but we made it through and I’m sitting at a table with Anna Schortmann, Ethan Hunter, and Mike Gilbert in the downstairs of the Nozomi center.

Ethan and I are the designated chefs for the duration of our stay here, and killing time trying to make the internet work before we need to start on breakfast.

But back to near misses. Wednesday night as I was packing, it suddenly occurred to me that I would need my passport. It’s one of those things that’s so obvious you assume you’ve already taken care of it—like inviting your best friend to a party at your house: of course she’s invited, so you must have already told her about it, right? Well, I meandered over to the drawer that I always keep it in and discovered that it was not in fact there. I did, however, find my international driver’s license (the one I didn’t get to use last year because Uncle Brian had to be chivalrous all the time—David Moore did let me drive once, though, bless him), and discovered that it’s valid for a year from the date I got it (August 23^rd of last year). Hooray!

Anyways, after searching in all the obvious places I told the boyfriend it was time for emergency prayer while I kept searching.

“Got it,” he said.

Thirty seconds later I found my passport under my bed.

I’m a big fan of the prayers that get answered in less than a minute. The prayers that take years to get answered “yes,” or “no” teach one patience and trust in God. The ones that get answered in thirty seconds make one all excited about the POWER OF GOD. I have now experienced both.

Passport tragedy averted, I experienced no other airline problems until we were all on our flight from Atlanta, GA, to Narita-Tokyo. Then I was just completely miserable for over 14 hours. A combination of antsyness from sitting still for so long, plus air sickness, made for a very long bout of grossness. Our flight was supposed to be 13 hours and 40 minutes, but ended up being 42 minutes later than expected. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing… until you realize that we got into Narita-Tokyo at 4:42pm (Japan time), our flight from Tokyo to Sendai was supposed to leave at 6:20pm, and we still had to go through customs, exchange our money, pickup our bags, check them in, then get bused to our flight. Losing 42 minutes was a huge blow to this process. Also I accidentally left my pillow and blanket in one of the customs sections and had to ask a nice Japanese flight attendant to go back and find it for me, which she kindly did.

Due to this time constraint we had what would have been a brief but hilarious comedy scene consisting of a slow-motion montage of our team jogging through the airport alongside some similarly-tardy, neatly dressed Japanese businessmen, their ties and our tongues flying in the breeze while elegant and smiling airline hostesses urged us on. To add a more serious tone, the theme music from Chariots of Fire could be playing, and anyone watching would be swept up into the drama and excitement that combined desperation and hope can bring.

This rush is also why I did not update anybody on the fact I’d made it to Japan alive (sorry, Garrett!)

We made the flight. Instead of the dreadful 7 hour drive from Tokyo to Sendai that we had to make last year, we hopped on a plane and were in Sendai in under an hour. It was a glorious relief. Cal and Edie Cummings, Yui-san, and some other people met us at the airport and drove us to the Nozomi center. It is beautiful. It seems so much bigger now, what with the walls, floors, and furniture, and everything. Cal and Yui took us through the “Rules of the House” and some of what our schedule will be like. Anna and I find it very different from last year, which was basically a “fly by the seat of our pants” sort of affair. This time around we have official jobs and everything. I ended up volunteering for cooking duty with JB and Ethan. Ironic, since I normally do not enjoy cooking. I do, however, sort of enjoy the power that comes with the title. Also, this is a very grateful crew.

Well, we are heading out to work in some strawberry fields and a private garden today. Cheers!

EDIT: Pictures!

Thursday in Atlanta, I meet the first of the team... Ed Pearce, Ethan Hunter, Jo Pearce, and Ben Schweitzer. 

Ben practices on the keyboard... IN THE NOZOMI CENTER. I remember passing bags full of tsunami sludge out of that window on the left while standing on 2x4 boards.

Out one of the windows. Mountains in the distance.

Most of the group in devotions this morning.

Anna Schortmann is glad to have her Pocari Sweat again. 

We found this fabulous caterpillar in a garden. Any ideas, Dr. Jenkins? 

Japanwards, ho!

Last year the night before I left for Japan I had to deal with all sorts of Traveling Travails thanks to Hurricane Irene and airlines confusing themselves and me.
Tonight there are no hurricanes in Atlanta, GA (that I am aware of), so I've just been packing and doing laundry.

Random aside--my spacebar was sticking, so I took it off and discovered several dust bunnies still in the fetal stage of development, and a mouse poop. I don't even.

Robert the magic Japanese dust bunny

This will be my keyboard some day. Then I will feed it to Robert. 

Okay, back to packing. 

Please pray we all have safe travels tomorrow... and the next day. :p

Cheers!

Japan, take 2

Welp, I am heading back to Japan this Thursday morning. Our entire team (minus Anna, who's flying from Germany) will meet in Atlanta, then fly to Tokyo. Blessing of blessings, we won't have to endure the interminable 6-7 hour drive from Tokyo/Narita to Yamomoto-cho at 55 mph in the dead of night with jetlag. Instead, we're flying from Tokyo to Sendai. Then the drive a half hour or so to the Nozomi center where we'll be staying.

A co-worker today asked me if I've started packing yet. I told her I'm more of a "start packing at midnight before the flight early the next morning" type of person. I have bought some things I'll need, though. I usually kind of end up picking a corner of my room, then for about a week ahead of time garnering articles of clothing, sunscreen, and the like into it--ready for the midnight-Wednesday packing. Actually, last year I started packing around 10pm, but then realized my flight out of Newark had probably been cancelled thanks to hurricane Irene, and spent an hour and a half figuring that out before I started packing again (only one airline thought it was cancelled--the other was under the impression it was not). Luckily, God decided he wanted me in Japan and arranged it so I managed to snag the VERY LAST SEAT on the plane from San Francisco to Tokyo. And two hours later than my original flight. This meant I got a whole four hours of sleep in that night before driving to Pittsburgh.

Well, I should probably go find something Japan-related and productive to do. Updates will continue.