Speech Day and Church "Fun"

So, I've been more or less away from home for something like six days now. But! I am now officially on Christmas break, which means that I only have church and other sorts of activities and no language class.

Friday was the ever so "looked forward to" Speech Day. Earlier in the semester, we were assuming that this meant we would give a speech in front of our class and the teachers would give us a grade and write down little things we'd done incorrectly. But no. In fact, Speech Day is an afternoon 'event' in which all the new missionaries are initiated by being made to give 3-5 minutes speeches in front of about twenty Japanese people. In addition, we had to make food and provide music. All in all, it went quite well, though. I made rommegrod (my favorite Norwegian food!) and people seemed to like it. That may only be because the Americans in the group are in Cream of Wheat withdrawal, though... ;)

Sunday was yet another day at church. I was elected to play one of the wise men in our kid's puppet play for Christmas, and I decided (very wisely, I might add) to play the one who only has five very short lines. After going over the puppet play, one of my church friends pulled me into another room and had me sit down in preparation of something he was going to ask me. He was so serious about it that my brain began coming up with possible scenarios, such as that he was going to propose to me completely out of the blue. Thankfully, nothing like that happened, but he finally got to the matter at hand. "Two years ago...the J3...John...at the kid's Christmas party...(long pause)...he wear the Santa suit." I managed to repress my sigh of relief. "You're asking me to wear a Santa suit for part of the Christmas party?" He bowed very low. "Onegaishimas." (Please.) I happily agreed. His next request was that I sing something for the Christmas party, which I slightly more reluctantly agreed to. By this point, he was down on the ground bowing to me in thanks. ...never quite know what to do in a situation like that.

I trekked out to the other side of Tokyo after church for a nice relaxing "We've survived the first half of orientation!" sento trip with the VYMers. It was lovely. Haidee and I were talking about how it would be a great activity for junior high kids, because you actually get to see that even the skinniest women carry fat in the same places.

Tomorrow we are going to go see the Messiah and get all dressed up for it. We are having Bible study in the morning and it is my turn to lead worship. I am seriously considering making the group do interpretive dance. *evil grin*

Fill My Cup and Let It Overflow

This weekend was so incredibly healing and relaxing and wonderful. I have been feeling really down the past few weeks...which was discouraging to me because I didn't really know what I was feeling down about. My back had gotten to the point where when I finally asked a friend for a backrub she described it as more denting her fingers than her fingers denting my back. This girl gives the most effective backrubs I have ever had, and apparently the look on my face while I was receiving said backrub was making everyone within a twenty or thirty foot radius hurt as well. My back honestly hadn't been hurting too badly before the backrub, but it was starting to give me headaches at night. After the backrub, it hurt very badly, but the boulder that it had been had turned into a rather tender back with several large rocks still floating around.

I honestly have a point to all these backrub ramblings, I swear. Because what I figured out over the weekend is that the way my back had been getting was pretty much what I had been doing with all of me. I'd been taking all the stress from moving and just kind of holding it tightly and convincing myself that I didn't really feel it. The process of trying to release the stress has been painful, but I am starting to loosen up. I am starting to make friends. The real Pamela is beginning to show her face again. But loosening the stress has meant spending some time crying and being lonely and reminding myself that I really am an emotional person and really shouldn't try to lie to myself about that fact.

We traveled out to Okutama, which is about an hour towards the "out of Tokyo" direction from our house. There we saw mountains, and breathed fresh air, and spent some time walking around in nature. *happy sigh* We were in Okutama for the Hongo Bible Camp. Technically we were staff, but it was relaxing anyway. The Japanese folks there were either Christians or English students at the Hongo Center. The event was pretty much all in English.

We did several skits throughout the course of the weekend. The first was of Mary and Martha, and focused my dear housemate as Martha dashing around doing terribly important tasks such as making rice and walking the dog. Then we did a Good Samaritan skit (except we did the Good North Korean) in which yours truly got beaten up, and had her shoes and her left sock stolen.

