My first week in Japan

Most of the week has been busy with getting used to the layout of the city, where everything is. We caught a train to Machida (where the church we're planting will be) and had a lookaround there, which was fun. Since then, we have went on two train-rides since that we were able to figure out all on our own, without being able to speak Japanese. We are having 3 Japanese classes each week...two are just regular Japanese classes, and 1 is a Bible class, where we will learn how to say different Bible verses in Japanese. Here is a picture from our first Japanese class.

















We also figured out where to shop for different groceries, where the post office and atm are, and registered for our alien registration card. Mark and Yuiko and Christine (Tim has been gone this past week) have been a big help in figuring out all this stuff. Here's a pic of us four short-termers and Mark, followed by a pic of us four short-termers and Christine.






















The rest of the week has been spent making plans for the church plant. The title of the church plant is called "The Fuse" which is starting out as an outreach, since the "church" is just the short-termers and Mark and Yuiko and a couple Japanese people so far. Since Japanese students love westerners and our culture, helping with English will be one way to draw them in. The other way is through music, which they love. Here is a picture of our first worship practice just yesterday.












In the picture of our worship practice, Me and Yuiko are singing (Yuiko is the worship leader), Hannah is playing piano/keyboard, Joe is playing drums, Becky is playing bass guitar, and Kengo is playing electric guitar. Kengo is a Japanese guy who recently got saved, and he is super-great at guitar. We are doing Hillsong United songs in English and Japanese both, so I've gotta figure out these Japanese words quickly. But our first worship practice went well. It was lots of fun!

The start date for the church is June 28. Until then we will be practicing Japanese, practicing music, and passing out flyers for it. Here's the flyers we have...one side is Japanese, one English.




















That's about all the main things we've been doing so far. This coming week we will be passing out flyers and practicing music, plus on Monday Matt gets here so he'll be joining us.Will write again soon.

PRAYER REQUESTS:
-- We will learn Japanese quickly
-- We will learn the songs quickly
-- We will make key relationships with Japanese in the area this coming week
-- The people we meet will come to the Fuse and meet God there

PRAISE:
-- Our first worship practice went well. We work together as a team well.
-- We have a guitar player and a bass guitar...both of which we didn't have, and were praying about getting.
-- All four of us are already making relationships with Japanese in the area...slowly but surely.