Time Flies… April 25, 2009

Man, lots of stuff has happened since the last blog. Final Exams went good in Cambodia. Emily helped me out with all the grading, so we got it done pretty quickly. For that last week in Cambodia, we were able to see some sites, though Cambodia doesn’t have much to see except Angkor Wat. We saw the floating villages out on the lake. That was something to behold. It’s hard to imagine people actually living that way. I’ll post pictures of it when I get home. We had a guy take us around Siem Reap one day also. He took us to a silk farm, the place where the nuns live (can’t remember the name), a war museum, and several other places. For some reason, he took us to play pool at one of his favorite places. Not sure why. Emily and I were pretty bad to say the least.

We left Cambodia on April 12. When we went to the taxi place to get a taxi to the border, we were literally bombarded by 25 taxi drivers all hoping we would choose them. They even started to take our luggage to their cars, but Wendy helped us ward them off. We finally chose one and crossed the border without any problems. We took a bus to Bangkok and stayed in my cousin Bekah’s apartment. Her and her husband are teaching at the international school there. We loved staying at her apartment with all it’s little conveniences: washing machine, shower, running water, a table to eat at, comfy bed… Life is good. That week in Bangkok was the Sonkran festival. It’s where everyone throws water at each other. One day we went out with the other SM’s that are working in Bangkok and spent the day soaking people and being soaked. First we stood out on a street corner where a hose was and threw buckets of water on passing tuk tuks and motorcylists. We had a blast. Then we went to a street where hundreds of people were gathered, mostly Thais. Everyone was soaked to the skin. Oh, they also have this powder stuff that they mix with water, and they rub it all over each other’s faces. One person told me that it’s a sign of friendship so it’s rude to try to turn away. So, as you can imagine, all our faces were pretty unrecognizable by the end. We didn’t really know what we were getting into as we walked further and further down the street. Pretty soon we couldn’t move at all because there were so many people. We were in there for hours, inching along, trying to get out of there. We finally made it out just before it began to get dark. We were all cold, and it made it worse when people came along and threw ice cold water on you. But we had a good time.

Early Friday morning (the 17th) we had a taxi drive us to the airport. We were pretty ecstatic as our plane took off for Japan. After a 5 hour flight we landed in the Narita airport. We somehow miraculously were able to get bus tickets, store our luggage, and arrive at the bus station where Becky Ishii met us. This lady is amazing! She planned out our whole stay in Japan. My dad somehow got a hold of her name, and she really was an answer to prayer. We stayed at her house for the first few nights. We went to their English-speaking church where we met some really nice people. On Sunday, Becky and her husband Chris (he’s the ADRA director for Japan) took us to Mt. Fuji. It was beautiful. Unfortunately we can’t climb it at this time of the year, but it was still amazing. That night we took the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Kyoto. The train is crazy fast. We were met there by Takako, a Japanese lady who lives in between Kyoto and Osaka. She was really nice, though her English was a bit hard to understand at times. She took us to Kyoto on Monday. We saw a beautiful gold temple, a rock garden, and the Nijo castle. On Tuesday, an Australian guy named Gerry took us to the Osaka castle. That was interesting because he actually knew some of the history of the place. He didn’t really know where to take us after that, but we had a great time talking with him. On Wednesday, we took a train to Tokyo. Oh, by the way, the trains here are so confusing! Fortunately we’ve only had to figure out a couple trains by ourselves. Anyways, we went to the school in Tokyo first where a missionary named Jasmine works. She’s from England and has been in Japan for a little over a year. She’s awesome. She took us out to eat, and then we sat in a couple of classes with her. First she had a Bible study with about 10 elderly Japanese people. They were great! Then she had a couple English lessons with some students and then a Bible class with three little boys. Jasmine is really gifted at teaching. The director of the school, Ayoko, showed up and took us to her house, where we stayed for 2 nights. She is the cutest little lady–the classic grandma. Her English was really good too. She took us around to different places around Tokyo on Thursday: the top of a tower where we saw a panoramic view of Tokyo (it’s huge!), a really nice cultural museum, an amusement park (where I had to go on the roller coaster alone…), and to little shops. Man, the Japanese are just too nice. Ayoko wouldn’t let us pay for one single thing while she took us around. It was really nice of her, but it just made us feel a little helpless. Jasmine did the same thing to us when she took us around on Friday. That night, she had us give a little talk at vespers. Emily and I each shared a little of our testimony.

Today we went to the English church again here in Yokohama. We gave a 25-minute talk to the little children’s church and showed them pictures. Then in the afternoon, we talked to the adults about our Thailand/Cambodia adventures. I really love the Japanese people. They are so friendly and polite, even the kids. I’ve gotta come back here someday.

Sorry this post is so brief and not many details. It would just be too long…

I really can’t believe that I’m flying home tomorrow! Unreal. I’ll have to stay up most of the night tonight so I’ll be able to sleep on the plane and hopefully get myself back on good ol’ California time. It’s weird–I’ll get home before I leave Japan. Figure that one out…

Well, all in all I can say that was a great 7 1/2 months. I really needed this and God knew it. I’ve learned to depend on him in a way I haven’t done before. I think one of the biggest things I’ve learned is that religion equals service. When I look back on the times in my life when I was serving others, that’s when I was the closest to God. Otherwise, if I’m not serving, then I lose my focus. Even if that would’ve been the only thing I learned this year (which it wasn’t), it would have been worth it. It’s pretty much impossible to give up a year to God and not be changed. Try it out.