"Yoroo!"

*Japanese for "Let's Go!"

With the last full day in Japan almost over, it will definitely be harder to leave after all that has happened over this past week. The three events that took a majority of our time was 1. Temporary housing visits 2. Making tents with Samaritan's Purse and 3. Oyster farming.

As a warning, this one is going to be long and may take a few sessions to get through..

On the 24th, we went to two temporary housing facilities for those who have lost potentially everything from the earthquake/tsunami. We did a short program of our Gospel music and two testimonies and it was super sweet to see such joy and laughter from those who have lost so much. At the second temporary housing facility, despite some awkward moments, I talked a little bit with a lady, who before I left, looked at me and through a translator told me that she saw herself as one of my mothers. It kind of took me of guard and at the same time made me feel so loved.

Temporary housing facility

The next day and throughout the week we broke into two groups, one who went to temporary housing facilities and one who worked in a different ministry area. The second day, a group of us worked with Samaritan's Purse and a passionate Korean pastor to construct large tents that they can use as churches throughout the area until they can construct an actual building. It was surprisingly exhausting, but super great to work with our hands and see a piece of our results from the hard work and were rewarded with a great ramen restaurant afterwards.

This is the sunrise we witnessed on our way to the Oyster Farm

Now onto my favorite day, on the 26th (for us), I had the privilege of working with oyster farmers. At the "beautiful" time of 5 a.m. a group of us loaded into two vehicles and trekked two hours away to help Jun, an 31-yr old Japanese man who had to quit his job as a junior high teacher to come back and take over the Oyster Farming business for his family. It's a longer process that I can explain better in person, but synopsis: We put the scallop shells, with baby oysters attached to them, tightly into an interwoven rope and made 200 of these lines. After around 9 tubs or about forty-five or so lines were made we went out onto their boat onto the Pacific to tie their lines up. This was an absolutely amazing experience and I wish that I could go back again. (*There are a ton of great pictures that one of our guides took that will hopefully one day make it on here)

This is the restaurant we went to Sunday night where you make the meal you ordered.

....Almost Done
On Saturday, I went with a group to clean/touch up a city park. We had weedwackers, sickles, various other tools, and many hands working to have it in its prime.
Never in my life have I said, "Many hands make light work" as much as I did this past week (all credit goes to my father for saying that to me throughout my childhood).

Boat ride to Matsushima

On Sunday, we went to a church in Sendai, which had an abundance of love and graciousness to shower upon us. We sang most of our songs for them and were blessed by them coming around us and sending us off with prayer and a song of blessing that the pastor's wife had wrote. Because Monday is Japan's Saturday and our day off, yesterday we went to Matsushima (Pine Tree Island), which is one of the must-see/most beautiful places of Japan.

Current update:
Today we finished our work in the park and started packing and cleaning up where we've been staying and tomorrow night we will head back to Tokyo and will fly to Singapore with a layover on our way to Thailand where we will be staying for the whole month of November-get excited :]


A few things I am thankful for:
-Knowing Jesus
-Our team leader/driver (Janet) who appeased my massive craving for a cheeseburger and fries at McDonald's after an intense day of Oyster Farming.
-Parents who taught me how to work hard (Dad, all of those days of the grain bin and buffalo burs have   paid off and Mom, all those days of pulling weeds has made me a pro.)
-The blessing of getting to talk to a few family and friends throughout my time here.

Matsushima

"But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in trimphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of Him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a gragrance form life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? For we are not, like so many peddlers of God's word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak Christ."-II Corinthians 2:14-17 (ESV)

The group at Matsushima before we left.

"We are never so vulnerable as when we love."-Sigmund Freud

Konichiwa

Hello, from Japan! Today our plans were changed due to the rain. On the bright side, God had different and equally wonderful plans for us. We helped the church with a few random projects in the morning and had lunch. Afterwards, we took the van around to various earthquake/tsunami-devastated areas and had a few prayer walks. It was mind-blowing to see areas where they had compiled the garbage or wrecked cars. We heard a few stories and Janet Brown (who picked us up in Tokyo), showed us footage this morning from a quake cam that showed the hundreds of earthquakes and aftershocks they experienced in just a few days-insane. On our prayer walk, we were able to go down to the coastline from the Pacific Ocean and it was a nostalgic feeling to be at the ocean (*hint*hint* to all my Oregon relatives and parents).