The best part of the weekend for me, though, was sitting around the fireplace (no campfire because it was raining) and singing Bible Camp songs. We led a devotion there too in which we brought in a bunch of rocks, shared some Bible verses and then had people come up and lay a rock on the cross to represent giving their burdens to Christ. I can very safely say that it was not only the Japanese people who needed the devotion.

We roasted marshmallows for s'mores afterwards, and I think I nearly gave several nice Japanese ladies heart attacks. Apparently they don't really 'do' marshmallows in Japan, and if they do, they stick to the nice conventional s'mores. The sight of a young missionary making a blazing torch out of her marshmallow, blowing it out, and immediately pulling the charred sugar off and eating it was a little shocking. They kept saying "daijobu?" (are you okay?), so I think they were afraid the marshmallow was a lot hotter than it really was. I tried to convince them that it was the best way to eat marshmallows, but not even one of them tried it. Perhaps their hesitation was aided by the fact that all the other missionaries thought I was crazy too. ;)

Life in Japan

Hello all!

Well, I have had the ability to write this email for quite a while now, but I have been afraid of how long it will get with everything that has happened this first month and a half. But, the longer I put off writing an update, the harder it will get. So! Diving right in!

Some important terminology for you all:
J3 = My job. It stands for "Japan" "3 years". There are two other new J3s: Matt and Sarah. Sarah is my housemate, Matt lives in the next "town" over (about a fifteen minute walk).
VYMers = The Missouri Synod Lutheran missionaries who are going through orientation and training with us. They are four girls: Katrina, Haidee, Cassie, and Janae.
Kumamoto = a city on the island of Kyushu (southern Japan). J3s are stationed either in Tokyo or in Kumamoto after language training. Two out of the three new J3s will be stationed at Luther Gakuin (a Lutheran High School) after our orientation.
The Hongo Center = The center in Tokyo where the Lutheran church teaches English and some Christianity classes. One J3 will be stationed here after our orientation.
Katakana = The Japanese alphabet used for foreign words adopted into the language, such as my name. My name is now written: パメラ　サーセン, which is transcribed as Pamera Sahsen. :-) If you want to know what yours looks like, let me know and I'll send it to you.

Now we should all be on the same page...or, if we're not, I'll try to explain as I go. ;-)

So, our first week in Japan was mainly time to get lost on the trains, have people talk at us in Japanese (I mean, get registered as legal aliens and get bank accounts and the like), and Learn to Use Chopsticks Now Week. It was a week when small successes seemed monumental. The major successes of week one were: successfully eating rice with chopsticks, getting to the correct eki (train station) without having to go backwards, and finding low fat milk.

Soon after our week of leisure and learning, we jumped on the Shinkansen (bullet train...think 250 km / hour!) and went down to Hiroshima for the J3 Retreat. Here we met up with all the J3s from the country--probably ten people aside from us. There are only two J3s stationed in Tokyo right now. The rest are down in Kumamoto teaching junior and senior high English classes. It was fun to have the whole group together, and amazing to see how good some of their Japanese was. It was also amazingly lovely to flee the endless buildings that are Tokyo. A Japanese movie I saw once used the phrase "lost in an urban wilderness", and that sums up what Tokyo feels like sometimes. Our lodgings in Hiroshima, though, were on an island with lots of trees and mountains and the ocean.

It was our lodgings in Hiroshima where we got our first very traditional Japanese meal, though. If any of you are thinking of visiting Japan, I would recommend getting good chopsticks skills first. It makes it so that if you don't know what something is, you can just try a little bite of it. Verses me, who was forced to put an entire mystery glob of food in my mouth, with varying results. It was usually fine, though. The exception was sushi squid, which, as my housemate so accurately described it, "is the only food that gets chewier the more you chew it."

Speaking of food, Japanese food is amazing. My favorite is katsudon--it's a breaded pork cutlet and egg on top of rice. Yummy!

