Sermon:
I'm preparing to preach my very first sermon every this week! IN JAPANESE! However, unlike the title of this blog, there will be no three point alliteration. :P My pastor is going to Korea for the weekend, so he asked me to fill in for him while he is gone. I'm totally excited for it! And feeling a bit nervous about not feeling nervous, if that makes sense. PLEASE please PLEASE please pray for me!!! That God will give me the right words to say, content-wise and linguistically, and that the people He wants there would be there. :)
Shinkansen:
I had a lovely weekend in Tokyo this past weekend. I got to see Yoshi and Satoru, two of my best Japanese guy friends (for the first time all three of us got to hang out together!), my AMAZING host fam in Yokohama, and my friend Lucas who is a TCU student. I'm toying with the idea of maybe trying to move to Tokyo next year, because then I could live with a family rather than by myself... I have to re-contract for next year the beginning of February, so that would only give me a few weeks to find a job in Tokyo... which doesn't seem practical, so I am leaning towards staying here. Please pray that God will guide me and put me right where he wants me. :)
Schools:
School has been going great! I love my students and the Japanese teachers I work with so much! I have been given a lot of favor in my schools, so I am really thankful for that. The vice principal of one of my schools takes me on a morning walk around the school with him each day so we have time to chat. He's letting me announce about church Sunday to all the teachers in the morning meeting tomorrow. I saw the prefectural adviser for the JET program today, and turns out I work with her sister at my elementary school, and she said "all of the teachers at the school love you!" Stoked... I've bumped heads a bit with one of the teachers at one of my schools, but things seem to be smoothing out a bit. (If you could keep praying for that tho, that would be great!) I got to work with some students in a special program for kids that don't want to go to school due to social disorders last week. The kids were super awesome (the teachers said they were way more energetic than normal! YAY!) I did a "how much?" shopping lesson that ended with a little talk about human value, as well as taught them about Thanksgiving and taught them how to say what they are thankful for.
(the alliteration is over... moving on!)
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!
I celebrated on Tuesday with an American missionary family here, so fun!! They have two little kids, and when we were going around saying what we were thankful for, their 5 year old girl said in a HUGE voice "I'M THANKFUL FOR JESUS AND THE WHOLE WORLD!" Best answer ever! May my heart echo that each day! I hope each and everyone of you have an AMAZING time with friends and family, thanking God for everything he has given us.
HOME!!!!
I'm coming home for Christmas in less than 3 weeks now! YAY!!!! Hopefully I will get to see a lot of you!
Thanks for your encouragement and support of my journey thus far! It really means the world to me!
LOVE YOU!!!!!! (Yes, YOU!)
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Waiting for God
So I am pretty sure I know what I want to do with the rest of my life...
Below is a short paper that a friend of mine, Lucas McCandliss, wrote about whats going on with a lot of girls here in Japan... Please take the time to read it and pray!!!
Waiting for God
It's been three days since Mizuho left home. This fourteen year old couldn't stand the yelling between her parents or the beatings from her father and brothers any longer, so she packed her bags and walked out the door. Mizuho, who spent the past three days sleeping at an Internet cafe, is now out of money. She doesn't have any future goals at present. The only thing on her mind is to find a way to keep from having to return home. She signs onto an Internet forum and leaves a message under the category “Waiting for God.” In that message she leaves her screen name, a falsified age of 18, a cute snapshot of herself, and a simple note stating where she is and how long she needs a place to stay. Within minutes “god” replies with an assurance of a safe place to stay for the next three days. Mizuho will now go and meet this god; and he'll give her food to eat, a place to shower, and a place to lay her head at night, all without any financial cost. However, there still remains a price to be paid. That price is her body; it will become his for as long as she stays there. She tells herself to be strong, and that this is better than going back home.
The story above is fiction; however, the situation it depicts is real. It is a combination of many of the girls stories who now keep a profile on what is called “Iede saito”(家出サイト), or in English, runaway's website. On these runaway websites you can do searches on the local town level, which allows girls who are waiting on their god to be “saved” promptly. Government regulation prohibits minors from accessing such sites. However, no real effort is made to verify the ages of the users. The origin of the runaway site comes from what is known as deai kei saito (出会い系サイト), or in English, casual encounters site. In 2005 the government started to regulate these sites more strictly in hopes that involvement in child prostitution would wane. However, the regulations backfired and caused simple to use, free internet forums where no specific laws were being broken to flood the internet.
The runaway websites are legal. The legal age of consent for sexual interaction without the exchange of money is 13 in Japan. If money is exchanged, both parties must be at least 18 years old in age. While no money is exchanged, the basic Principal of prostitution is still present. Because no laws are being broken directly, the police refuse to step in. This is a failure of the system as whole because everyday thousands of girls like Mizuho are put at risk as they search for a haven. The only help they receive are the words, “Stay strong.”
Below is a short paper that a friend of mine, Lucas McCandliss, wrote about whats going on with a lot of girls here in Japan... Please take the time to read it and pray!!!
Waiting for God
It's been three days since Mizuho left home. This fourteen year old couldn't stand the yelling between her parents or the beatings from her father and brothers any longer, so she packed her bags and walked out the door. Mizuho, who spent the past three days sleeping at an Internet cafe, is now out of money. She doesn't have any future goals at present. The only thing on her mind is to find a way to keep from having to return home. She signs onto an Internet forum and leaves a message under the category “Waiting for God.” In that message she leaves her screen name, a falsified age of 18, a cute snapshot of herself, and a simple note stating where she is and how long she needs a place to stay. Within minutes “god” replies with an assurance of a safe place to stay for the next three days. Mizuho will now go and meet this god; and he'll give her food to eat, a place to shower, and a place to lay her head at night, all without any financial cost. However, there still remains a price to be paid. That price is her body; it will become his for as long as she stays there. She tells herself to be strong, and that this is better than going back home.
The story above is fiction; however, the situation it depicts is real. It is a combination of many of the girls stories who now keep a profile on what is called “Iede saito”(家出サイト), or in English, runaway's website. On these runaway websites you can do searches on the local town level, which allows girls who are waiting on their god to be “saved” promptly. Government regulation prohibits minors from accessing such sites. However, no real effort is made to verify the ages of the users. The origin of the runaway site comes from what is known as deai kei saito (出会い系サイト), or in English, casual encounters site. In 2005 the government started to regulate these sites more strictly in hopes that involvement in child prostitution would wane. However, the regulations backfired and caused simple to use, free internet forums where no specific laws were being broken to flood the internet.
The runaway websites are legal. The legal age of consent for sexual interaction without the exchange of money is 13 in Japan. If money is exchanged, both parties must be at least 18 years old in age. While no money is exchanged, the basic Principal of prostitution is still present. Because no laws are being broken directly, the police refuse to step in. This is a failure of the system as whole because everyday thousands of girls like Mizuho are put at risk as they search for a haven. The only help they receive are the words, “Stay strong.”
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