Glancing out the train window as we came to a stop, I noticed a man walking down the road while looking at his phone. Suddenly the man looked to his side, stopped, and turned. Following his gaze, I realized he was looking at a neighborhood Shinto shrine.  The man proceeded to bow his head towards the shrine, and then turned back to walking while looking down at his phone. Curious, I watched the shrine a bit longer and saw no one else around the area. He most likely prayed to the god(s) of the shrine.
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This scene struck me, because he was bowing his head the whole time, once to the shrine and twice to his phone. Sure, his motives differed between the shrine and looking at the game or emails on his phone, but from the train, I saw a man bowing his head towards two things in worship.

In this beautifully created country, we observe people praying regularly to physical, man-made idols, images with mouths that cannot speak and eyes that cannot see. We also see men and women who have made idols out of objects, careers, or people.
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Then the convicting through struck me: often I am focused on studying flashcards on my phone, coordinating my daily plans, or completing my to-do list, so I forget to contemplate the true God during my day. The walking man at least paused his activities on a busy weekend morning to say a prayer to the god of the shrine as he passed. Imagine what the living God could do with a heart completely dedicated to Him throughout the day.

Have you ever wanted to go back and become a child again? The carefree life may appeal, but linguistically, few would desire reverting to our childhood communication abilities. When we arrived in Japan, though, that is exactly what happened.
 
Five years ago, at the beginning of our first time in Japan, we accidentally bought a strange mayonnaise and mystery meat sandwich for breakfast due to our inability to read the package. We also went to the wrong places at the wrong times, inconvenienced others, and bought other strange items by accident thanks to our Japanese skills.
 
This time, we arrived understanding Japanese better, yet we still make mistakes. We have taken the wrong amount of medicine, turned in documents at the wrong time, and continue struggling to understand the main points during the Sunday morning sermon. When someone asks us to pray before a meal, we feel helpless to express ourselves and praise God with our limited Japanese. Living in a culture that speaks a different language is humbling.

​We graduated with Bible degrees, yet we consider it a victory if we can successfully understand a verse in Japanese during Sunday School. We enjoy reading and studying new things, yet we struggle to understand Japanese picture books. We love talking with people and getting to know them deeply, yet our Japanese conversations die after a handful of sentences. We sometimes want to shout, “I promise we are much smarter than this!”
 
More than all of that, living here is exactly where God placed us. We have weaknesses. We make mistakes. We become embarrassed. We have our pride shattered repeatedly. Through all of this, God’s strength, glory, wisdom, sovereignty, mercy, and grace are clearly displayed. Our weaknesses make us strong because God gives us the power to accomplish what He has called us to do. We would not trade that for anything in this created universe.

​In America, political campaigns invade our homes during the election season. Phone calls, emails, television ads, and people going door-to-door all share the reasons why a specific candidate should, or even should not, receive your vote. Japan, however, has a slightly different approach.

This spring we noticed people with loudspeakers at the train stations, who were handing out fliers and broadcasting about politics. It seemed odd, but people routinely hand out fliers in front of the station.

We also saw billboard-sized signs with numbered boxes setting up near parks and walkways around the city. A few days later, posters for all sorts of political candidates appeared for people to look at, and some people did stop to glance. 

Around the same time, the politicians began holding rallies in the parks around the city. Armed with megaphones, they spoke about things such as fighting the sales tax hike scheduled for later this year. They also greeted people walking by the rally and walked around shaking the hands.

Continuing with their like of megaphones, they also drove around in cars equipped with speaker systems. They turned up the speakers loud enough for people to hear inside their homes, sometimes even stopping outside of apartment buildings. They also used this time to greet people walking by on the street. One time, one politician stopped to make sure a child was okay after witnessing him fall in a park. Unfortunately, they continued with their megaphone cars into the mid-evening when younger children have already gone to bed.
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Thankfully the election took place a week later, so the campaign cycle is short. We have decided that the political telephone calls and commercials are not too bad in comparison, though.

The train crawled to a stop, but not at a station. While the conductor explained about a signal light, I realized that it was going to be a long train ride. Earlier, when I arrived at our station, I observed a train delay notice. When getting on my train, I hoped that the schedule must be catching up, since a “person accident” had taken place over two hours earlier. Unfortunately, we reached the 1/3 point of the ride about the time our train usually arrives at my transfer station.  

At one of the stops, the information signs indicated that it would be around an hour to get to my transfer station. I calculated that I would miss almost all my shortened class that day and left the train before the lines of people boarded our already crowded train.
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“I won’t be coming to class today,” I sadly texted my teacher. I then walked around the station for a while, waiting for the right train to come that would take me back home. I also contemplated the meaning of “person accident.”
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​​As the year ends, many people reflect on the past year and look to the future. Though a good and helpful practice, for Japanese businessmen this may bring sorrow. For some, the previous year was in the red, and there seems to be no hope for their company’s future. For others, the next year brings more of the same of what they consider monotonous, insufferable work. For yet others, their jobs, and therefore their life meaning, will be coming to an end. They have no hope, and therefore some choose to end their lives by way of a speeding train.

​During this time of year, Christians remember hope, both fulfilled and future. The hope of the centuries was fulfilled when the Christ, the Messiah, was born. The hope of Jesus’ return and the resulting restoration will happen because God is faithful and has proven Himself from the beginning. Through Jesus and His death and resurrection, every life has meaning and purpose. This is the message that these Japanese businessmen need to hear, and this is one major reason we came to Japan. There is hope found in Jesus and among those who follow Him.

