Settled Into Place
As I reflect on this summer, one of the phrases that sticks with me is "faithfulness in the little things." God has proved himself faithful at every turn, even in the little things.
When I first arrived in Japan in May, I spent one week in Fukuoka with a family I met last year -- before joining the rest of my team in Tokyo. Our time in Tokyo was sweet -- full of reunions with old friends and dancers,
celebrations of new marriages and children, and some hard things that I'm unable to discuss via newsletter. I'd love to talk to you in person sometime if you are interested in hearing about some of the deeper "unmentionable" struggles of our team this summer. In the meantime, you can read more about our time in Tokyo here! One of my favorite memories was spending time with my friend K-chan. K became a Christian last year, and we celebrated her 1 year birthday as sisters in Christ! I am simply in awe of our great "Ten no Chi o Kamisama" -- our Father in Heaven (天の地を神様). What a gift it was to live life with her again! I praise God for her, her new faith, and for His faithfulness.
Our church, Grace City Church, is going through some struggles, and one of its current issues is the location! They have no building, so they rent a space each week. Due to raised costs, the church leadership is seeking out possibilities for a new location. It is not like renting a space in America. In Tokyo, you must gain a strong relationship with the owner before they will allow you to rent from them. Also, it is hard to get the entire church body to support change of any sort. Recently, several church members left the church after we put slips of paper in the pews asking people to check a box beside either "member" or "visitor."
Community Arts Tokyo proactively hosted charity concerts in two potential locations for the new church meeting space. These concerts were outwardly intended to raise money for Ishikawa and provide a space to invite new friends, share the gospel, and evangelize in new communities. However, there was a deeper purpose involved. These events allowed our leaders to establish a relationship with the renters of both facilities and discuss pros and cons of each possible location for the church. Most importantly, by having our church members gather in these locations prior to the church move, we hope to encourage them to support the move and prioritize the welfare of the church over issues of personal preference. Please pray that God will continue to pour out his blessings over this church and remind them of His faithfulness!
After raising money at these events, we traveled to Ishikawa for a weekend to help with earthquake disaster relief work, put on a few pop-up concerts, and revisit pastor Kato-San's church where we served last year! I talked more about that in my last newsletter, and you can read what our host missionaries wrote about our time at the link above! On one of our last days in Tokyo, we gave a lecture/performance at Aoyama Gakuin, where we were able to share our faith with students in word, song, and dance! In my last letter, I accidentally sent the link from last time, so here is the updated link to see their responses from this year! I hope they will thrill your heart. My friend Rebecca and I were speaking just yesterday about how lonely Japanese college students feel, especially Christians! What would it be like if they could just see 6,000 students praising the Lord together? I think they would lose their minds in a really, really cool way :)
At this point in the summer, our Community Arts Tokyo team split up on several separate adventures. All of the MTW leaders left for Bali for an MTW team retreat, and our team of interns either returned to the US or joined up with other ministries for the next two weeks. Afterward, Rebecca and I moved to Nagoya where we worked with the Nagoya team at Gallery Nani for our final month. In those two in-between weeks, here is where my adventures took me!
I traveled solo to Nagoya to teach a ballet class for some missionary kids! This is a beautiful ministry, as these MK's bring their friends to this class (which is taught from a Christian perspective - in Japanese and English)! This was their teacher's last day, and such a sweet time! Please pray for "Suki"-San as she and her husband move to London to pastor a Japanese Church there. Even though I met her one-day last year and one day this year, the love of Christ has bonded us close together, and I am so grateful for her eternal friendship!
Also, please pray for the students - the class is now without a teacher, so it has been put on pause indefinitely. It has become a refuge for these students - a place where they can take a break from the pressure of Japanese culture and enjoy the society of other kids who look and talk like them! This is one of the many ministry opportunities that I am currently praying about. I would love to take part in this ministry if I move to Japan long-term as a missionary!
After teaching the class, I spent one night in Nagoya with Holly, a missionary who has been living in Japan for 11 months! Even though we only spent a few days together, I was so encouraged by her faith, her kindness, and her steady reliance on God -- especially when things don't go as planned. She went back to America to renew her visa, and is returning (Lord-willing) to Nagoya this fall! Please pray that she will be able to raise all of the funds necessary to return. God has been so faithful.
I then returned to Fukuoka to spend another week with the Suzuki family and to teach some dance classes at their studio! One of the most beautiful things about spending time with them over the past two summers is that I have seen the Lord at work in their lives and in their city! They have been looking for a church for three years now. They have been constantly praying for Christian friends for themselves and kids. Last year, they were praying about starting a church, but just didn't feel called to such a commitment in addition to their current ministries. However, when I visited them this May, they were tentatively excited about finding a Korean church in their city - with only one member! During this second trip to see them in July, I visited this church that they had been telling me about. It is a tiny-but-mighty church. The Korean pastor and his wife speak little (and poor) Japanese, but they faithfully serve their (now five-member) congregation. What a full-circle moment it was to worship with them at this church! I had been praying for them for over a year -- and our prayers were finally answered. In these things also, God was faithful.
From Fukuoka, I traveled with Rebecca to spend 4 nights in Seoul, Korea. It was a very last-minute trip, but we found $60 plane tickets and decided to spend our free time (and personal money) on a short trip, visiting the director of Arts-In-Mission Korea (she is friends with Roger Lowther, our MTW leader in Tokyo!). I was struck by the vast difference in the arts in Korea vs. Japan. In Japan, the arts are such a beautiful and impactful bridge to sharing the gospel. However, in Korea, things seem to be different. I learned so much from Deborah Kim and our discussions on ethnodoxology, which I know so little about. Please check out our podcast with her here! She explains it way better than I ever could. Since we were there for a long weekend, we had the opportunity to worship in Korea! Ms. Kim recommended an English-speaking Presbyterian church called Jubilee. It was such a breath of fresh air to sing and worship in our own language! We didn't realize we needed it, but again - God was so faithful and provided this for us in His perfect timing.