Seeing the sites in Hiroshima was very emotionally moving. I could easily write you an entire email on the moral thoughts that were crashing around in my head as I walked through the museum there. Questions like: What would have happened if we hadn't dropped the bomb? When it comes to warfare, is the number of lives cost the only determining factor for whether an attack was moral, or are there some actions that will always be immoral? Perhaps the best thing I can say after seeing the museum is: nuclear bombs are scary. Please let's not use them ever again.

We went straight from Hiroshima to Kumamoto where we visited the schools and possible future bosses. The schools are definitely Japanese. The students are there for hours and hours during the day, and the teachers are as well. Some positive things about Kumamoto that I learned were that I might have the opportunity to help out with a bell choir there and I also might be able to teach a class at a kindergarten once a week. But in terms of the teaching itself, I think I am better suited to the Hongo Center.

Speaking of the Hongo Center, we also have taken the opportunity to spend time there on Friday nights. Paul, the current J3 who will be leaving in March, teaches a Christianity Today course and Aaron, a longterm missionary and pastor, leads an English Coffee Hour afterwards. Most of the Hongo students are in university or they are professionals. One man is a neurologist who studies the Bible in French, German, English, and who-knows-what-else so long as it isn't Japanese. He thinks studying the Bible in Japanese is boring. If I were placed here, I would be teaching adults during the week. I think my teaching style is a little better suited to adults, and I like the idea of teaching the Christianity Today class.

***INTERMISSION***

Anyway, about a day after we returned from Kumamoto, we began our Japanese classes at the Lutheran Language Institute. We have two teachers. Nunokawa Sensei is one of those amazing teachers that you know loves you and wants you to learn. She could beat just about anyone I know at charades. Our other teacher is Miyazawa Sensei, and she speaks my language when it comes to language instruction. That being said, I have come close to being murdered by my classmates while discussing grammar with Miyazawa Sensei on more than one occasion. Apparently, my enthusiasm for the Japanese classes can be intimidating at times. I'm trying to tone it down. Really.

...but grammar is so interesting! And I have to clarify about it sometimes because that's how I know how to use it correctly. Ahem. I'm done now.

One of the real lights of my time in Japan has been the time we have spent with the VYMers. We've been doing Bible studies with them once a week. And when my church experiences are all in Japanese, having that time to worship and pray in a group in English has been amazingly filling. We've made a point of doing things outside of class and Bible study as well, which resulted in my first trip to a sento (public bath). Contrary to my fears, the sento was great and relaxing. I've actually, with the help of a Japanese friend from church, located a sento within walking distance of my house now. Sarah and I are planning on checking it out at some point. We're just hoping it's not one of the mixed gender ones, because that would be more than we can handle.

I've been attending my assigned congregation, Hachioji Church, for about month now. It's a nice place, and the people all seem very friendly. It is both a blessing and a curse that there are almost no English speakers there. The hardest part is the sermon, which is usually around 45 minutes long and, of course, all in Japanese. My Japanese is getting "good" enough that when we have meals together at church and it is discovered that the gaijin (the foreigner--me) likes shiitake mushrooms when one of the energetic extroverted Japanese guys doesn't, I can say "mada tomodachi?" (still friends?) and people laugh. The relationships with people from church are really different from other relationships. We can't say much to each other, but we can do little things. I can help move tables for lunch and they can compliment my ability to write my name in katakana (I have yet to go to church without someone being impressed by this).

I am going to leave you on a darker note, which is my prayer request for this email. One of the trains that I ride to school every day is called the "Chuo Line". A popular way to commit suicide in Japan is to jump in front of a train, and it so happens that the Chuo Line is the line that has the most suicides. I asked a Japanese man why the Chuo has so many, and he said it was one of the great mysteries of Japan. My Christian perspective has some possible answers to this that would make it a less mysterious, however. There are times riding the train when it has felt like a very 'dark' place. A couple weeks ago, I felt called to pray for the Chuo line. So, I have been praying, listening to applicable Christian music, or reading applicable Bible passages while riding that train. Please join me in prayer for the trains. Pray that light would come to those living in darkness, pray that the suicides would stop right now, and please pray for my perseverance in praying for these things while on the train. The train ride is about forty minutes long, and especially on more tired days I need the perseverance prayers.

