It’s a few months since the start of my internship at Morioka Bible Baptist Church, and it’s quickly become apparent that ministry in Japan is fast paced, exciting and quite a bit different from being a full time language student, or working 9 – 5 as an IT professional (my previous day job). We’re still in the process of adjusting to this new pace, learning to take time to breathe when things are a little slower so that we can dive right into the long days, late nights and long hours on the road that characterize ministry in Morioka and throughout rural Iwate.
It’s been both a challenge and a blessing to be able to experience many different aspects of ministry in December. As seems to be the case in most places, Christmas is one of the busiest times at our Church.
At the beginning of the month we hosted a team of four gentlemen from Texas. For me it was my first chance being on the receiving end of a short term missions trip. With the help of the team we were able to host an English Cafe at the local community center. We also spent a day down on the coast working with Tomo’s dad to minister to survivors still living in temporary housing, as well as help with an afternoon children’s program for kids living in temporary housing. We had a wonderful time and are looking forward to hosting more teams from their church in the future. For me in particular it was a lot of fun being able to hang out with a group of guys who understood (and were quite proficient) in American sarcasm, which rarely translates well into Japanese.
As we said goodbye to our new friends from Texas, a large team from Singapore arrived the same day and helped to host another English Cafe at the church before we sent them off to various locations on the coast to help with Christmas outreaches.
Tomo and I were put in charge of our church’s Christmas Service this year, where we came up with a program to explain who Christ is, by using Japanese calligraphy. I produced a series of videos of Church members writing about Jesus, while Tomo coordinated and enlisted nearly every member of the church to help with various aspects of the service, from reading scripture, to singing in the choir, to making snacks and cleaning the church. It was an exhausting ordeal but in the end everything came together, and we were encouraged to see a number of new people attend, as well as some friends and family of church members.
The Japanese calligraphy created by church members. Watch video.
The next day our family drove 2 hours down to Ofunato to spend Christmas Eve with Ofunato Church, where we celebrated Christ’s coming with one of the only two members of the church. We were pleasently surprised to see one new beleiver and two non Christians who had been ministered to by 3.11 staff members also attend the service.
Throughout December God gave us many opportunities to share about the coming of His Son, and through all these experiences we’re begining to get a better understanding of the needs here, and how God can use us to meet those needs as we look towards many years of future ministry here in Iwate. We still have much to learn, but God is faithfully teaching and preparing us to serve Him here.
