心が広い人

These past two days have been a true blur! Yesterday we worked at the Nasu warehouse moving a huge shipment of around 15 tons of food and supplies to Sendai. There were huge trucks and forklifts involved, but I did not have to drive either of them haha. As a young driver under the age of 21 I was placed in charge of shrink wrapping all of the shipment. It was tiring work, but tons of fun. I have never worked with shrink wrap before, but once I got started, I wanted to wrap everything!

Our team has had the opportunity of working with a really great person named Narita-san. He has been volunteering at Crash for about a week, and has been helping us with all of our projects. I have only known him a mere five days, but his character and humble way speaks volumes, and we all know I 

Narita-san in the forklift...and a 10 ton truck.

 can type volumes. Even though he is the elder of the group, he worked the hardest out of all of us, put us young people to shame when it came to physical exertion. He has a huge heart and a wonderful patience for everyone's Japanese, and ridiculous translations of our English conversations. He is gracious, funny, and all around awesome. He's like a crazy uncle to me, I'm sure if I could know him for longer he'd be more like a dad. But Narita-san is leaving Crash, because his volunteer time is up. It was short.

The last thing I told Narita-san was to remember the English phrase "Pedal to the Metal!". We have an old road that leads to the bed and breakfast where the Nasu base is and it is old and full of pot-holes. So for fun Narita-san would drive around fast

I'm shrink wrapping everything in sight!

over the pot-holes if we asked him to, aka if we said, "Narita-san, Pedal to the Metal!" We spent lots of time trying to explain the phrase in Japanese and teach him how to say it himself. I was so happy when he could understand and say it as well. Narita-san is one of the few on this trip who I am able to carry out a full conversation with in Japanese. Though no one has really known each other for long, we find that when we want to talk in Japanese, there is so much we can talk about. Narita-san is full of humble wisdom and is very soft spoken, but has a smile of gold and is a really hard worker. I was mostly impressed by his seemingly tireless work ethic. He's a wonderful person, I'm glad I met him.

This is my team! Dave, Akiko, Micheal, and Narita-san 

After hours of work last night I decided because I did not want to be left home alone that I would venture out to an onsen with the group. What was I thinking? I don't know. But I had a great time, once I got past my own shyness, that is. The onsen is in a hotel just down the street from the Nasu base called Epinard. The onsen usually costs about 1800 yen, but volunteers in Nasu can get in for only 500 yen. Let me tell you, this was an awesome experience for only 500 yen.

The onsen has an indoor and out door ofuro, a sauna, a cool ofuro, fun showers with every kind of face wash you can think of and count on two hands, a room with complimentary hairbrushes, hair dryers, hair treatments, free French massage beds, and of course, a scale to make us all feel better. Rachel, Kelsey, and I kind of stuck together as the foreigners in the room, but once we were in the onsen, we were able to venture out on our own a bit. Being a foreigner in an onsen, I have found, is also a great conversation starter in Japanese. I was able to talk to a kind woman for a little bit, and expressing my embarassment actually made embracing this side of the Japanese culture much easier. Rachel said to me, "You can cross this off your bucket list now." I answered, "It wasn't on my list, but I'll add it and cross it...and come back again."

 

Today we went back to the older warehouse where the many blankets from Germany are located. We had to secure piles of them and put them in plastic bags today. I had the odd opportunity to speak to Curtis this morning, and he is actually across the street from a church that is handmaking blankets like the ones we have and sending them to Japan. Are they the same??

The older warehouse is very old, and there was lots of rain overnight, so we had to wear masks. I've never worn a mask before, so I was pretty excited at the start. The masks do get hot though, but they work very well. Each blanket that we folded to put into a pile of five was so unique and special, different sizes, some textures warmer than others, but all very beautiful. It was like you could feel love having no boundaries folding them. It was hard work to put them all together, but seeing the stacks of blankets ready to go out and bless families in the winter, you get this warm feeling in your heart.

The task didn't take us long, so we helped out around the Nasu base, pulling weeds and cooking dinner. I was able to work with Mrs. Kondo, the kind woman who owns the bed and breakfast that houses the base. We cooked chicken curry rice together. I learned how to chop cabbage like it is chopped in Japanese restaurants, and how to chop vegetables specifically for curry rice. Mrs. Kondo loves to practice her English, but once she found out I'm a Japanese major in college, she quickly reverted to Japanese, being patient with me a long the way as there was much "cooking vocabulary" I didn't understand. I had to thank her for teaching me so well in cooking, and in cooking words.

After dinner, the team got together and we shared about what we have been feeling over the week. This morning I was able to pray with Akiko, and we could pray about anything we wanted. We didn't really ask for requests of each other, we just started in, and soon found ourselves praying for Japan and for the Japanese people. I feel kind of bad saying this, but this is the first time I think I have prayed for Japan with someone else since I've been to Nasu. To turn my gaze outward in prayer was something that felt so much more worth it than any prayer request I could have come up with for myself. But not to say I'm this super humble person who puts others before  myself because that is far from the truth. I turned to Akiko when we had finished praying and said I wish we could do this with the whole team. It's still a wish, but there is time.

At our meeting tonight we started in on talking about evangelism in Japan, why has Christianity in Japan begun to fizzle, is it fizzling, can only Japanese share the gospel with other Japanese, all these frustrations and questions we had. The questions are still rolling around in my head, and I know that peace comes when I look at truth. Yes there are cultural barriers and misconceptions about Christianity and Japanese culture, but God is not phased by any of it. I can sit and try to figure it all out, and I fear that many of my teammates will attempt to do just that, but it's beyond my control. I go back to this time in my life often, but when I went to Reality San Francisco's baptism, seeing all these different people from different walks of life with different stories, and how God reached into their story in His own way and saved their lives, shows me that nothing is impossible for God. In Japan it is the same way.

My prayer for our team is we would be moved to prayer more, prayer together. Not just for our food or our day, or when something goes awry, but that we would be able to come together early and late, any time, and just let our hearts pour out prayers for Japan. I know this team is passionate, let's be passionate. I do hope I'm coming from the right place in my heart.