Okay, so I know I said I was leaving you on that darker note, but that really seems not nice. So, I will end with a story that a few of you have heard before, a.k.a. Pamela's Amusing Gaijin Blunder #2. The other day, I was doing one of my convenience store lunches and decided it would be nice to have some protein. I saw some of the usual stuff like canned tuna and sardines and, sitting next to them, what looked like canned chicken. I was intrigued. I took the can back to school, peeled back the lid, and ate a piece. It didn't seem quite right, and asked one of the VYMers if she thought the chicken needed to be heated up. Rather than responding to my question, she asked, "Are you eating cat food??" Oops. Needless to say, my lunch was proteinless. I tried leaving the cat food outside for some of the stray cats in the neighborhood, but it was still there after class, so I had to throw it out.

That seems like a better note to leave this long email on!

Love you all!

Pamela

A Tea Party

Last Sunday Sarah and I went over to our neighbors house for a tea party. I was proud of myself, because I was responsible for responding to her invitation and sent a beautifully Japanese letter to her. Not that I wrote it in Japanese, but I was culturally on top of things! It went something like this: We'd love to come...yadda yadda. However, 14:30 is a little difficult for us. My church is in Hachioji, so I often do not make it home until 14:30 or 15:00. Translation: There's no way we could possibly make it to your house at 2:30. I think I conveyed that successfully, because she responded by saying that she understood my schedule and that we could have the party at 15:30.

It was a really nice little party. Her English is not spectacular, but she invited her children and grandchildren over, so two of them had really nice English. Sarah and I arrived at separate times, both of us with some nice bread as a gift to our hostess. The tea ceremony was carried out by our neighbor's oldest granddaughter, who is 16 and is in the tea ceremony club at school. The tea is served in a bowl. You sit with your feet under you, bow before picking up the bowl, turn the bowl two times, and drink. Once you have finished you turn it another two times and set it down. Our hosts were very gracious about showing us what to do.

Afterwards we had a lot of great cultural sharing. Her junior high age grandson played some folk songs on a Japanese flute. Her elementary school age grandson showed us a traditional Japanese toy. It was a wooden handle with two ends, one wider than the other, and a wooden ball hung off on a string. The goal is to flip the wooden ball up and get it to land on one of the ends. He also showed us the Japanese version of Cat's Cradle, which was similar to the American version but with some different ways of passing the string. It was really interesting! I'd see one and think, "Oh! I know how to solve that one!" and then they would take it in a completely different way. I'd like to learn how they did it.

The only awkward part was towards the end when it was becoming obvious that it was time for us to leave, but we weren't sure who was supposed to initiate our leaving. Finally, our neighbor said the equivalent of "Oh, look at the time..." and we did our thanks saying and bow thing all the way to the door. I'm not sure how many times we said goodbye and bowed in between her house and ours, but it was a lot. It really was a good time, though.

Five forks, five knives, two spoons, and pair of chopsticks

Well, it's about 12:30 AM here, and I wake up early in the morning, but after I go back to Tokyo tomorrow I will be without internet again, and today was just too amusing not to update about it.

We've been having all sorts of meetings with school executives here in Kumamoto, and tonight was kind of the culmination of it all. We arrived in a fancy hotel where we sat at a long table with the dean of Luther Gakuin (basically in charge of the junior high, high school and college), the vice-principal, the principal, the head of the office staff, another admin guy, two teachers, our Japanese program director from Tokyo and the four J3s who teach and Luther Gakuin. The table was set with all the utensils listed in the subject of this entry with the exception of the chopsticks, which several of us requested immediately because it was harder to eat without them. Really. I've been here too long already when I look at a dish and know that a fork and knife is just going to make it harder! ;)

We had to do formal introductions at dinner, but aside from that, it was good food and hard conversation. We had the three of us who are pretty much only English, and at least three admin people who are only Japanese. So, even with the bilinguals remembering to translate from time to time, at least a few of us were lost no matter which language we used. The highlight of the evening was when we found that we could have a common conversation by comparing animal sounds in Japanese verses English, at which point I started laughing pretty hard at the irony of us all decked out and saying things like "cock a doodle doo", which drew attention from the dean and then I had to try to explain why it was so funny. Luckily his English is extremely good.