“Don’t try to figure out how [a grammar point] fits in the sentence. The Japanese language simply borrows the structure when expressing a desire.” “You are correct, that word also has that [completely different] meaning, but only when written with other characters.” “Let’s do a three-minute speech. Please think about how you would answer the question, ‘What is the Good News?’”
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Our lives are filled with these sorts of statements. In July, we joined the Tokyo Academy of Communications Language Institute to learn Japanese. We had a great Japanese foundation thanks to our previous time in Japan, but we knew we still had much to learn. TAC specializes in conversation-based learning, which means that our class time is primarily spent speaking, listening, and responding to teachers and classmates. This has allowed us to utilize what we already knew, while learning more grammar within natural sounding contexts.

TAC specifically caters to missionaries, so they try to be as flexible as possible to help train missionaries how to successfully minister in Japanese. However, anyone may join the school, which creates some great conversations in class.
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We love watching God fit all the little details together for His glory and work here in Japan.

​“Every time I come here, I ask the Lord to destroy this statue before I die.” One missionary once told us this when he visited Kamakura. Almost 800 years ago in Kamakura, a temple casted a giant bronze Buddha called the Daibutsu. This 44-foot statue sits in a large courtyard, with an offering table, incense case, and money box in front of it.  The sounds of clinking money breaks the sounds of the wind rustling the leaves and the low murmur of people chatting around the courtyard.

Most who come to the Buddha, drop change in a box, put their hands together in front of their face, bow their head, and say a prayer. In recent visits, whether for zeal, desire, or desperation, both, we have seen men and women have taken the prayers a step further (as shown in the video).

Daily, offerings of fruit and drink are placed before the statue. People kneel before a bronze statue and pray to the gods for help. This is idolatry. For less than 10 cents, you can go around the back and enter the statue. Inside you discover a hollowed-out cavern. The Buddha is an object with no life. We too pray that someday soon, this statue will be dismantled. We pray that the hearts of the people will turn towards God and the temple will be torn down.

​In the meantime, we are thankful for the temple and statue. God has used this giant bronze statue to touch and change the hearts of many people towards the people of Japan. Some of them, myself included, have come back to Japan to serve as missionaries.

Sometimes you just need delicious ice cream when you move. These are sesame (grey) and sweet potato (purple)

WeThis is on the walk to the station. We enjoy lots of green despite still living in Tokyo

We are getting to know this train map very well

Our children are adapting well to new modes of transportation

Our back balcony overlooks Tama and includes a view of Mt. Fuji

We continue adjusting to a new routine, including (almost) daily laundry

Our first night in Japan included a "The Teaching of Buddah" in the hotel room, but no Bible, a small reminder of why we came to live in Japan.

We arrived in Japan three weeks ago, welcomed by fellow missionaries. We experienced issues with immigration resulting from misinformation about which person we were supposed to see and from malfunctioning printers. Yet, God provided a smooth transition from America to Japan, and we (and our luggage) arrived safely.

The whirlwind began with shopping for essentials (bedding, towels, etc). The next day we tackled government registrations and purchasing more furniture and appliances. Getting cell phones took twelve hours due to a discrepancy in usage of middle names between America and Japan in the credit card background check. Yet, God has faithfully provided what we have needed, even if that was freeing our schedule so that we can spend a day getting cell phones.

We attended Megumi Baptist church, our new church home, for the first time in years and were welcomed with open arms. They have sacrificed time and energy to help us move to the area. We are thankful for and greatly appreciate them, but they are strangers. We still have trouble remembering their names. Yet, God created within the church a familial relationship that transcends cultures and language.

Despite living in Japan before, transitioning to a new culture and language is difficult. We praise God for His faithfulness to help us do what He has called us to do. We praise God for the strength He gives to navigate trains with two young children. We praise God that at the end of the day we can look back and see His hand guiding and protecting throughout the day.

Earlier this week, abortion came to the media forefront again as people observed National Sanctity of Human Life Day. The fight to protect babies in the womb continues in America, but what about abortion in Japan?

Over two decades ago, the New York Times wrote this article detailing some of the ways people in Japan handle the sorrow and grief caused by abortions. This situation continues today. The Times observes:

Reading about the guilt and sorrow these women (and men) carry crushes our hearts. They do what they "must do" because of social and familial pressures, yet they carry that burden heavily. They hope for forgiveness, entrusting the spirits of the babies to the temples and carved statues. 

We want to share about the God who forgives. We want to share about the God who cares so much about them that He established a plan from before the beginning of time to crush His own Son. God did this that He might forgive them, pay for their guilt, and bestow on them honor that never diminishes.

The introduction of Aila into our family (see the July 2017 blog post) has caused changes to our sleeping and traveling habits, especially for Janae, but that has not stopped our progress. Since July, we have averaged over 2,700 a month of driving, shared with ten new churches, revisited eleven churches, connected with pastors at two state church conferences, attended and finished our final Baptist Mid-Missions classes, helped with one VBS, and enjoyed both a men’s and a women’s retreats. We have had many opportunities for God to stretch and grow us over the last few months.

​Andrew has been working on Doctorate of Ministry for the last two years. The program emphasizes preaching, and Andrew will focus on preaching in a Japanese context. As of the moment, he has two classes left and continues working on his official dissertation proposal. Andrew also will be ordained at the beginning of November, which has taken up a considerable amount of time as well. We praise God that He saw fit to change the class Andrew intended to take so that he had the semester off from classes and could work on the dissertation proposal and ordination.

Concerning Japan, we are currently at 75% of our committed monthly support, and it appears that we should arrive in Japan sometime early 2018. The main factor holding us back is that BMM appropriately requires us to have 100% of the monthly support raised before we leave.
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On a side note, and a major contributing factor to the delayed post, Andrew discovered that video blogs are not his thing; maybe he will try it again some day.