Day 15

Friday evening here and I have just returned from the Friday Night small group the church has at a couple's home near downtown Yokohama. My first night attending that study was last week where I learned they're going through a devotional book on Proverbs. Last meeting they needed someone to to lead this weeks study and I was "volunteered" by someone in the group to lead tonights study on wise speech. It was a lot of fun getting to be a part of this group and I'm looking forward to the next month or so I get to be involved.

That's not all the Bible Study teaching I've been doing this week. On Wednesdays we hold one here at the church for a group of people to meet, have a study, and then pray for the church and community. Pastor Lowe asked me to share about 30 minutes on how I came to be in Yokohama, why I wanted to come, and the spiritual road that the Lord took me on to bring me to those desires. I was so blessed to be able to share about my first experiences overseas and how much I was able to learn not only through those experiences, but also through other small groups and classes I took like Jeff Lewis' Intro to Global Studies. I never realized until I was putting together my talk just how instrumental that class and his study "God's Heart for the Nations" was to my understanding and convictions about our responsibility as believers. Going through that book was the first time I had ever heard about much of what he was saying and it absolutely revolutionized my Faith and what I believed God wanted from creation. It was so encouraging and reenergizing to go through those lessons again and remember where my conviction about my commitment to missions comes from and why it's there. It was really a joy to be able to talk about that with the group and share the real reason why I came and what I hope to get from this experience.

Thursday was my off day and I took care of things around the apartment, cleaning up and preparing for the CBU music team to arrive tomorrow as I will be having two guys stay with me. For dinner I headed down to Isezaki-cho Mall (really more of an outdoor block or two with shops and stores and restaurants) and picked up a few things as well as grabbed dinner at my new favorite restaurant. It's much like Pepper Lunch which I talked about in my last post but MUCH better in the fact that they bring out your food completely raw and put it on an induction burner in front of you and you cook it all right there. They also bring you rice (all you can eat), miso soup, and a salad (there are pictures at the bottom). It is absolutely divine. The best part about the meal? I walked into the restaurant and recognized the song; "I'll be Home for Christmas" by Bing Crosby. I knew it was going to be a great evening and it only got better from there. They continued playing American classics by Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra and the like. It was truly an evening to be envied. Also, I figured that being in Japan I needed to have a pair of my own chopsticks so I picked some up. I'm super excited to use them!

More to come when there's more to tell!

Cheers.

Oh yea, that's real right there.


I ate all the rice I could eat.


Don't worry, they're not even close. But if they were it wouldn't matter 'cuz I have my own chopsticks! WOO!