Matt has been pushing for us to do Karaoke for quite some time (Karaoke is HUGE in Japan), and during his introduction he invited the table to Karaoke with him afterwards. Perhaps with the influence of the wine some of them were drinking during dinner, the group that ended up attending karaoke was Matt, Sarah, me, one of the older J3s, the dean, the vice principal, and our Japanese program director. The vice principal and the dean paid for pretty much everything too, including a round of drinks in karaoke (I had strawberry milk...yummy!, but I also got to taste someone else's plum wine, which was interesting, if a bit much for me). In addition to some Japanese songs, we sang Kokomo, Under the Sea, and I did "Copa de la Vida" for mine...not that I really like Ricky Martin, but I was craving Spanish. It was funny to see Japanese Administrative folks in suits singing along energetically with the "Go, go, go; ale, ale, ale!" (there should be an accent on the 'e's in 'ale', but I don't know how to add it).

Another Week in Japan

It is hard to wait to have internet in one's home when one is not really involved in the process for getting it. Even if the guy working on getting it is capable in so many ways, most importantly in that he can read all the Japanese forms. ;)

The past week has been good, though I did have my first bought with homesickness. Sarah, Matt and I watched this really depressing movie set in Montana during world war one and afterwards. I've never been homesick for Wyoming before...the people there, yes. The state, no. But seeing all those open spaces in Montana and the mountains, and I was just about crying from homesickness and not because everyone in the movie had just died. Luckily for me, we escaped Tokyo the day afterwards, and it turns out that there really is some countryside in the more southern parts of Japan. I even got a glimpse of about ten seconds out of the train when there were no people or houses!

We took the Shinkansen (bullet train) down to Hiroshima on Thursday. It was really fast! Not that you didn't know that already, but it was pretty cool. Except I had a little trouble with my ears going through tunnels.

Hiroshima was moving in a weird sort of way. It's odd to sit and look at pictures of children with the skin melting off their arms and feel just sick with the pain of it all... and then think: my country did this. I don't know what would have happened if they hadn't done this... It was all very morally confusing. It was also odd to be in a World War Two museum that said nothing whatsoever about the Holocaust, and I think that added to the moral confusion. I'd love to discuss it with some of you at some point.

We also met the rest of the J-3s in Hiroshima. There are about eight of them down in Kumamoto and only two in Tokyo. I ended up hanging out more with the Tokyo crowd. Part of me is preparing to be the one who stays in Tokyo, which is really bad since I have no idea if it will really be me who is there. For some reason, I just feel like it will. I've got to stop thinking that way.

I had my first real Japanese meal in our retreat center in Hiroshima. We sat on cushions on the tatami floor and had a tray in front of us with tons of little bowls. I can now say that I have eaten: tiny little fish with eyeballs still on them; raw squid; pickled octopus; fish eggs; and a number of other things I can't even name. Unfortunately, at this time I really dislike raw fish. The texture of it was enough that I could remember it all through the next day...kind of like having a song stuck in your head except it was a texture stuck in my mouth. I've never experienced anything like it. I still made myself eat some the next day and I'm hoping to get used to it eventually.

Right now we're visiting Kumamoto, so we're down on the southern island of Japan. We'll see the schools here tomorrow. I really like Kumamoto. There are trees and rice paddies all around us and it just has a smaller feel to Tokyo. They're both big cities, but Kumamoto only has 650,000 to Tokyo's 12 million or so. That means Kumamoto is about the size of the Twin Cities metro area.

Anyway, I need to go. We're getting picked up early to go see the schools!

Livin' in Japanese

Still no internet, but life is good.

