Today (Monday) is my day off for this week so I thought I take the time to write about the things Nisshin Church did this week with the ~40 kids we had come to Kids Gospel Camp.
- Random thoughts I have about this week:
- I was glad and honored to have a job in helping plan the KGW (Kids Gospel Week). I got to help design the t-shirt and plan the games for the summer festival at the end of the week. Plus help teach the kids the songs. It was an answer to a personal prayer of mine to feel that i was being used and actually helping the church while I'm here. I don't want to be a burden to the people who have been so kind to me here.
- Japanese is hard to learn, hard to sing, hard to perform, and trying to say Japanese names is almost impossible. I'm still working on all of that.
- To go along with the above comment, I start Japanese language lessons this week!
Like I said earlier, the church had about 40 kids come (Tuesday thru Friday) for the camp and then we held a performance for the parents/friends on Saturday and had a Summer Festival with games and prizes for the families. The whole week was great fun and the church thought is was a great success. Alot of people that normally wouldn't go to church were there and experiencing a good time and love in a place they know almost nothing about. We were very excited because alot of fathers came to the worship time/performance to see their kids and through the songs, heard the Gospel. Everyday, the kids had three stations to go to: Music, Dance and Crafts/Game/Snack. During Dance, they had a small Bible time. The church invited a pastor (Naoki-san) from Tokyo to come in and lead that. Naoki-san was actually in Tom and Teresa's wedding and Tom was influential in leading Naoki-san to Christ about 10 years ago. He was great with the kids. Basically, he took a segment of the Gospel each day and told the kids about that (grace, sin, man, Jesus, etc)
The camp had ages 3 to 12 years old participating with many youth helpers and adult leaders. It was of great encouragement to the mothers to see the older kids engaged in the younger children's day, playing with them and stuff. In Japanese schools, once a child gets to junior highschool, many of them are so busy with school, clubs and "cram" school that they have no time for family stuff. "Cram" school is extra school on top of the normal day and its purpose is to better prepare the child for the exams so that they can get into the highschool or college they want. Japan is success driven!! Succeed in school, succeed in work....no time for family. It's really sad because not many fathers are apart of their children's lives because they are working from 9am-10pm most the time. That is actually the norm. So the mothers are with the young children all the time. That is why the church as such a ministry for mothers and children (mother's day out, mom and kids club, vbs, bible studies, etc). But anyways, it was good to see families there TOGETHER at the performance and interacting at the festival. The kids were great all week and Tom really stressed teaching them how to sing and stuff. The camp was such a hit because Japanese people LOVE gospel music. Tom and Teresa have 3 gospel choirs right now. Many of the choir members are not Christians but just love singing gospel. The Wilson's have a great ministry getting to know these people, explaining the music they are singing and getting them in Bible studies or inviting them to church. Alot of the choir members and their friends brought their children to KGW (another opportunity to share the gospel with them!!!) The performance went great and we were very happy with the turnout. Thank you God for answering Your servants prayers!
*Please pray for the men's ministry here. There are many woman in the church but we pray that God will raise up men to lead the church. Native Japanese pastors, elders, deacons, Godly husbands and fathers to lead their own churches. There a several churches in the Nagoya area with no pastor at all so several men are pulling double duty.
*Pray for me as I have a change of position in August. I go from teaching English and holding conversations with Japanese to doing projects for the church and it's members. Pray that God will give me a cheerful attitude about whatever I will be doing. Pray that if it's God's will for me to have interaction with Japanese during that time that He will make that available. If not, that He will give the attitude that i need to be joyful in every situation.
Thanks for the prayers. I've been here for about a month and time really does fly. The end of my Japan trip will be here before i know it. God is working in my life so much in the maturity realm, teaching me alot of Himself and His grace in my life. I've seen it here for than ever that there is a spiritual battle in my body between the flesh and the Spirit. "Set your heart on things above" has been of great encouragement and challenge for me. Pray that God will continue to reveal more of His truths to me as I SEEK Him.
-Uncle Richard (as Ian and the Short girls are calling me know.)
P.S. I'm posting a couple pictures from a slide park we went to yesterday. Japan doesn't give front or back yards to its residents (not enough space I guess) but they do give them AWESOME city parks!
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