Refreshed and filled with new life after worshipping in English for the first time in over two months, we returned to Japan to work with the owners of Gallery Nani, the division of MTW Community Arts in Nagoya.
During our first week in Nagoya, we planned for several events at the art gallery, and began trying to get the word out! We visited some shops, invited friends at church, and tried to spread the word with such short notice. I was reunited with one of my friends from last year, "Ami," who was getting ready to do her own exhibition after us. She came with me to church a couple of times, and we talked a little bit in our conversations about God. She is not a Christian, but she told me that she was interested after going through some life struggles. She designs very beautiful embroidery, and it was fun to learn about her artwork. She and another friend "Ayako" came to my last performance. Ami had met Ayako at our church, and I was excited to see that two people I love so much were becoming friends! After the performance, the three of us attended a natsu matsuri (夏祭り), or summer festival at a nearby school. I was the only foreigner there, so we got lots of stares. Attending a matsuri together was such a lovely way to spend my last day with them in Japan! Although it was sad to say goodbye, God was faithful to provide Ayako as a Christian friend to Ami now that I am gone!
I could tell so many more stories of God's faithfulness this summer. In every season, he is faithful. During our month in Nagoya, Rebecca and I put on an exhibition called the Seasons of the Soul. Rebecca hung artwork, and I did a dance photoshoot for part of her gallery that compared an American tutu, a Japanese Yukata, a Korean hanbok, and a ballet outfit with pieces from all three countries. During our performance, I painted the floor with my feet while dancing the four seasons of the soul: summer, fall, winter and spring. At the same time, Rebecca was painting behind me! She was painting the story of the gospel onto a canvas that I had painted with my feet last year in a similar dance-and-music collaboration at the art gallery. It was a beautiful, wild, and messy performance. Afterward, the audience was silent. Then, one person asked if we could explain both the mural and the dance.
Rebecca shared the gospel through the story of the mural she had just painted. She explained the story of sin entering the world, a sacrifice that was necessary, of death being replaced by life, and of eternal hope in Jesus. Then, I explained my painting. I had taped the floor with invisible tape -- in the shape of the kanji 愛, which means love in Japanese. As I danced Summer, I painted over the tape with blue. Summer is the season of joy, a time in our lives when can we see and feel the goodness of God. As I danced Fall, I painted the floor with red. Fall is a season of falling leaves, falling ill, and falling in/out of love. It is a season in our lives where we must look closely to see the hand of God amidst a broken heart and bodies that are growing old. As I danced Winter, I painted the floor with white. Winter is a season of death, where our hearts can grown numb and cold and we often forget God. But our stories do not end in winter. As I danced Spring, I painted the floor with light pink. Spring is the message of hope that I danced - that shows that life grows out of the ashes of our broken, painful lives. As I pulled off the tape at the end of the dance, I revealed that God's love had been there the entire time, even though I couldn't see it yet. Though the seasons of our souls may change, God remains untouched. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. In every season, God is faithful. I explained that this dance is about gratitude for the Lord who is making all things beautiful in time.
These paintings were such a blessing to create and to explain. I got to have so many neat conversations with people after the show. Even after we left, the gallery owners were still having conversations with people as they hung for a time on the walls of the art gallery.
Now that I am back in America, I look back on this time with so much gratitude. Truly, in every season of my soul this summer, God was faithful. Even now, as I go back to school, I look forward to searching for new ways to see His faithfulness displayed in a new school year and a new season of life. I've been praying for ways to practice my Japanese, and look what God has done:
I got to attend my second natsu matsuri (summer festival) yesterday at a Japanese Church in Birmingham, where I made balloon animals for the kids and made friends with several Japanese moms and their bilingual kids. I'm going back to the church tomorrow with my good friend Nahomi, and I can't wait for her to attend a Japanese church service for the first time in her life! This week, Naho and I will have a girls picnic to welcome the new Japanese international students on campus (at the University of Alabama). We even hope to host a bible study this semester, and to invite some of them to church in Birmingham! There is so much to be grateful for.
As I left Japan, returned home, and am attempting to get over culture shock and settle into place as a college student in Tuscaloosa, this song has been on repeat for me daily. I wanted to share it with you: What is truer when abundance comes my way?
What is truer when contentment starts to fray?
What is truer when I cannot even pray?
Christ died
And I died with Him
Christ rose
And I am risen
Chrst reigns
And my life is settled into place.
Please with me!
Father of Heaven and Earth, (天の地を神様,)
Thank you for your faithfulness, in every season. (季節を問わず、あなたの誠実さに感謝します.)
We praise you for who are! (私たちは、あなたが何者であるかを称賛します!)
Please give us courage, in every season, to seek the glory of your name.
Lord, please bless the MTW team in Tokyo, Japan. Would you raise up missionaries to accept your call and go to share your name in Japan? Would you equip them with faith, humility, and a desire to seek you first? Oh Lord, please be a firm and steady anchor for their lives. Lord, we know that you are making beautiful things out of the dust. May our hearts be united in prayer for the country of Japan. Out of the dust of the earthquake in Ishikawa, bring people to yourself. Out of the culture of perfectionism, would you show the Japanese that you are bigger than their failures and mistakes. Out of the spiritual darkness that we feel so strongly in Japan, would you cast your light into the darkness and drive the night away? May your peace which surpasses all understanding guide our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus. God, you are faithful in the little things, so be faithful to us now. In every season, teach us to seek your face.
In your holy name we pray,
Amen.
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