We have had a couple days to settle in and pretty much just be. On Friday we went to get our alien registration cards and to sign up for bank accounts. Since all of us are living on an advance right now, we didn't want to deposit much. Sarah and Matt put in a handful of the little aluminum one yen coins each (equal to about a penny) and I put in a single 10 yen coin. It is a mark of the Japanese politeness that they didn't laugh at us openly when they saw it. :)

Saturday we went to the Meiji Shrine. My favorite part was the gardens. There were tons of laceleaf maples! *bounce bounce bounce* No red laceleafs yet, though. There are also some wonderful sculpted black pine trees near my house. People seem to use polls and the like to support one branch so it can grow pretty far horizontally. It's kind of like bonsai for normal trees. The shrine itself was gorgeous as well, and we saw two weddings, which boosted my kimono count from five to an uncountable number. I also learned that it is never okay to sit down while in a shrine. Sarah started to sit down on the steps for us to take her picture and was immediately swooped on by a guard who talked Japanese at her until she stood up.

Sunday was our first Japanese church service. I am so glad I learned hiragana already because it meant that I could mostly sing along with the hymns. I also learned to recognize the kanji pronounced "shu" which means "lord". We were served a wonderful lunch by the congregation that included onigiri (rice balls), various forms of tofu and fish, a vaguely sweet roll of rice wrapped in tofu, and cookies. The girls sitting next to me were extremely encouraging. They would say "ju ji"--kind of like, "good job" when I somewhat successfully managed my chopsticks. I'm getting much better with chopsticks.

Monday was "Respect for the Elderly Day", so it was a national holiday. Sarah and Matt went into Tokyo to see a museum and I stuck around the house and sorted our garbage--the Japanese garbage system is ridiculously complicated. We must sort everything into: burnables, plastics, non-burnable non-plastics, metals, plastic bottles, cans, paper and cloth, and harmful garbage. The garbage is picked up every weekday by a truck that comes by playing music...think ice cream truck, except collecting garbage instead of handing out sweets. Sarah and I are afraid of being 'black listed', as some of the previous residents of our house were, for not doing garbage correctly. Anyway, so I sorted our garbage and put up nice little signs so we will be able to sort it more easily as we're throwing it away.

After dealing with trash, I took the train into Musashi-Sakai (about five minutes from my house) to buy a jacket. A lot of the jackets I could find were too tight in the shoulders, but I finally found a longer rather nice jacket that I liked. I wandered through the grocery store after that. I enjoyed asking a woman in Japanese about the fruit prices and whether or not they were for individual items or for weight--the conversation completely failed, but I love trying to talk to them all the same. My best discovery of the grocery trip was that they have instant curries here. For about $1.50 I can have Indian food whenever I want! It was so, so yummy.

Friday we are leaving for about a week. We'll be in Hiroshima (bounce bounce bounce) for the J-3 Retreat, so I'll get to meet the other J-3s. Then we will head down to Kumamoto to see the school that two of us will be going to this coming spring. I am starting to hope that I stay in Tokyo, but I don't really know how I feel about either place. I think I will be happy either way and am trying not to hope in either direction.

In Japan

I`m miraculously at a computer for the second time in two days! I can`t wait to get internet at home. Here are some first observations from Japan:

-Riding the trains in Tokyo during rush hour is as close to spooning as I`ve ever come.
-When one rides on an escalator, those standing shall always form a single file line on the left so that those walking can walk past on the right. Even if you must make a line to get on the escalator and the right side is empty.
-The spacebar on keyboards is only about an inch and a half long. The button next to it translates what I`m writing into Kana. But to change it back to Roman letters I must hit the button in the top left corner.
-There are true mini-vans here. They`re shorter than most of our sub-compact cars.
-People doze on the trains all over the place here and don`t seem to miss their stops.
-While English is in a lot of places, if one wants to read nutrition labels they must know Japanese.
-I will now be using a blowdrier. It`s actually humid enough to be worth it. I also can no longer shower at night without my hair becoming a frizzy mop. Hence, I am becoming even more of a morning person.

Apparently I did too well with my Japanese tapes. I can say, "Sumimasen, nihongo ga wakarimasen," (I'm sorry, I don't understand Japanese) with a pure enough accent that one of my leaders thinks I may be confusing people into thinking that I must speak more Japanese than I'm letting on. Well, I don't. :) A random guy came to the door the other morning and took a long while to go away with me telling him the whole time that I didn't understand.

Hi guys!

I`ve been in Tokyo for about a day now. It`s really nice! We have been
learning the train system, which is very efficient but still feeling
pretty complicated. Sarah and my house is two stories and has a
kitchen, dining room and living space, another room, a study, one and
a half bathrooms, three bedrooms and drawers and closets tucked away
all over the place. We are within walking distance of a nice
convenient store where we were able to buy some rice and vegetables
for dinner last night. This would have been well and good, except we
had already cooked it when we realized we had no soy sauce! It has
bland, but a good meal.

We will not have internet in our house for another three weeks to a
month, so it will be awhile before I am regularly online again. Right
now I am at the JELC (Japanese Lutheran Church) office borrowing a
computer. That also means that it will be awhile before I can do
regular phone calls since it will be expensive before we get our
internet connection.

For those who don`t know, I missed my first flight over here because
of fog, so I arrived a day late. But as a result, I have almost no jet
lag because I was awake for almost 48 hours before arriving! (I
napped, but nothing longer than an hour and a half) Matt woke up at 2
AM this morning, I was able to sleep until almost 7. :-)

I love you all, and eagerly await the time when I can use the internet
regularly again!

Pamela

The Last Day

Psalm 139:1-16, 23-24

O Lord, you have searched me
and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O Lord.

You hem me in--behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.

If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,"
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.

Greetings

I've included my original letters to sponsors in my blog so the whole Japan story is together in one place.

Hi Everyone!

This is one of those big 'hello again and here's what I'm up to and I'd love to hear what you're up to' sort of emails. For those of you who have not yet heard, I'm getting ready to leave for Japan with ELCA Global Missions to teach English. I'll be there until spring of 2009. So, while I would normally prefer individual emails, I am about to become a mass emailer. I have put all of you on the list as people who might be interested in hearing updates from Japan, but, really, if you are not a person who likes mass emails, just let me know and I'll take you off. Also, I will definitely respond to individual emails and would love to hear from all of you too.

Business being out of the way, I just got back from Mission Orientation in Chicago. It was a really incredible experience. There were thirty seven of us there getting ready to go to just about every corner of the world, from the Central African Republic to Germany to Palestine to Honduras to Hong Kong (and many other places, of course!). The Japan contingent was probably the biggest group there. Three of us are just out of college and on our way to teach English through the J3 program. The other two are Matt and Sarah, and we'll all be in Tokyo for the first six months to attend Japanese language school. From there, the Japanese Lutheran Church will give us our teaching assignments, so we will either stay in Tokyo or move down to Kumamoto, a city on the southern island of Japan. There was also a family going into long term mission in Japan who were a lot of fun. The couple actually met while serving in the J3 program and now are coming back to Japan with their two daughters (ages 6 and 9 / 10). At the end of our orientation, we joined the Summer Missionary Conference and met yet another two couples who are currently long term in Japan, both involved in various ministries in Tokyo. So, when we go to Tokyo, we are really joining a nice family of ELCA folks.

We also learned a little bit about the living situation. It's not for sure yet, but it sounds like Sarah and I will be living in a house for the first six months. This came as a big shock...I haven't even lived in an apartment yet! But we figure it will be a small house since it's in Tokyo, so hopefully it won't feel too extravagant. We also learned that calling home is going to be far cheaper than I'd anticipated. Apparently internet service and phone service are coming together in Japan and Dave (one of the long terms) thought that I could call home for about 3 cents a minute. That made me very excited!

I'll be leaving for Japan on September 11th, so I have the next month and a half or so to hang out in Lander and work on getting rid of a bunch of unneeded stuff that's been haunting the shelves in my room.

I hope things are going well for all of you!

Pamela