Nagasaki

Pic: The most famous peace park statue. Half of the statue is in meditation, pointing up to God to appeal for peace.

The other half is ready to move forward in action, reaching out to men.

Last weekend the J3s packed up and traveled down to Nagasaki for our annual retreat. Nagasaki is a city best described in poetry. The history is so rich the air seems heavier with it. Long before World War Two, Nagasaki was a major port city.

It was the site that began the persecution of Christians in Japan with the crucifixion of 26 martyrs in February, 1597, around fifty years after Christianity first entered the country.

The youngest was six years old. Given the chance to recant and be taken off the cross, this child said, "I would rather be in heaven tomorrow where there is no suffering than remain one more day in a world where I cannot worship God." I am in awe of him.


Pic: Memorial to the 26 martyrs. Note the smaller figures who are children. The two arms reaching up behind them are a church.


Nagasaki remained open after much of Japan was completely closed to the western world. Many cities in Japan have a characteristic food, and Nagasaki is no different. Except that it's multi-cultural history shows itself. Nagasaki's food is actually Chinese, a noodle dish called Champon.

The church was harshly persecuted throughout Japan following the 16th Century. When it was legalized again in 1873, Nagasaki was one of the sites where Christians reappeared out of the woodwork, having hidden their faith for more than 200 years.

We went through China Town and the 26 Martyrs Museum and the Peace Park all in one day. At the end, the only way I could think to describe Nagasaki was: it is a city that has been washed over and over again with God's tears.

pic: Old edict forbidding Christianity displayed in the 26 Martyrs Museum

No, I was not eaten by cockroaches

The cockroach wars were brief and (mostly) harmless. I felt a little vindicated that every single one of my friends in Tokyo (or at least all the ones I talked to) also had cockroach sightings that week. Apparently the cooling down outside drives them inside. I scrubbed my kitchen down, got all my flour / sugar / etc. in air-tight containers, and proceeded to lay about ten little cockroach poison thingies all over my kitchen.

Two days later I was on the way to church and realized that there was a cockroach sitting in my hallway. But it was just...sitting. It made no effort to run even though I was pretty close to it. I wondered if it was dead and left it there. When I returned, it had gone belly up, six legs angling towards the sky. This made me actually feel a little bit of pity, but two very useful things happened because I actually saw a dead one: I realized that my initial report of "two inches long" was...a stretch. Though they are definitely more than an inch long. ;) It was also very useful to know that the cockroach poison was effective, and that I didn't need to panic or start smashing my apartment apart or anything like that when I saw one.

Other happenings of the past few weeks...

Our new people came! We now have nine new missionaries here in Tokyo studying Japanese. So, I am no longer new. I am now "sempai", so to speak. It's been fun to watch them, remember what it was like to be new, and how much it sucked to be at the level of Japanese where one still regularly confuses the word for 'grandmother' with the word for 'buckwheat noodles'. It makes me feel rather important and accomplished to be able to take them into bento shops and explain to the cashiers that, the reason they sound so funny is that they only started studying Japanese this week, and be able to do it all confidentially since they don't understand what I'm saying. Not that I'm usually that mean...;)

It is strange to have it be autumn again, also because it is the first time the seasons have changed into something familiar. Not that Japanese seasons are so outrageously different from America, but there were usually new fruits, new smells, new customs, etc. It's odd to be walking down the street and realize that the air itself feels like an old friend, whispering memories of my first few months in the country.

In other news, I twisted my ankle last Friday. Typing emails on my cell phone while hurrying down stairs in Tokyo station is now a forbidden activity. Thankfully, God was merciful and it only seems to be a minor sprain. In the meantime, things have to go ever so slightly slower than normal, which is probably a good thing.

Last night, I bought green tea scented toilet paper. Just wanted to share that with someone. ;)

That's a first...

I had my first Christianity Today class of the term. It was really nice! I had a lot of people there (nine) and they were quick to join in with thoughts and comments from the Bible passage we were studying. I'm taking my students through the Old Testament this term, and today was creation. I was relieved that they didn't focus on the different perspectives Christians have on evolution or anything like that...the discussions we got into (about human authority and responsibility and God creating the world good) were far more productive. But one thing happened that was really, really interesting.

A man I hadn't met before came to the center just before my class, and asked if he could join coffee hour. I explained that Coffee Hour came after Christianity Today, but that he was welcome to either wait or join us for Christianity Today. He instantly walked into the room and said, "I need to read Corinthians, do you have a Bible?" I handed him a Bible and helped him find the verse he was looking for about the body being the temple for God. Once we had found it, I asked him why he was looking for it, and he said it reminded him of something in Zen. Class was starting, so we dropped the conversation.

I had students introduce themselves at the beginning of class, and the man said, "I'm actually not sure I'm allowed to be here, because I'm a Zen priest."

...I have a Zen priest (or monk...we weren't sure about the English) in my Christianity Today class.

He was an interesting character. Somewhat soft spoken, but with a pleasant sense of humor. He knew a lot about the Bible. He joked at the end of class that he was a heretic for coming to my class.

I've never met any student at Hongo who had a strong religion aside from our few Christian students. Much of Japan is self-proclaimed "no religion" or "interested in many religions" It will be very interesting to see what kind of conversations his presence brings about, assuming that he comes back again.

The days of peace are at an end...

There is a cockroach in my apartment. *buries head in couch and hides* I live alone...*whimper* It was on the wall and I sat and looked at it and contemplated how to get rid of a two inch long insect without dying myself, and just when I had decided that was pretty much impossible the darn thing *flew* and now I don't even know where it is.

I have been dreading this moment ever since I saw a cockroach on the stairs going up to my apartment level.

Do cockroaches bite, or are they just the scariest looking things in the entire world? What happens if one tries to vacuum them?

*whimper* I sleep on the floor.

How does one get rid of a cockroach without:
a) touching it
b) smushing it all over the wall or floor
c) making it fly in one's general direction
d) inviting more cockroaches in
e) breaking any international anti-war type treaties
f) blowing up one's apartment
g) having a nervous breakdown
h) not knowing exactly where it is--but needing to be certain it's out
?

ただいま！

Christine and I arrived back in Tokyo yesterday evening. India was absolutely wonderful.

We arrived at about two in the morning. Our best guess for a hotel that might accept us without a reservation was wrong, but the taxi driver kindly delivered us on the front step of a hotel that would. We payed entirely too much in terms of Indian money for only three hours of sleep, but since that was only $40, I suppose I am not entitled to complaint.

The streets in Kolkata (Calcutta was changed to Kolkata in recent years, so that's where I'm talking about when I say "Kolkata") are worth describing in full. Most of the sidewalks are covered with people sleeping, bathing, using the wall as a toilet, eating, etc. So, you pretty much walk on the streets, along with everyone else. Being a white person in that part of Kolkata, everyone knew exactly where we were going and would shout "hello!" and, if they were a rickshaw driver "Mother House?!". Rickshaw drivers and bicycle riders use bells and motorcycles and taxis and autorickshaws and any other kinds of cars use horns to let you know they are there. If you aren't sure someone knows about you after blaring the horn, it is also permissible to lean out the window and shout. Needless to say, we got back into downtown Tokyo and could only remark, "How quiet it is! And how clean!" But I loved the reality of Kolkata. I loved how vibrant and active the streets were.

It turns out we had perfect timing in terms of volunteering. Almost all the volunteers come on Thursday, because it is the day off for volunteering. We started on Friday with pretty much everyone else. We had lots of different houses to choose from...some for children, one for the dying, some for battered women, others for mentally handicapped...Christine and I decided we did not want to choose, so we asked them to send us wherever the need was greatest. We ended up at Prem Dan, a home for the sick and mentally handicapped, which I am convinced was the best place we possibly could have ended up.

Mornings were spent handwashing a pile of laundry about four feet high. We scrubbed sheets and clothing in large tubs of cool, soapy water, then ran them through two sinks to rinse the soap out, finally wrung as much water out of them as we could and then hauled them up to the roof to dry. These were truly joyful times. We usually had about fifteen volunteers working all together, and the group was very multicultural. I immediately found myself in the center of it, being as how at least two thirds of the volunteers seemed to be from Japan or Spain. At one point, I found myself sitting at a tub with a Japanese girl and a Spanish girl all at the same time, and my poor brain nearly exploded, but it was also really cool to be able to help people start relationships across a language barrier, and my Spanish actually came back again after a couple days of explaining (in very careful, slow, articulate Spanish) that I had been living in Japan for a year, and so Japanese came out whenever I tried to speak Spanish. What was really funny is that it's the most basis words in Spanish that I can't remember. It took me days and days to be able to say "si" instead of "hai", and I kept forgetting words like "what", "then", and "tomorrow", which really confused the poor Spaniards.

Laundry was followed by a tea break (I love chai so much!!!), and then we would go in to serve lunch to the patients.

My first day, this was the most stressful part. The nurses speak only Bengali. The patients speak only Bengali or only Bengali and Hindi, with the exception of maybe one girl who knows a couple simple phrases. This meant that I would do something like start carrying food somewhere, and the nurse would just say, "No!". I would freeze, trying to figure out my error, and eventually someone would grab me by the hand and pull me somewhere different. I tried to take all of this as a much needed lesson in humility, but was very drained by the end of the volunteer time.

The next day I decided to avoid the food and actively seek out patients in need of love. My first day, this meant a younger looking girl who was curled up, very firmly asleep and feverish. I tried to help her sit up to eat, but she kept sinking back to the bed. So, I prayed, sang to her, and kept pressing the spoon to her lips. Eventually, one of the nurses came over, spoke to her harshly in Bengali, and then she started eating. We managed to get several bites of food into her and about a third of her cup of water. The next day I looked all over for her and could not find her. I asked Cara, who had been with us the day before, to let me know if she saw her anywhere, but began mentally preparing for her death, or at least her move to one of the more "dying" type houses. About halfway through lunch, Cara came and said, "There she is." To my great surprise, she was sitting in the "mess hall" with the other patients, a nearly clean plate in front of her. I came over to her and greeted her and touched her, and her skin was cool to the touch, no more trace of a fever. It was a wonderful surprise!

The rest of our volunteer days, I spent a lot of time sitting with a girl named Sonali. Sonali had twig like arms and legs and barely responded at all when I came and took her hand. She tended to spit up any food we could get past the barricade of her lips. For the first time in my life, I would have done anything for a needle so we could have started an i.v. and gotten some nutrients into her. Everyday we made some effort to feed her, but it didn't go well until they started bringing us something like watery oatmeal. Even then she would manage only three bites and then need to lay down and rest again. I fell deeply, deeply in love with Sonali and always spent an extended period of time sitting with her, holding her hand, singing to her and praying. By the end of my time there, she was still really weak, but her eyes opened a bit more often and she seemed to move around a bit more. I'd like to think she's getting better. But it's weird that I'll never know for sure.

So, that was pretty much life in India...at least the cliff notes version. I don't even know if I've managed to process everything for myself...there's still so much to think about, and many more happenings and conversations. For now, I am back home. I had the day to show Christine a little of Tokyo, tomorrow I'll start work registering people and passing out pamphlets at Hongo, and Christine goes back to Seattle on Thursday.

The Story of...er...the Past Five Months

Greetings All!

Ohisashiburi desu ne! (Been a long time, hasn't it!) A warm welcome to Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Covenant Lutheran Church, Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, and Grace Lutheran Church! I am very excited to have sponsoring congregations and look forward to hearing more about you!

As someone who has written novels, I've long been aware that it is not only impossible to share every experience, feeling and thought that a character goes through, it is also boring. But if I were writing a book about my life, the time since January would fill at least several chapters. I am about in attempt it in one newsletter. Bear with me.

I think Hongo Lutheran Church is one of the best places to work in Tokyo. The first floor is the office and English school and the second level is the sanctuary. We have two classrooms and I usually teach in the small one. My smallest class has only one student. She prefers just to talk rather than study grammar, so we sit and chat about anything and everything in English. Hongo is about a block away from Tokyo University (which I'm told is the "Harvard" of Japan). This student is fairly typical for Hongo. She's a biological researcher at Tokyo University. One class she tried to explain her research to me...which dropped me mentally right back into my college "Cellular Biology" class, which was the class that officially broke me of my academic perfectionistic tendencies. But when she started talking to me about cells and osmosis, we shared a good laugh at how hard it was to describe it, especially in English.

This student has also asked some of the best questions. During the Bible studies we hold after each class, she has asked things like, "Why do you believe God exists?" and "Do you think everyone should be a Christian? Do you think the world would be better if everyone were a Christian?" Many Japanese students think it is polite just to listen to what I'm saying whenever I'm talking, but I love that this student will stop me when I pause to take a breath and question me about whatever I've just said. I'm not sure if I'll see her again next term or not, but it has been a true blessing to walk alongside her for a few months.

My biggest class is twelve students. They fill every chair around the tables and then scoot folding chairs in between the chairs that are already there. Japanese people are incredibly talented at functioning in close quarters. If American clowns and Japanese clowns all had a competition to see who could fit the most into a car, the American clowns would probably get twelve into the car and the Japanese clowns would manage to squash in twenty four and still have room for everyone to stretch legs from time to time.

My big classes have lots of energy and I love coming up with games and activities for them. I've been sharing American jokes at the beginning of all my intermediate and advanced English classes, and they particularly enjoyed chicken jokes and yo momma jokes. And I am constantly amused and surprised by what they find amusing. For example, they particularly enjoyed, "Yo momma so poor she waves a popsicle stick and calls it air conditioning."

There have definitely been challenges in being a teacher in Japan. When I was still deciding if I would come to Japan, I thought I was going to be teaching junior high and high school students (I teach college students and other adults). I remember one person saying to me, "I think you will find that they are the most serious, dedicated students you could find." This is certainly true...except when it comes to class participation. My students frequently remind me that Japanese classrooms are lecture style and that they are very new to the idea of a "conversation" class. But we have been adapting to that together. It is always my challenge to find new ways to encourage them to talk. Small groups seem to work the best. My Wednesday evening advanced class has come together particularly well. They all talk to each other in addition to talking to me, and are quick to encourage each other and help anyone who hasn't quite understood my sometimes too fast or too colloquial English.

My Wednesday class is also the one that really enjoys deep conversation. Once the English part of class went very quickly and I was rushing through the Bible Study to make sure we could talk about everything. When I finally stopped to ask them if they had any questions, one of the students said, "But...what can we learn from this?" I have very few Christian students and none at all in this class, but we have been able to have some really wonderful discussions about the Bible anyway. It is always a little surprising to remember that they sometimes haven't heard anything about Christianity outside of our classes here. During one discussion, I finally realized that the reason I was having a hard time communicating was that a student did not realize that Christians believe that Jesus is God. I explained that and had another student who had been at Hongo for multiple years say, "I never knew that Christians believed that!" It is very different to talk about faith in Japan than in America. Another thing that I have found is that, while in America the move is usually from not believing in any God to believing in the Christian God, often in Japan it is a move from believing in multiple gods to believing in the one God. But for this reason, discussions about the Trinity become very complicated very quickly. It is extremely difficult to explain exactly why our "three in one" God is not polytheistic. Actually, I'm always looking for new images to help explain that. If you know any, please send them my way!

The other two things I teach at Hongo are a Christianity Today class and an English Bible Study. Both are more than half Christian students, and have been a lot of fun to teach. In Christianity Today, we read a few sections from the book "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom. English Bible Study is probably my favorite thing that I do. We take one of the readings for the Sunday, spend ten minutes reading and rereading and thinking, and then share what stuck out to us and what the reading teaches us about God. It has been amazingly wonderful to hear different reactions from both Christians and non-Christians and discuss the Bible together.

I was reflecting with a friend today how neat it is that we can pretty much share our faith in Japan. In America, it sometimes feels like one is being pushy just by saying "I believe this", but it's not like that here. I remember how careful we were in outreach ministries in America. Even working in a church-based ESL program there, we had rules about things we weren't allowed to talk about. It is really refreshing to be able to just...say what I believe. At first, I worried a little. But as I have kept going, it's really exciting. I basically get to tell a bunch of people how awesome God is on a daily basis.

The latest Lutheran magazine I got had the headline "A Cure for Lutheran Laryngitis? How to Talk Faith." Talking faith is really different from talking about "God and Politics" or "The Bible and Homosexuality" or "The Exact Right Answer to the Problem of Suffering". I've found here that talking about faith is really addicting. It's not intellectual, but it's sharing one's deepest hopes and fears and then seeing how God is in all of them. It's talking about all the ways that God is answering prayers and moving in our lives.

Speaking of God moving in lives and answered prayers and all that, I overheard a really cool conversation. A new Japanese Christian was asked, "So, what's Christian life like?" And he responded, "It's good. My prayers get answered now." I thought that was possibly the COOLEST thing anyone could possibly come up with on the spot to answer that question.

Anyway, I've been on a break from teaching for a little more than a month now. Summer holidays have been wonderful. I spent one week doing literally nothing just in recovery from classes and all that. Then I traveled to Niigata to see one of my friends from orientation. We had a lovely time that included a seaside picnic, hiking, experiencing a Japanese sports center (the bicycles give you a food quantity to show you how many calories you have burned, so I officially lost two maguro (tuna) sushi while riding the bike), cookie baking, guitar jamming, and a late night Star Wars marathon. In the weeks after that, I have been preparing for various things. I will be leaving for India for about ten days this coming Wednesday, and it took me five trips to the embassy here before I finally had a visa. I'll be volunteering at Mother Teresa's houses in Calcutta. The day after I return, we will start handing out pamphlets for the English Center at Hongo and classes will start up a week later.

The summer also included a prayer retreat with fellow missionaries that was really, really wonderful. I have come to the conclusion recently that, if God gives me a choice, I would most like a job in prayer leadership after Japan. I have no idea if that is really a possibility or not. But it was really fulfilling to be a co-leader of the retreat. Also interesting to learn about myself that I would rather spend two days straight praying through frustrations and inspirations about how to lead a single prayer session than spend half an hour planning the menus for the event. *sheepish grin*

That's pretty much the news from Tokyo! I hope you are all doing well!

There is a new album up at http://picsbypamela.shutterfly.com. Nothing is really labeled, but there are pictures from hiking on Mt. Takao, Christmas kids day, Christmas at Hachioji Church, sumo wrestling, and some from Kyoto. All a little out of date, but some nice ones nonetheless. I live in a beautiful country!

Amusing Gaijin (Foreigner) Moment of the Month (a.k.a. Proof that Culture Shock is Still Alive and Well):

I went to church a couple Sundays ago absolutely exhausted from running around doing various preparations, and I still had a lot more to do. Since I was technically on vacation anyway, I left the morning service after the sermon. I know this makes me sound like a horrible missionary...but really, I thought it was okay. It was the only time I've ever done it and it will be the last pending any major sudden illnesses. It was one of the Sundays where I actually didn't have anything going on, though. What I didn't remember was that I had been helping cut up lettuce before the service and one woman had questioned my selection of which lettuce leaves should be kept and which shouldn't be. I had forgotten about this immediately. The next morning, however, I got a worried call from one of the church ladies. Apparently, the first assumption when I left church early was that I was deeply offended because of the lettuce. *facepalm* As per the normal when such things happened, it was time for much bowing and apologizing on Pamela's part. Which is slightly different over the telephone, but I think it's kind of like hearing if someone is smiling, right? ;-)

Peace and blessings!

Pamela

p.s. If you are interested in becoming a prayer supporter for me, I have a prayer newsletter that I try to send out once a week...realistically I send it out every few weeks. I always appreciate people who want to become part of my ministry by praying! Let me know if you want to be added.

The Japanese Monster Strikes Again...

I wandered through a Japanese bookstore and found that I can buy books for extremely cheaply. About $4 or so. So, I got one. I thought maybe it would work since I'm pretty good at looking up kanji now. But one and a half hours later and I have failed to translate the title and I have managed an extremely rough translation of the first two sentences. Sigh.

The not understood title of the book is: 村田エフェンデイ滞土録. My best translation of that (which is wrong...I can't figure out how the kanji are going together into words) is: Efendi Village Field Stagnant Ground Record. Which doesn't sound nearly as interesting as the cover of the book looks.

My best guess for the first two sentences is: "As Muhammad passed by, he picked up a parrot. On the hilly road on the way to the marketplace, because he was bad at climbing hills (the parrot thought so too), he thought he would wait and, covering his hemp bag, he returned to wait at the mansion."

...is it just me, or does that sound really not right? ;-)

I thought Latin was hard. This should be amusing, at least. At this rate, I will have been able to read about one tenth of the book by the time I leave Japan. *grin*

Stairway to Heaven

I started learning to play guitar today! It was super fun. Well...except that my first fifteen minutes or so were me trying to play the guitar upside-down. If you ever take up guitar, the highest note is not the top string, it is the bottom string. Bizarre instruments, guitars. ;) Perhaps the funniest moment of me playing guitar upside-down was when my Japanese teacher finds me, tells me that she thinks it's upside-down, and I manage to convert her to my unbeatable logic by pointing out that the highest note has to go at the top. We, a little confused, finally concluded that the guitar had to be a left handed guitar or something.

...you know, logic really isn't the greatest force of reasoning.

Once I had the guitar right side up, I found online guitar lessons and sat contentedly strumming for four straight hours. Actually, I'm pretty proud. I learned quite a few chords.

Now, something like eight hours later, I still can't quite feel the tips of three of my fingers, though. Oops. Guess next time one of my guitar playing friends warns me that I will need to get callouses I will believe her. :)

Good, Hard Busyness

These past two weeks have been really, really crazy. Before Aaron (the long term missionary who is my supervisor and teaches the other half of the English classes at Hongo) left, I was joking with him that I was going to take over the center in his absence. No more joking about that! Two weeks ago I had all the classes combined, which meant I had to have beginner students together with advanced students. It also meant that I had to do things Aaron usually does, like come up with a coffee hour topic of conversation and write the Bible Study we would use in class for the week. But, that week passed fairly painlessly, and my classes officially ended a week ago on Friday.

But of course...I also was asked to teach a bonus class for this past week. It ended up being English activities. Despite being very fun (we played board games, cooked pizza, baked cookies, and watched "The Gods Must be Crazy"), it was a lot of work. Pizza was an especially big hit. We managed to feed twenty people with only four, medium size pizzas. Which I think would qualify as a miracle in America, but is pretty normal here.

The only problem with this was that, because Monday is my only day off, and normally my self proclaimed and fiercely defended sabbath, I had to use last Monday to buy groceries in abundance. So, no sabbath last week. Then, right after church yesterday, we left for a church retreat in Nagano. Now, this was a *church* retreat, which is not to be confused with an English Center retreat. That means that, from about 10:30 in the morning on Sunday until 9:30 at night on Monday I was completely surrounded by Japanese. It also meant that I did not have a sabbath for the second week in a row.

And then there was the fact that they had asked me to lead worship at 7:00 this morning. It was not a pretty site. I spent the *entire* car ride to Nagano brainstorming and praying about how to lead worship...I had not had time to practice any music, so I was trying to figure out a non-music worship, but everything I could think of was going to be *way* out of Japanese comfort zones. Unfortunately, the most helpful thing I got from praying about it was the distinct feeling that this task was part of my job and not part of my calling (a very important distinction for me as a missionary), so I probably shouldn't have been worrying about it so much. However, I still ended up sitting in a common room, flipping through my Bible, scribbling down prayers and thoughts, until about 11:00, when my prayer for some Japanese person to at least come and give me advice about Japanese comfort zones was answered. So, slightly comforted, I called it a night. Or tried to. I ended up awake still feeling anxious. It was my first time leading anything with the actual congregation, and I knew nothing I was considering was really going to work. Call me a pessimist--though I'm usually fairly optimistic--but I have learned that any activity I devise to stretch people ends up breaking Japanese people. And if I try to be normal and boring I end up stretching them. Unfortunately, I had no normal and boring ideas. I woke up at 5:15 when other people were moving around.

I approached worship as positively and optimistically as I could, but really, it didn't go well. And I was completely ignored for the rest of the morning service. They actually didn't even ask me if my activity was done but took control and had us sing a hymn and then went to the message, which I thought was good, because at least they got some real worshiping in. But there was no eye contact after that. My pastor finally came up to me at breakfast and said "it was good. But difficult." Ironically, this is one of the first times he's praised me for anything, so I think he was trying to be encouraging. :) Etsuko (the secretary at Hongo who is turning into a good friend) at least came up and said, quite cautiously, "How do you think worship went?" So I told her "horribly" and tried to smile. But everyone else was seriously completely ignoring me. I ate breakfast as quickly as I could and then escaped to an arm chair to pray and refocus...combination of stress and lack of sleep was resulting in me nearly bursting into tears about every other minute.

But it was really amazing after that. I remembered while praying and feeling like muck how good times like this really are for me...I usually understand people so well and plan things so carefully that things do not go wrong, or at least not very wrong. So, it's really good for me for my work to (every once in a while, anyway) be really obviously not glorifying to God. That way, He can remind me that His love for me has nothing to do with my work.

I did let Him know that I would appreciate some encouragement today, though, and when I finally dragged myself back to people, one of the first people I saw told me how the activity had been difficult, but she thought they would do better if we did it again some other time now that they understood a little better. Another woman came up and apologized that they had not given me enough time to lead my activity. Still another came and also said that we should do it again, and that she was sorry they had not been able to help me, but that they just hadn't understood it completely. It was the most bizarre change...one of those teeny miracles that, while not the kind you pull out to prove God's existence, was exactly the comfort I needed today.

Exciting Little Life Bits

Life has been good this past week. I've been getting really worn down by people usually by the time Sunday comes around...new relationships are exhausting...but I am learning how wonderful the concept of having a Sabbath is. My Sabbath is Monday because it is my day off and the beginning of a new week. I am not allowed to do anything with people on Mondays. And by the end of Monday, I am almost always ready to open up and go out and meet people with a friendly, enthusiastic face again.

Even aside from Monday and resting, this week was pretty good, though. My Thursday class and I are improving our relationship quite a bit. Last Thursday I brought in an article for them on "doyo", which are Japanese children's songs. This week, we're going to translate a doyo in class. I normally don't let them do translation, since these are advanced students who need to learn how to think in English to get the kind of fluidness that they need. But I think this will help them. Apparently the songs are very difficult to translate because the Japanese is very simple, so if it were translated word for word, it would lose the meaning for English speakers, who need language to be a little more wordy and complex. So, the idea is that we will need to translate ideas, not words. I hope it goes well!

I gave another message at the English service Sunday night. I think talking went all right, but many things went wrong. One of those moments where it was like...oops. Forgot to tell prayer buddies about tonight ahead of time. First the copy machine had a very random malfunction. There was no error message. It scanned and copied the first page, but refused to scan the second page. It was fine to keep making copies of the first page. Only three people came to the service, which was a pretty low turnout. Last time I had fifteen or sixteen. It is weird to prepare a message assuming the people I will be talking to will be mixed Christian and non-Christian, and then have a group of three Christians to talk to, two of whom are missionaries and one of whom is very active in a neighboring Assemblies of God church. I'm really glad I only have to lead the service once a month, though. It is very difficult for me to focus on both God and preparation details, or God and playing the piano, or God and the people who are worshiping. I remember my dad saying that communion was the best part of the worship service for him because it was the one time when his back was to the congregation and it was only him and God. If you pray for religious leaders, there's something to pray for: that they would be able to truly know God's presence in the midst of being a leader and that they would have others in their lives to take over leadership sometimes so that they can focus on God and nothing else during times of worship.

Life, The Universe, and Everything

This week has been so, so amazing! Well, in little Pamela ways, that is. Which is to say, I realized many new things about myself and God and the relationship between the two. I also had several *really* good conversations.

Basically, last Thursday was a really low point for me. From the minute my alarm started beeping I was feeling negative for no reason at all. Which was annoying. I don't like hanging out with me when I'm being negative about life. But I've realized over the past few days that it was a negativity that had been building for perhaps a month or more over a thousand small selfish decisions. And in general I 'learned' that it is a bad idea to ask God for something, have him give it to me, and then decide it is inconvenient so try to run away from it. A *really* bad idea. It is also a really bad idea to sit in a corner waiting for God to do something, anything. He does much more work in churches and streets and conversations than in corners.

I was really hit by a Bible verse this week:

We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me. ~Colossians 1:28-29

The "struggling with all his energy" part was what hit the hardest. It is amazing to think about someone having all of God's energy and still struggling. It is sometimes sad to realize how much I am integrated into the "instant" aspect of American culture. But to struggle means that things will not be instant. It means that sometimes my work will have more failures than successes (from my perspective); that sometimes it will be painful; that sometimes I will have to learn how weak I am. But I decided this week that I was ready to start struggling again.

And with that decision...it's like everything came back! Joy was back; peace was back; hope was back. I had the strength to go and talk to my pastor about starting a prayer group, and so we were able to start the week at Hongo with all the staff members praying together. That night one of the girls who had expressed an interest in Christianity weeks ago was back after being absent for a couple weeks, and she ended up waiting for a friend, so we got to talk for maybe 20 minutes. She asked about the basic beliefs of Christianity, so I explained them. She still wanted to know more about Christianity, and had wondered about books, so I gave her Mere Christianity in Japanese. The next night another girl who had seemed interested in Christianity reappeared after a couple weeks, and we were able to talk after class when she confessed how much she wanted to have lunch or something with me because she had a lot of questions but she had been afraid to ask since she was my student. I'm really excited about her...she's my age, we've both been to Africa, and she has a lot of depth. What more could you ask for in a friend? ;)

In addition, I've been fighting a lot with my Thursday morning class about my teaching style. Fighting is only a little bit more extreme than the truth...maybe two classes we've spent half an hour or so with them just complaining about my teaching style and me attempting to defend it (in the most diplomatic and sympathetic way possible). One of my "problem students" from this class came to my Wednesday evening class. She started trying to bring up the same arguments there, and my Wednesday students (to my immense relief) took over my defense. That student couldn't be in class this morning (which was why she had been there on Wednesday) and the class went so well! We played "Two Truths and a Lie", which is a game where you come up with three things about yourself, one of which is a lie. The goal is to guess which of a person's statements is a lie. The most beautiful thing about it was that one of my other problem students, who has never looked happy in my class, won the game and was successful at something for the first time. So she was smiling! It was so lovely!

Long Time...No Update

So, I was just going to do a short update and then I realized it had been since before I started classes. Wow. Anyway, teaching is wonderful. I was a little concerned at first that I was the hardest English teacher on the face of the planet, but now I am learning how to present things a little bit better. A couple of my classes are especially fun because they have ten students or so, verses the classes that only have two or four. I'm enjoying giving them random games to do.

I'm doing Wicked, the Musical with my advanced classes. Wicked has about ten million idioms and invented words in it, so we are having fun with it. They are finally hooked. We listened to "The Wizard and I", and that took us two classes to get through. I told them today that next week we will hear about Elphaba going to college for the first time and that she will be roommates with Glinda, and wondered outloud what that would be like. My students definitely sounded curious and interested, which is always exciting!

I am reading a chapter of Mere Christianity for my Christianity Today class. At first, I was concerned that I had nearly killed them with the difficulty of C.S. Lewis' English...but then all this week I have been getting comments on my class. One woman told me how much she had enjoyed it (I had been sure she hadn't) and another woman came and told me that she couldn't attend the class because of her schedule but that a student who was there last Friday had showed her what we had read, and could I please give her a copy of the reading so she could read it? So, I have decided that I really can't read Japanese people yet. But it has been really exciting and encouraging to see people interested in my class!

I have a class on Thursday evenings that hasn't had any students yet, and one of my advanced students told me today that she is going to start attending. This was very surprising. I told her that I thought she would be very bored by an intermediate class, but that if it was just her there, we'd have to do something different. She immediately suggested Spanish. *chuckles* I hope she's the only one there. It would be so much fun to have a Spanish class!

My other big news is that my church bought me a bicycle. It is really, really lovely. It is orange! And it has a nice basket in front to carry my groceries and a bell to ring at all the pedestrians before I run them--ahem, pass them. And it has lovely, bad English on the side. It says: "Gentleness wraps me up in a brilliant atmosphere." I am very much in love with my bicycle. Rainy season is going to be sad.

The Most Bizarre Week of my Entire Existance

Before I get into my vague ramblings about this past week, things are gearing up to begin the transition process here in Tokyo. My last Sunday at Hachioji Church is tomorrow, my first day working at the Hongo Center (passing out brochures) will be Monday, and I will be moving into my new apartment in stages between Monday and Wednesday. It doesn't quite feel real yet...I'm hoping to get some good conversations in with my new supervisor when we're working together on Monday.

This week has been...kind of like living in the book of Acts. I wish I could tell you more about it, but I could only do that one on one, where I can take into account what people believe and what they don't believe. I would just like to say, God is real. I've believed that all my life, but as of this week, that belief takes a different turn. It is changing from a place where that belief meant that I placed my life in His hands to a place where that belief is the foundation for every action I take...where I have to trust not only that God exists but that He is working through me, and as a result cast away my shyness and fear and desire to please others. I have to trust that enough to tell others much more of what is on my mind than I have ever told them before, even while knowing that I am a sinner and will, at times, lead them astray by opening my mouth. I also have to trust, as a result, that it is fundamentally important that I am faithful. To know that prayer and reading the Bible and worship are not just activities to be done over and over again for no purpose, but that they are my very lifeblood in a world full of dangers.

Anyway...I know none of that makes any sense whatsoever without the context. I just wanted to say it. Because this week has changed my life and my faith forever. I feel much older, and like there is a boldness coming out in me that never existed before. I also feel very small...my God is huge and works in ways that leave me panting with exhaustion even as I marvel at Him. In Japan, I have decided He is like Mt. Fuji. Fuji is always there, but most of the time Fuji is covered up with smog and clouds. Then, the wind changes and sweeps all the haze away, and there is Fuji, stunning, rising above all the other mountains, capped majestically with snow. And you can do nothing but fall to your knees in wonder of the beauty. So it is with God. And when His presence is made known, it is like touching the very deepest of all human emotions at the same time. It is knowing the intense grief of the tears that God cries for the sufferings of this world, the anger that burns against the powers of darkness, the childlike joy He feels in spending time with any one of His children, and the love. The love that is so deep that it cannot begin to be boxed by human words. I am in awe of Him.

Japanese Cultureness

It's been a good week of Japanese culture once again! I went to two different Japanese homes this week. The first was to the home of the woman who taught us Shodo for our Japanese culture aspect of orientation classes. Shodo is Japanese calligraphy. It is so lovely! I love painting kanji. Since we liked shodo so much when we did it in class, we were invited to go learn some more. Sarah and I arrived at her house about an hour late since we'd been hopelessly lost (not even in the right direction), but we had a really great time after that.

We spent maybe the first hour at her house just chatting. Their wall was covered with bookshelves that were filled with records and trinkets from various travels. She showed us some of her scrapbooking of a trip to Disneyland. Finally, she asked if we still wanted to write tonight, which we were thrilled to do. When we did shodo in class, everyone learned how to write the kanji for "peace" together, and the kanji I had chosen to do individually was "joy", so I decided to continue in that theme and do "patience". Shodo is simultaneously tremendously fun and tremendously challenging. One second I'd have a beautiful stroke where I'd pulled the brush off the paper just slow enough to create a perfect tapering of the line. The next stroke I'd manage to make the entire line way too thick. The basic rule of shodo seems to be that any given kanji will be messed up on at least one stroke. But I really like it, and have been told I'm good at it. Though you have to knock any Japanese complement down at least a couple steps to get reality, the first day we did it the teacher asked me if I was a shodo expert. Definitely a question I responded to with a much confused *blink blink*.

We ended up staying so late doing shodo that we were invited for dinner (both of us really hoping that we hadn't overstayed our welcome...it can be hard to tell). Dinner was yummy yakisoba (fried noodles). The only downside was that, even after responding to the first offer of beer with "biru wa chotto..." (beer is a little...) [a.k.a. I hate beer] I had a can of beer plunked down in front of me. I managed to choke down about a third of it.

In the end, we stayed at their house until a little after ten. But it was a good night.

The second cultural activity of the week was an invitation to our Japanese teacher's home to have tea ceremony with her and get dressed up in kimonos. The tea ceremony was really lovely. We even got to take turns being the one who prepared the tea, a procedure that must be done exactly right. Which hand you use and where you place all the different utensils is very important. The hot water came from a pot that was set into the tatami floor and was heated on coals, so the room was reserved only for performing tea ceremony. On a random interesting side note, during the period of really intense Christian persecution in Japan, the Japanese Christians used the tea ceremony to secretly distribute communion.

After doing tea ceremony, we took turns in groups of three getting dressed up in kimonos. It was just like being in SCA again except significantly more Japanese! ;) It's been a long time since I've worn something that took more than twenty minutes to get into and that someone else had to do the majority of the dressing work. But it was really lovely. I also knew I was an SCA nerd when I started analyzing how kimonos worked for "support" in comparison to some of the medieval things I've worn. My final assessment is that, even in medieval times, European women needed more support than Asian women did. However, the middle part of the kimono is really nice for posture support. I found it very comfortable. I love how putting on a special outfit has the ability to completely change the way I walk, sit, and present myself to the world in general. I get much more proper. At any rate, it was really fun to get all dressed up, and it has me wanting to have more opportunities to do it. Kimonos are really cool. There will be pictures to evidence this sometime soon, I hope. :)

Tidings of Great Joy

Hi Everyone!

I am thrilled to announce that I will be serving at Hongo Student Center in Tokyo for the next two years. I am super, super excited about this!!! I still don't know too many details, but I will be moving from my current house to an apartment elsewhere in Tokyo sometime in late March. Actual teaching (bounce bounce bounce) will begin in April. Here are some of the reasons I am really excited about Tokyo:

-I will get to teach a Christianity Today class every week and also offer the message (in English!) at the English service at Hongo Church sometimes.
-I get to teach *adult* people English!!! Yay for teaching English again!!!
-I will get to continue helping out with various camps and retreats that happen around the Tokyo area
-I get to be around to support the new VYM and J3 folks when they come to Tokyo next fall
-There are exciting prayer things happening in Tokyo
-Tokyo is a really cool city
-It's easier for me to be visited by family and friend type people from the States if I am living in Tokyo
-I am much more connected to the support systems I've built over the past few months here
-The people I'll be working with at Hongo *rock*.
-The students at Hongo *rock*.

So...yeah. Excitedness!!!

Love you all! Thanks for your support, good thoughts, and prayers!

Pamela

A Good, Fun Day

Today was a break from Japanese class! We got to go visit a Lutheran school in Urawa, which is in northwest Tokyo. It meant waking up at something like 4:45 this morning in order to get ready and catch an early enough train, but it was all worth it. We got to observe and help out with a bunch of different classes. The school we visited has seven class periods in a day and was a combination elementary school, junior high, and high school. When we first entered, all the elementary school kids were in chapel in the gym. We entered from behind, and a sea of almond-eyed faces turned around to stare at this odd flock of white people. Throughout the day, we got to help out in a wide variety of classes. We helped fourth graders read and answer questions such as, "What do you want for dinner?" and in the 9th grade oral communications classes, we were interviewed and then introduced by the students to the class. I was asked the priceless question, "Do you have a child?" I told them 'no', but the way they reported this back to the class was, "She does not have her child." Which caused much confusion among those with a good understanding of English. :)

The kids in the school were super friendly, and it was so nice to be around kids again. During lunch break we went to "go mingle" with the elementary school kids in the corridor. I was approached by two young girls who stood about three or four feet away from me and backed up if I got any closer. They told me their names in soft voices, giggled, and dashed away. Later, I saw them again, and they tripped over each other hiding behind a wall where they could peer around the corner at me. :) For the most part, though, the kids were very willing to come up to us with huge smiles and practice saying, "Hallo!"

I did meet a couple kids who completely verified the "all Japanese kids are too smart for their own good" theory. One fourth grader had some advanced English homework that was talking about "antecedents" and "superlatives". I'm pretty sure I hadn't heard the word "superlative" until high school and that I didn't know what it meant until college Latin or linguistics, but here is a Japanese fourth grader reading about them. Another fourth grader had written her name in romaji (the Roman alphabet) instead of Kanji. I praised her for this, and she just looked up and told me, "That's because I lived in California for three years." Oh. Sheesh. Here she is, practicing lines like, "What do you want for dinner? I want rice" when she's already lived in the States for three years???

One part of the day was a little bit disappointing. We had just been introduced to a class and the teacher, a Christian, decided it would be a good idea if we shared our faith. Now, as missionaries, you'd think we would have been ready for that. And, truthfully, some people in the group were. It is so difficult for me to be concise in moments like this, though. Especially when I have to use simple English. I also have to think a lot about what I should share and what I should be gentle about. This time, I think I erred on the gentle side.

A very encouraging part of the day was that the missionary who was leading us around the school was very awesome. I knew I liked him right away, and that was only confirmed by when he had us all pray together before leaving. Yay for group prayer! He also got points from me because he has done things like bring his wife and kid to work with him, showing his coworkers his priority and why he leaves after the afternoon teacher meeting instead of staying long into the evening working like the other teachers often do.

I also had an amusing translation experience today. I was asked to explain the J-3 Program in front of all the teachers, and then thank them for having us that day on behalf of the group. I thanked them with a typical for me detailed explanation of how we had enjoyed talking with their students and their students smiles, and just the chance to have a day seeing the school. This was all translated: "Arigato gozaimasu." (Thank you.) Hmm.

Thank you to those of you who have sent me emails and the like recently. You will be getting individual replies, but for now, it is late and tomorrow I am leaving for Kyoto for our ELCA Missionary Retreat. So, there is not time now. But *hugs*. You are all so special to me. Thank you for the extra love and attention you have shown me recently. It is one of the big reasons that I am back to smiling and bouncing and happiness today.

Wow

So, I got slightly sad news on Saturday. The VYM girls got their site assignments for after orientation, and it turns out that one of the girls that I have been closest to has been assigned to Niigata. We had been told at the beginning of orientation that all of them would be in the Tokyo area, so it was a sad surprise to learn that she will not be. Not that I even know for sure that *I* will be in the Tokyo area yet, but still...

So, I was feeling a little lonely today. Or, not so much lonely, I guess, as kind of alone. This will be the sixth time in my life that either a best friend has moved away from me or I've moved away from them. I feel really ready to throw away even pretending stability is possible for me. And it seems like realizing that no person can make me feel stable is to realize that I am alone.

However, in the past 48 hours, I have received no fewer than four emails all from friends or family members back home just as random 'I'm thinking of you' sorts of emails. I don't usually get random 'I'm thinking of you' emails. It was just really cool...none of them knew I was going through anything. So, though I am still feeling cynical about the prospects of having a best friend who sticks around for longer than five years (let alone six months), I am not alone. Yay for random reminders of that!

Annual Report--2006

A Quarter Year in the Land of the Rising Sun

A long time ago, in a nation far, far away, there was a girl named Pamela. She was a college student. But that time has long passed, and she landed in Japan under cloudy skies one fair September the thirteenth. Three months passed. Therein, she was subjected to the study of a strange and foreign tongue. Her senseis were patient and glowed with happiness and praise at the progression of their students, but Pamela, though brave and true, remained quite ignorant of the native tongue. She now could, however, participate boldly and valiantly in such activities as telling threatening train conductors that she had used the wrong train pass, and her language skills withheld their most fearsome attacks and the transaction was completed.

She did venture out of school into a place of native worship, and with those of almond eyes did raise her voice to the most high. She did not understand the words, but their hearts sang to Him together. They learned to speak in smiles and to serve each other when words failed them. Time passed, and they learned a few words, and their friendship became deeper. Hand in hand, they retold the story of that time, two thousand years past, when that which is too joyous to fully understand happened and He who is Most High was swaddled by human hands. The fair church folk wrapped Pamela's shoulders in an embroidered cloth and placed a graduation cap atop her head, marking her as one of the three wise ones in the story they told. She raised her voice in the strange tongue with the other two, and they proclaimed the mystery and gifted a small babe with the brightest gold, sweet smelling frankincense, and bitter myrrh.

And Pamela did continue to move among the people of the Land of the Rising Sun. She wandered the narrow aisles of the food markets and felt a child again, unable to identify those foods which had sustained her stomach through all the days of her youth. For the calligraphy was foreign to her. But each return trip to the food market increased in ease, until she could venture to the market and home again without even the smallest frustration.

She tried to live as light, and among a people clothed in clothing all of black, those working in bitter labor and with faces sometimes without hope, she donned a cloak of bright orange as a symbol of that light and hope which comes from life with Him who is awesome and great. She heard the cries of the hopeless who thought to throw their lives before a great beast of metal and she shed tears for them and lifted them to the arms of the Loving Father. And through the lifting up, she did feel hope for those in chains, and she walked in the light that is Hope.

And she continued to move among the people as a stranger. She saw them with a stranger's eyes. She heard tales of the most ancient days of the brave Japanese, she heard of honor and of shame, and they told her the tales of those who had risked being pounded down by proclaiming the name of the Messiah. Like any stranger, her ways often fell into error. But Pamela lived her mistakes in laughter. And the people of the Land of the Rising Sun were kind and forgiving of her faults. In both an eternity and no time at all, the first year of her time in that land came to an end. She walked the streets as the bells tolled the midnight of the first New Year, and she knew that it was good. For the Land of the Rising Sun had brought change inside of her. A stranger she would remain, but a stranger now at home in Japan.

Sumimasen, hablas Espanol?

Happy Advent, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!

Another month in Japan, another email from your friendly wacky missionary friend! Or, for some of you, this is the first email from your friendly wacky missionary friend. A warm welcome to Leslie, Jen, Ernie, Rich, Sarah E., Katrina, Haidee, Jenae, and Cassie!

We'll start out with some terms again. :-)

LLI: Lutheran Language Institute. The place where I learn Japanese and where many of my more missionaryish activities take place.
Kanji: the Japanese alphabet based from Chinese in which each symbol loosely stands for a word. Actually, many of them are still only parts of a word. So, the word sensei, for example, is two kanji. "Sen" comes from the kanji that means "previously" and "sei" from the kanji for "live" or "birth", so, sensei (teacher) kind of literally means "one who has lived before".
Hachioji: My assigned church that I attend on Sundays. It's a nice congregation with about 30 people on a Sunday. We wear slippers inside, so it's always hard for me to remember that I need to be more concerned with what socks I am wearing to church than what shoes.

The holiday season in Japan is very busy. And for we missionary types, there were many opportunities to reach out to the community in the name of faith, turkey, and Santa Claus. I had three different Thanksgiving dinners over the course of one week at the end of November. The first was a massive dinner that was prepared by my missionary friends and served as outreach to many of the church members and English students at LLI. My housemate disappeared to help cook for about two days preceding the dinner and finally returned, exhausted and smelling of garlic, the evening the dinner took place. Many of the forty some people there were Japanese, and I admit it was vindicating to have multiple Japanese people asking "What is that food?" about things very familiar to me, such as cranberry sauce. After our kids' day from the first month we were here where there were only two kids, it was amazing to see how many people were there. In addition to the dinner, a Japanese man led a praise style worship time. That gave us the opportunity to do some fun singing and to be crazy. We taught the Superman meal prayer and performed our own version of the Humble Thyself / Awesome God medley with Sarah on the piano and Haidee on the guitar. I'm over here with some really talented ladies!

My second Thanksgiving dinner was on Thanksgiving Day itself, and it involved a very special pizza dinner with some of my friends. Cheese is next to non-existent here, or at least very expensive, so the dinner was a big treat. The final Thanksgiving dinner was at long-term missionary Dave's house and was comfortingly familiar and fun.

Non-holiday life in Japan also continues to be amusing. I have officially become the founding member of the Orange Jacket Revolution here in Tokyo. So far, it is a one girl revolution, but it feels strangely productive. Especially on the trains going to LLI in the mornings, there are a ton of people wearing black. I had purchased a black jacket the first couple weeks I was here, and it finally got to the point where I couldn't wear it. What can I say? I've always been something of a non-conformist. So, I went out in search of a new jacket. At first, I was looking at my normal favorite choices of blue or green, but then I saw the orange ones. I'm kind of in a mood right now to be as bright as possible. So, now I wear my orange jacket all over the place and feel a strange affinity with all the other people I see wearing orange or yellow or red.

One of my orange jacket's first experiences was a lovely hiking trip up and over two mountains. Rest assured, dear Wyoming readers, these were not Rocky Mountains, but it was still a very long hiking trip. Sarah (my housemate) and I accompanied two members of my church youth group. It is probably worth explaining that youth groups are a little different in Japan than in the States. I am the youngest member of my church youth group here in Japan. :-) It was a good, bilingual and bicultural day. My Japanese friends introduced us to Kushi-Dango, which is three rice dumplings on a stick with a sweet soy sauce drizzled over. We introduced them to trail mix.

Another fun youth group activity at church was making puppets. Koji, one of my good church friends, asked me a couple weeks before Christmas if I would help him make puppets after choir practice that Sunday. I agreed, and headed up after practice, assuming that we would be making sock puppets or something of the sort. When I arrived, however, I was handed a sphere of clay and shown a model of a sculpted face that I was to imitate. The experience showcased the communal aspect of Japanese culture very well. Before I had finished sculpting, I showed the head to one of the other puppet makers and kind of joked via gestures that the nose was too big. The head was immediately snatched away from me and the woman began adding little bits of clay here, scraping some off there. I felt myself getting offended. I hadn't even been given the opportunity to finish my best shot and here it was already being 'fixed' as though I hadn't done a good enough job! But then I remembered how much the focus is Japan is not on one individual person's work but on what the group could do together. Once I had given up my individual hold on the project, it was much easier to look at the assistance from other people in the group as assistance and not as corrections to a job I had done inadequately. I have to admit that the finished project was much better because there were multiple people involved.

In terms of language, there have been many big explosions since my last email. In class, we started learning kanji, which is the third and final alphabet that I will learn. Of course, where as the first two alphabets could be learned in a matter of weeks, even Japanese people cannot read all the kanji. The really big explosion, though, has been understanding. I can often get the gist of what people are saying, even if not the fine details. Sometimes this is bad, because I'm getting used to not understanding a lot of things. I had a meeting with a Japanese person about playing handbells, and in it I sat down and just started nodding and listening. The longterm missionary who was with me, eyebrows slightly raised, told me to let him know if I wanted things translated. It was only then that I realized I was only catching about two words a sentence, so I let him translate. ;-) I suppose speaking Japanese is getting much better too. Intellectually I know it is, because I gave a speech a couple weeks ago in which I talked for five minutes about St. Olaf in Japanese. But there are still many things I wish I could say but can't. Occasionally, my brain comes up with ingenious statements like "Sumimasen, hablas Espanol?" (Excuse me (in Japanese), do you speak Spanish (in Spanish)?) But my brain is gradually separating the languages, even if only by murdering my knowledge of Spanish.

Talk about language leads me to Christmas time. The five minute aforementioned speech took place on Speech Day, which was also a big Christmas party and our second (or third?) time to lead Holden Evening Prayer at LLI. I announced the Holden Evening Prayer part of Speech Day in Japanese at Hachioji Church, and then I was in trouble because everyone in the congregation knew I spoke Japanese. I was approached after church by one of the people who had been making puppets with me. She showed me the completed puppets and explained, completely in Japanese, something that involved "puppets" "Pamela-san" "Japanese" and "acting". There was little to do except say, "Yomimaska?" (Am I reading?). And I was, therefore, enlisted as a member of the cast of our Christmas pageant.

At LLI, we had another kid's day for Christmas. I got to help teach a handbell version of Away in the Manger to 24 little guys. Let me tell you, Japanese kids are talented. We only played the song once and it had a couple notes where you had to know octaves or flats and there was not a note missing. The day was such a miracle! Having that many kids was super energizing and fun! We even had a family from the local French school who contributed by teaching us to sing "O Christmas Tree" in French. It was an awesome day.

Christmas as a member of a Japanese congregation is a marathon sort of affair. At Hachioji, we started on December 23rd with a children's day of our own. This was the day that I was to be in the puppet show, but it turned out that I wasn't really a puppet but a live person who would interact with the puppets. In particular, I was Wise Man B. My church friend Koji had taken my script and written it out in nice, big Hiragana (the phonetic alphabet) in place of Kanji. The church members had lovingly decked me out in a decorative scarf, almost tunic, and small graduation cap. It almost went really well, until the woman with the line right in front of mine forgot her line and we started improvising. Or, rather, they started improvising while I stared at the script in rapt concentration waiting for it to return to any Japanese I recognized. Luckily it wasn't that formal of a performance, so our little bloopers just added to the fun.

After the puppet play I had my inaugural appearance as Santa Claus. Somehow, all the kids instantly knew it was me. I'm not really sure how...couldn't have had anything to do with my bad Japanese. ;-)

The next day at church was Christmas Eve. We had a morning service at 10:30, lunch after that, various Christmas presentations (gifts given to the oldest members of the congregation, a second showing of our Christmas pageant, and a wacky English solo from the resident missionary (I'm still not sure how they talked me into that one.)), and then a break until the evening candlelight service at 7:30. The evening candlelight service was a serious candlelight service. None of that only lighting the candles for Silent Night at the end. The candles stayed lit for almost the entire service. For those of us in the choir, that made things very interesting, because we were all sitting VERY close together in the front and juggling a bulletin, a choir folder, and a lit candle. But I am happy to say that there were no repeats of my childhood experiences of nearly burning down churches during candlelight services (which was my little brother's fault anyway... ;-) ).

I was very thankful for no church on Christmas day, and also very thankful for technology. My family and I were able to be "virtually" together on Christmas morning by using webcams. That definitely made the first Christmas away from home more bearable.

This past weekend was New Years, the big holiday here in Japan. I was asked more than once if this would be my first New Years away from home, which I suppose it was, but it was hard to explain to some of the Japanese people that it was Christmas, and not New Years, that I was concerned about. I was in a convenience store buying a sandwich when the New Year started. The Japanese teller wished me a happy new year in English with a big, embarrassed grin on his face. It is rare for a teller to say much more than "523 yen" or "thank you for waiting". It made me smile.

Amusing Gaijin Error of the month: While attending a Christmas party, a Japanese guy approached me and introduced himself. Except he used a lot of words to introduce himself. I had my dictionary with me and, determined to have some idea what he was saying, I picked what I believed was a key word and tried to look it up. He tried to dissuade me first by saying that it wasn't in the dictionary, and then finally said "That's not a word, it's my name." Oops. Lots of bowing on Pamela's part followed.

I hope that the holiday season is ending well for all of you, and that all of you had a chance to rest amid the festivities.

Blessings and peace!

Pamela

p.s. I now have pictures up online! I sent an email to most people on this list about the first album, but now there is a second album as well. The website is: http://picsbypamela.shutterfly.com/ The online pictures are not quite caught up with the emails, though.

p.p.s. I have absolutely loved getting little emails from those of you who have sent them. Sometimes I have been busy and not managed to respond, but I always read them and they are a wonderful treat and gift. I am sorry, though, for those of you who have not gotten a response. I am trying to get better at responding.

Happy New Year!

Looking back, 2006 may very well have been the most significant year of my 22 years. Being an adult is cool that way...cool to be in a place where my responsibility is to the world and not to professors. Which isn't to say that I don't take the opportunity to act like a kid every chance I get. :)

Anyway...notable events from this year!

-Spent a month in South Africa.
-Helped plan and lead one of the most fun (if stressful) SCA events I've ever been a part of
-Realized that I don't just like to dance, I *love love love* to dance.
-Traveled to Seattle for spring break to finally meet a friend in person
-Survived the hardest semester to be academically focused of my life with, ironically, one of my highest college GPAs.
-Somewhere along the line began considering myself a mainline conservative Christian instead of a mainline liberal Christian.
-Went to a bar with friends for the first time. Still holding off on ordering more than one drink. ;)
-Said goodbye to four of the most lovely friends I have ever had.
-Became a college graduate.
-Began a process of completely rethinking the way I look at peace.
-Began doing real drawings every once in awhile.
-Successfully threw away something like 20 billion boxes of things I'd been hanging onto and didn't need.
-Moved to Japan
-Met some really incredible new friends.
-Read the book Intercessory Prayer and completely changed the way I pray.
-Began a prayer assignment to end suicides on the Chuo Line in Tokyo
-Learned that, if one wishes to have a nice social time at a pub, telling even one person in the pub that your group is made up entirely of missionaries who are out to celebrate Martin Luther's birthday is not the best way to do it.
-Bought an orange jacket. Traded the desire to blend in for a desire to be a bright force in the world.
-Bought a Mac. (Still slightly in shock about that one, but happy.)
-Spent my first Christmas away from home
-Went from knowing no Japanese to being able to read two new alphabets and to give a five minute speech about St. Olaf.

My first event of 2007: I wanted into a convenience store at about 12:02am this morning to buy a sandwich. The streets were pretty much deserted (I had just arrived home on the last train) but the sounds of people ringing large temple bells could be heard from at least three directions. Typical to Japan, there were three tellers standing behind the counter to serve a completely empty store. But when I came up and bought my sandwich, one of them said, "Happy New Year!" with a big, embarrassed grin on his face. It was one of the only times in Japan I have had a store employee say more to me than "Thank you for waiting", "do you have a point card?", or tell me the total cost of my purchase. It was such a nice change after Christmas, when I told a woman working in a bakery Merry Christmas and she said nothing in return. Definitely left the store smiling last night.