After our outing, we came back and had a little time to relax before going to an amazing sushi restaurant. To give a brief run-down, you sit down at a booth and a conveyor belt travels around with various kinds of sushi & other wonderful items for your consumption. You can also order different items from a screen above your table and a different conveyor belt will deliver it to you. If you know me, you would know that I was loving life. After that it was time for our team to go to a public Japanese bathhouse or sento. Needless to say--it was amazing. A definite team builder and ultimate relaxer after our wonderful time with the conveyor belt. (*I will try to add pictures later when I have more time!)

<--This is a picture of our table and the menu that we could order from. The screen behind us was how we could enter our orders



Below, is a picture of the conveyor belt. The bottom one circulated around with the food we could grab and the top level was food that we ordered and came to us via conveyor belt-so great.

Chances are good that there will not be another update for quite some time, but tomorrow a group of us are going to temporary housing to share our Gospel music while another team helps out an oyster farm :]

Love you all,
<3

A few things I've noticed:
1. Japan is extremely clean and structured.
2. (We) Americans are boisterous.
3. Nudity builds community.

The Adventure Begins...

Where to even begin, it has been a whirlwind of days since I left the student center on October 17th. Five days later and I am finally about to give ya'll an update. :]

Day 1: We left around noon to head to airport and we left MSP early in the afternoon. Our first stop/layover was in Denver, CO and from there, we left to LAX. First stayed the night in California at a Comfort Inn and a group of us walked over to a Mexican Restaurant, which was delicious! We all split up into five to a room and my room (Alicia, Kristy, Mai Kia, and Mary) had a wonderful time of bonding. :]

Day 2: We left late the next morning to head to the airport and in the afternoon we began our long flight on Singapore airlines. I cannot even explain to you how luxurious the flight was. They gave us warm/hot rolled up washcloths in the beginning to freshen us up and the amount of food and entertainment available was a huge blessing. 10.5 hours later, we landed in Tokyo.
It was hard to stay awake and take in the landing because I decided to not sleep, but it was still beautiful. After we arrived and were all through customs and whatnot, we were picked up by Janet Brown, who works with mission trips here and proceeded to spend the next 12 hours on our trip to Shiogama, with a five hour truck stop to sleep.

Day 3: We arrived around 8:30 a.m. (Japan time) and stopped to have breakfast at...McDonalds. A nice  taste of home to start our initiation. We then drove over to Shiogama Bible Church, where we are staying, for some initiation time and were able to have the afternoon off the rest. Afterwards, we all had an amaaazing experience of going to various host families who fed us authentic Japanese food. Culturally, the Japanese do not normally host people, even other Japanese so this was a once-in-a-lifetime experience that was so much fun.

Day 4-5: We practiced our Gospel music and sang one of our songs during the regular church service here and had another day off and a group of us walked down to the pier and a mall that were about 30 minutes away (there's a picture on my Facebook). That took up most of the day and we came back and had supper and some debrief time.
Today, we practiced our music for a few hours in the morning and then walked to the train station and spent the day in Sendai. Needless to say, it has been a wonderful experience and I am constantly comparing American culture with Japanese culture.

I love you all. Thank you so much for everything. The amount of prayers has been such a blessing and the support from strangers we have met along the way has been sweet to experience. We're about to eat supper together--some good 'ol spaghetti :]

Until next time...

-whitney

A few firsts:
1. I have officially been confused as to how to flush a toilet.
2. I have experienced 2 earthquakes, and felt one.
3. I have never tasted such delicious apple juice.
4. I have officially posted my first blog.

A passage that I came across on one of my flights over...

"...that according to the riches of His glory He may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith--that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen." -Ephesians 3:16-21