After months and months of preparations, it comes down to this. Tomorrow, all 18 of us are going to get on a plane (assuming no cancellations) and when we land, we will be in the magical land of Japan!  I’ve been racking my brain these last few days trying to finish up my work in order to meet a deadline (praise though that I’ve gotten a 2 week extension when I get back…!!) and trying to remember if i’m forgetting anything for my trip.  I feel utterly unprepared for this.  My dear friend has been trying to remind me that I need to give myself time to prepare mentally and all I hear in my mind is a TO DO task list that won’t shut off.  Well, even though there are still things to get done, I’m officially going to shut it off now and let those things go.  

Thank you all who have been supporting me through this journey - it’s time to go!

Thanks to the Wong sisters, the preparations for the arts and crafts activities are nearly complete. And it only took just over an hour to do it.  woot!  Now i need to meet my deadline at work before I go, pick up a few supplies before I go, pack and I’m off.  I hope i have not missed or overlooked something.

Sometimes i think i’m a wonder woman.  Ok, sometimes i’d like to be a wonder woman.  But as i’m preparing for this trip to japan,  i realize that mostly, i’m just crazy.  There’s nothing wonderous about it.  I’m pretending that I can do everything and still be able to stand on my own two feet.  I’m on the verge of a breakdown – I know now that I can’t do everything myself.

This week is the last week before I go to Japan! I’m super excited about this.  We had our last meeting on Saturday morning during which I took on even more tasks. I volunteered to teach Sunday school at the church we will be helping out at.  I’ve never taught a Bible story before.  Or maybe I have… it may have been a very very long time ago when I was in high school back in Toronto.   Either way, i’m excited about the opprotunity becuase I’ve been playing with the idea of becoming a Sunday school teacher and this is a good way to see if it it something I might enjoy doing.   I was also asked to finish the preparations for an arts and crafts activity (gathering everything required to make 70 burger journals….) and then come up with a template for another activity that another member asked me to do on Sunday.  

Aside from all the preparations going on for VBS, I have a hard deadline at work that I’ve been frantically trying to meet. It has been occupying most of my spare time.  I need to ask for help to get everything I need to get done, done this week before I go.  Please if you have spare moments, let me know! I’d appreciate any help I can get.  I also need to learn to let go (and let God…:P)  My team leader reminded me briefly on Sunday that whatever gets done before we leave is what we have for the trip and what God will use.  Whatever doesn’t get done, God doesn’t need.  It is a firm reminder not to get burned out even before I leave….

Just over two weeks to go. I don’t feel like this is really happening. I’ve been preparing and going to meetings since… February?!? and the day of departure is fast approaching. The weather in Seattle has gotten really hot lately which is good because Japan will be much much worse than this. Right now it’s maybe high 20s (celsius) but in Japan i’ve been told it will be nearly 40. I’m hoping to build up a tolerance for the hot weather in Japan but unless i sit in a sauna every day i’m not sure i will be able to prepare for this!!

Thank you for your prayers – our team mate has almost fully healed from shingles. i saw her at church on Sunday and she looked just fine. She said that she has healed very quickly and that she should be able to make a full recovery. Please continue to pray for her as she fights off the last of the rashes.

Please keep praying for this team!! Our very last meeting before we go is this weekend. I need to prepare an arts and crafts activity before then. I also hope that all the arts and crafts supplies that we ordered last time have arrived.

one of our team members has shingles. it’s like adult chickenpox – a very painful rash that develops and is very itchy. she’s the Bible story teller on my team (going to Yokosuka) and she’s brilliant at it. please keep her in your prayers – if she doesn’t heal in time, both her and her husband may not go and we’d be down two members. please also pray for the general health of all the team members – it seems there is a cold flu virus going around this year and everyone’s getting (including myself!). We don’t want to be sick in Japan!!! Also if our Bible story teller cannot come, my team will have to spread our weight and fill her shoes. pray that even though the rest of us don’t feel we have a gift for story-telling that one of us might be brave enough to have faith that God will us our meager skills to tell amazing stories it is a reminder that we may be asked to do things that we don’t feel we have the skills to do but we need to trust that God will use what we present for His glory.

During yesterday’s evening, we were given a full itinerary of our trip. 

We are departing on Wednesday, July 30th from Seatlte and arriving in Japan on Thursday afternoon.  We will have one day of orientation on Friday morning as a whole team of 18 and then in the afternoon, my team departs to Yokosuka where we will be meeting with the Tamura family.   The original plan was to split the nine of us into smaller groups so that we could be housed with some of the Japanese families there but doing this would mean greater possibility of getting lost and wasted time coordinating meet times and getting to meet points on time.  So, seven of us are going to share a spare condo in the Tamura’s complex and the remaining two will stay with the Tamura family.   Shirley Tamura mentioned that the condo complex recently installed brand-new astro-turf on the rooftop and so they could set up a tent and a couple of people could sleep on the roof.  AWESOME!

From Monday to Friday, the morning will be VBS – the meat and chunk of why we are there. The afternoons are scattered – a couple of days we have free-time, and a couple of days we are scheduled to go to an old age home.  In the evenings, we will be running a 1 hour ESL class for the residents of the condo we are living in.  We have booked the meeting room in the condo and invitations have been sent out.  We’re teaching English!!

The detailed itinerary is expected to change as they work out some issues so I will post up a more final version when we get it.  Stay posted.

One of the things we do when we meet as a team is get to know one another. Lighthouse Christian Church has two services and the Japan team is composed of people from both services. So even though we all attend the same church, for many of us, this is the first time we have met. And now we’re planning on going to Japan together hoping that we will not tear each other apart. In order to help us get to know each other, we share our testimonies – our personal story of how we accepted Jesus into our life. Tomorrow is our second last meeting and I am scheduled to share my testimony. Since we are ministering mostly to kids, the goal is to share your story in 10 sentences or less, use simple terms that a child can understand and relate to, and be able to memorize it so that you can share it on a whim. It’s actually harder than it sounds but here’s what i’ve come up with :

When I was your age, my mom and dad took me to church every Sunday. I learned about Jesus and His commands and I learned what was right and wrong. When I was young, I obeyed Jesus’ commands. But when I got older and went to University, I decided to stop listening to Jesus’ commands because I thought I was smart and knew better. Even though Jesus said not to do something, I did it anyway. After a few years, I began to feel very unhappy. Because I was disobedient, I got into situations that made me sad and sometimes sick. Finally, I decided to come back to Jesus and I asked for forgiveness and started to obey His commands again. I learned that the reason why He tells us to obey is because He doesn’t want us to get into situations that hurt us – it is like when your mom and dad tell you not to touch the hot stove. Now, I try to learn more of Jesus’ commands in the Bible so that I can be more obedient and I ask Him to help me always do the right thing.

So I had a little fun with Movie Maker and I added captions to the music videos. Five songs with captions… enjoy!!

Ten Men (my favourite):

Ride of your Life :

Choose Jesus!

I Will Hasten:

Captain’s Call:

Tonight, I was a director! I met up with some of the members on the Japan team to tape music videos for the songs we will be teaching to the kids at VBS. The songs come with actions and the parents and their kids were asking if we would be able to post the music videos on YouTube before we arrive so that they could learn the actions and songs! I borrowed the camcorder from techboy and used it to tape our music videos. It was fun watching Matt and Vincy performing on camera. We had a few bloopers (I’ll see about posting these too) but overall, they did a great job. Since I’m the “techie” on the team, I volunteered to put the music videos together and then post them on YouTube. So, here’s the first two (out of five):

Choose Jesus:

Ride of Your Life: