Thursday Rally in Hachioji

While we were tracting in the hour or two right before the rally here in Hachioji, we had a bit of trouble with the mall security (for the building where the rally was held). They didn't want a group of foreigners dressed in bright shirts clogging up pedestrian traffic right in front of the mall. At another location, though, someone actually called the police while the team was tracting near schools in the morning. The police in turn called four schools near where the team was tracting, to "warn" them, and in turn the teachers of the schools warned the students. One of them was a HiBA regular. She felt so strongly about her teacher speaking poorly about HiBA, that she later confronted him. This was amazing in itself for Japanese culture, that a female student would confront a male in an authority position. Even more amazing, though, was that he actually apologized!

Fortunately, problems like these with the police are very uncommon.

Here's the view from an overpass near the train station in Hajiochi.

Normally when you're in a different culture, it's best to blend in and follow the example of the locals around you. No one wants to be the Ugly American. When you're tracting, though, anything goes. If climbing on someone's shoulders attracts attention and gets more people to take the tracts, then go for it!

This rally was held in a small room near the top of this shopping mall. Since the room was so tight, I joined a few other team members in walking around the outside of the building, praying for the rally that was happening inside.

I drop by the room to get a couple pictures, though. Here's one during the small group time at the end of the rally. Though there were only 5 newcomers, apart from the HiBA regulars, they all seemed to have a great time!

Paul Suzuki, who ran the Gospel Team program, showed up at our rally in Hachioji.

First Impressions

Since I did manage to post an update on Wednesday, the first full day we were in Tokyo, I'll just add a few pictures here to go along with that.

We drove from the airport to the HiBA center in downtown Tokyo. We got there midway through the afternoon rally. Here's a shot from the end of the rally, of all the people who came. The Gospel Team (GT) members are in the blue shirts. The rest of the students are Japanese high schoolers who attended the rally.

Wednesday was a rest day, with no rallies. After the midday worship time, we had some free time. I went with a group to the 100 yen store, which is basically a dollar store (but bigger and better!). Here's a picture of a street in downtown Tokyo from the walk there.

The 100 yen store was located on this street, Takeshita Dori, the center of Tokyo's Harajuku area. Especially on weekends, this place is packed with people wearing the latest in Japanese fashion.

Daily Schedule

Hey everyone, I thought I would finally shoot off a quick update. I
keep waiting for some free time at a place with wifi, where I can
write out a longer update. It doesn't look like that's going to happen
soon, though.

Anyway, I wanted to give you a brief overview of our schedule for an
average day.

In the morning, we get up between 5am and 6am (4:45 tomorrow). After a
quick pre-breakfast, we head out on the train to wherever we'll be
handing out tracts (about the afternoon rallies) for the morning.
Usually that's near a school or train station. Once the flow of
students has died down, around when school starts at 8:30am, we take
the train to the rally location for the day. After we get there and
have breakfast, we get a rest time to catch up on sleep or just relax.
A time for devotions after that takes us to lunch.

Once we're back from lunch, we start preparing for the rally, which
usually has students starting to come at 4:30pm. The last students
usually leave at the end by 7:30pm or 8pm. Once the rally location is
all cleaned up, we have dinner and take the train back the place where
we're sleeping for the night. We almost always head to the sento
(public bath) before heading to bed, usually after 11pm.

The picture, which hopefully got posted fine, shows some of my team
members on the train in the morning.

Jetlag

Well, this will just be a brief update. We arrived safely in Tokyo on
the 15th, a day later than we left (with the time change). The flight
was actually quite nice, since we were on Korean Air. The seats had a
reasonable amount of legroom, the AVOD system had an impressive
selection of recently-released movies, and we got two meals (in
coach!). Yesterday (the 15th), we got in on the tale end of the day's
rally. After debriefing following the rally, we got dinner and went to
the public baths. We didn't end up getting to bed until close to
midnight here, after being up for over 24 hours.

This morning we got up shortly after six and, after a quick breakfast,
we went out to promote the rallies to youth on their way to school. We
handed out flyers as the youth were walking past to school, and tried
to get them interested in coming to the rallies. Once we got back, we
had a bigger breakfast and a worship service of sorts. Today was one
day without a rally in the afternoon, so we had most of the afternoon
free.

In a little while, we'll be heading off to the public baths again and
then to bed. I'm still thoroughly jetlagged, so bed is sounding really
good right about now.

*Just a note, I'm emailing this in from my phone. If there are
formatting errors or anything like that, that would be why.

Trip Overview

Just to give you a broad overview of the trip, here's a brief itinerary and description of what we will be doing.

Last night, I flew out from Seattle. I met up with another three members of the team, and we stayed overnight there. Now, we're waiting at the gate to fly to Tokyo on Korean Air. Though we "only" fly for eleven and a half hours, the time change means that we lose a day and will arrive tomorrow afternoon. Once we get through customs in Tokyo, we will be going to the ministry sites where we will be for the next two weeks.

While we're in Japan, these first two weeks will be spent working with the HiBA youth outreach ministry. As for what exactly I will be doing while working with them, I honestly don't know, yet. Flexibility is the name of the game in missions, so I guess I'll find out once I get there. About all I do know is that I will be on the support team, rather than the actual outreach gospel teams. The gospel teams will be handing out flyers and raising awareness about our rallies, as the Japanese youth are on their way to school in the mornings. The rallies will take place in the afternoon and will include singing, skits, and a message, among other things. Somewhere in that, I'll be doing "support" of some kind.

The third week we're in Japan will be spent doing a work project at a camp, visiting a few church plants, and doing some sightseeing. Apart from that, I'll find out what we're doing as we go along. It will certainly be an adventure, and I look forward to seeing how God works everything out!

As always, your prayers are greatly appreciated!

Welcome to Ramblings from Oaxaca - Coming to you from Tokyo, Japan!

Welcome to Ramblings from Oaxaca! I have used this blog to report on a couple of my past trips, and have revived it for this current trip to Japan. In honor of this trip, I've updated the theme with a background photo from the talented Trey Ratcliff, of the Stuck in Customs photography blog.

Check back here for updates during the trip, be they full posts with high-quality pictures, or just a couple sentences and a picture sent from my phone. Once the trip is over, I'll process my pictures and post some of the best, along with more detailed highlights of the trip.

As I have said before, I want to give a huge "thank you" to all of you. Thank you so much for your very generous support and ongoing prayers! Without them, I wouldn't be on my way to Japan right now. So, thank you!

If you have any questions or comments at all, feel free to post them here on the blog, and I'll respond as I'm able. I look forward to hearing from you and keeping you updated on the trip!

Schmaps

Here's something kind of fun for me. I have a Flickr account where I've uploaded some of my pictures from Alaska, Oaxaca, Yosemite, etc. A couple weeks ago I got a message that the company Schmaps, which makes online guidebook-type things, was considering one of my pictures to include in their guide/Schmap for Anchorage. I just found out that they actually did use it! Check it out on the right side of the page. It's nothing big, but pretty cool for me...

Click here to see the rest of my pictures on Flickr, or browse my Oaxaca pictures in the box below.

Mission Trip '07 Video

Video: Party Train

Here's a video of the party train we went on. More video coming soon. Better video editing coming as soon as I find a good Linux video editor.

Picture Post: Visiting Mexico

The experience of living in Mexico, even for only a week.


Our hotel, Hotel del Bosque, seen from the front. It was supposed to have a restaurant, but that part of the hotel was being remodeled. Hence, no coffee for a whole week.

The side of the hotel, with parking. We had most of the top floor for our group. Not wonderful accommodations, but pretty good for being on a mission trip.

No DQ or Coldstone... what to do when you're craving some ice cream?
Go to Michoacana!

Dinner one night. The pastor spent extra money to make sure we had food he thought we would like, Mexican hamburgers. They even had a slice of ham in them, and came with a jalapeño!

A meal we had another night, that they cooked for us. Some kind of roasted meat, rice, and mashed potatoes. Pretty tasty!

Shopping on Friday. A shot of the market area near the central plaza.

When on a mission trip to Mexico, there are two things that you should always have with you, no matter what. One is hand sanitizer, and the other is toilet paper. Both come in handy a lot.

Speaking of toilet paper, maybe it would be a good idea to cary a toilet seat around, too. Actually, this isn't that bad. This is what some rooms at the hotel had, a toilet without a seat. The bathroom facilities at the churches were often significantly worse.

This is how everyone gets their purified drinking water, in big 5 gallon jugs. They're cheap, too, at just 50 cents a jug, depending on where in Mexico you live.

A street vendor selling drinks and elote, corn covered in mayonnaise, crumbly cheese, chili powder, and lime juice. I don't think we were supposed to buy from the street vendors, so I held myself back. The corn is actually very tasty, though!

The Work is Not Over Yet

I know that almost everyone had an amazing experience in Mexico on the mission trip. What we need to remember, though, is that our work isn't over yet. I've heard of several people on the team that want to continue to work with the churches in Valle Hermoso, be it by writing letters, donating school supplies, or something else. I also know for a fact that the pastors and churches want down there want to stay in touch with us, as well. This afternoon, Bernardo, the pastor in the picture above, called me. We didn't talk for long, as I'm sure that phone rates are rather expensive calling from Mexico to the US. He did, however, want to know whether we had had a safe trip back to the States. He also said that he was, and still is, praying for us.

In the same way, I think that we should be praying for him and his church. There are three main ways that we can help him, besides just prayer. His biggest passion in ministry is with the kids, so all three have something to do with the kids. The first is with school supplies. One day, my group leader commented my group saying that it would be really cool if we could help out the kids we met there, maybe by buying school supplies. We all thought it was a pretty good idea, and one that we could actually do. The very next day, Bernardo pulled me aside and asked if there would be any way that we could help the kids out with school supplies. He said that they are very poor, and it's hard for them to buy even basic school supplies. I told him that we had talked about that very thing just the day before, and he firmly believes that it was God's idea. I think that some people at Salem are already working on putting together something to help with that. I'll have updates as we find out what we can do.

The second way that Bernardo would appreciate prayer is that he needs a van to be able to take the kids in his church places. I'm not exactly sure what he has now, but it's not adequate. In a couple of days, I'll post how he did get the vehicle he has now, though. That's quite an amazing story by itself. The third way is that he has a burden on his heart to open a sort of cafeteria in the village. Most of the families are extremely poor, and sometimes don't have enough food. Bernardo told me that, as it is now, kids will go off to school in the morning, usually having eaten breakfast. When they come home for lunch, their parents are usually at work and, and there often is no food in the house. Bernardo gets kids at his home and at church asking for food. He has a ministry where he gets day old bread from certain bakeries and distributes it to the kids, but it isn't enough. He says that they already have land for the cafeteria, but none of the resources to actually build or maintain it. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could be God's hands and His feets to help Bernardo's prayers come into being? I would love to help out, so if anyone has some ideas for how to help with a van, a cafeteria, or more school supplies, shoot me an email!

Statistics

Here are just some interesting statistics about the blog. All of these come from during the trip, plus a couple days before and until now.

Pageviews: 2,545
Visits: 865
Unique Visitors: 247
Average time spent on the site: 7 minutes, 13 seconds
Countries that people have visited from:
United States
India
Mexico
Canada
Germany
Philippines
Latvia
France
United Kingdom
Cameroon
Martinique
Turkey
Malaysia
New Zealand
Morocco
Singapore
Australia
Netherlands
Portugal

Saturday: Home, Sweet Home

Saturday brought mixed feelings for almost everyone in the group. On the one hand, I think we were excited to get back to the States, where almost everything is nicer, cleaner, more comfortable, more convenient, etc. No topes (speed bumps) everywhere, being able to drink tap water, actually have a toilet seat again, not have to hike through thick mud, etc, etc...
On the other hand, it meant that we had to say goodbye to Mikrut family that had helped us so much while we were there in Mexico. We had already said our goodbyes to the pastors and the people we had worked with, but Saturday was it. We were actually leaving. It's amazing how fast time goes. We closed our Saturday morning devotions with a prayer for the Mikruts and singing through the song, "Sanctuary." At the end of the song, most eyes were moist.

When we actually left, we drove from Valle Hermoso to the border. At the border, all the people in the two big vans had to get out and file through the government offices, letting the border agents take a quick look at their passports. Everything went smoothly, and we got back on the road fairly quickly. On the way to McAllen, the trailer carrying our stuff got a flat tire. Thankfully, there was a place nearby that helped them change the tire. At the airport we checked in before heading over to a nearby mall for lunch. Following lunch, we returned to the airport to go through security and wait for our flight. Everything went smoothly, and we arrived safely in Dallas. I had a relatively quick connection, but I still took time to say some quick goodbyes to the rest of the team. After a week of working with those people in Mexico, it was actually very hard to say goodbye.

I need not have worried at all about making my connection to Detroit. The flight got slightly delayed as two of the planes tires had to be changed. Instead of rushing, I had time to find and purchase an interesting John Grisham novel to amuse myself with on the plane. After an uneventful flight spent reading, I finally got back home. A quick check of Facebook online, and I could tell that the rest of the group had made it back to the Twin Cities safely as well. It's good to be back. On the other hand, how can I sit back and enjoy all I have here, while I have friends back in Mexico that sometimes don't even have enough to eat?

Picture 1: The whole team at the McAllen airport.
Picture 2: Those of us on the team wearing soccer jerseys.
Picture 3: Saying goodbye to the Mikruts (not including Jim).

Shout Outs

Hey, just wanted to give a quick shout out to some of my visitors here. Specifically, here's a shout out to those visiting from Lowell, Albuquerque, and Louisville. Respectively, I've had 57, 30, and 24 visits from those places.

Just out of curiosity, do I know any of you? Or maybe you're relatives of someone else on the trip. I can understand the high number of visits from the Twin Cities and Detroit area, but I'm a bit confused by these other places.

Friday: Less Work, More Play

After having a long four days of doing VBS programs at seven different sites, we finally got a break on Friday. We got to get up quite a bit later, only meeting as a team at 9:15. After breakfast and devotions, we headed on downtown to do some shopping. Unfortunately, there really weren't any markets. There were some shops, but not all that much variety of things for sale. Even so, it was kind of fun to have a break from VBS and look around the central plaza for a while.

After lunch at a local restaurant and an afternoon break, we got ready for the evening. The clowns that had been with us on the first day to invite kids to come to the VBS program at the Mikruts's house had a program that they wanted us to be able to see as a group. We drove to a grassy place with trees, picnic table, and a gazebo/pavilion where we would get to see the the show put on by the clowns and then afterwards play with the kids that came to see it. The program started quite a bit later than it was supposed to, but that was because Barb Mikrut and Ben Pease were going to pick up more kids from the churches we had been at. Although, I missed the first part of the clown program since I was talking with Bernarod, it seemed like they did a pretty good job. Unfortunately, a light rain started part of the way through the program and lasted until after we left. Because of the rain, we didn't get to play soccer or anything with the kids as much as we thought we would get to.

When the program was over and all the kids had been driven back to the churches they had come from, we got to go back to the hotel. On our last night in Mexico, we finally got to have very American food for supper: pizza. Following the pizza, some of the people from our group went to go play soccer with some Mexican youth. I think most of us, however, chose to stay at the hotel and rest a bit more after a long, but rewarding week.

Picture 1: Having fun in the plaza.
Picture 2: The big church off of one side of the plaza.
Picture 3: A truck loaded to the very top. Typical for Mexico.

Goodbye: Afternoon Site

I don't think it was quite as hard to say goodbye at the afternoon site as at Bernardo's church. The group of kids in the afternoon wasn't quite as well behaved as Bernardo's group, but it still seemed more formal/strict than the morning site. I didn't feel like I made as many strong connections with the people at our afternoon site.

We still had a normal VBS program before we left for the last time. The craft went better than we expected it to, so that was nice. Some of the little boys were really cute when they were singing the songs. The leader of the VBS there often would ask us after a song whether the boys or the girls sang better/louder. The boys might not have sung better, but the little boys tried their very best to make sure they were the loudest!

At the end of the program, it came time to say our farewells. Lots of the people there wanted a picture with us, so we stood around for quite a while taking pictures of different groups of people. A few people had all of us sign the back of their craft project, and three of the kids even had us all sign the back of their shirts! When we were finally done, we got our last ride in the Deathmobile, back to the hotel before dinner. As with most of the other nights, dinner was at one of the churches. The same soup that had the pig knuckles and tripe showed up again here. I wonder if it was suggested to them by the other church where we had it.

Picture 1: The whole group of kids, with the pastor, the other leaders, and us.
Picture 2: A shirt that we all signed.
Picture 3: One of the smaller groups that they wanted a picture of.

Goodbye: Morning Site

We only had four days with the people at our VBS sites. Even in just those four days, though, we connected extremely well with the people there, and made great relationships. As such, Thursday was a very difficult day, saying goodbye to everyone. Our group felt especially at home and welcome at our first site. The pastor there is named Bernardo. He really has a cool testimony that I'll put up later.

Anyway, for this day of goodbyes, Bernardo had planned to follow the VBS program with a fellowship time for us and the kids. For most of the morning his wife was gone, most likely making us lunch. Even while he was there, he was working on something else. We actually did a pretty good job of leading lots of the VBS, though. Once his wife came back, he left to go get ice cream for us. After the VBS program was finished, they served both us and the kids lunch made up of some kind of chicken salad. They also had cookies and ice cream for dessert for all of us. After eating and spending some more time with the kids, he hadus present certificates he had made for the kids that attended. At the end of that, he gave each of us a nice certificate to thank us for coming.

After all of that, it was time to actually say goodbye. It was hard, really hard. A couple of us from my group got to know Bernardo quite well and we talked to him a lot. Both he and his wife are amazing people. They are extremely generous, giving sacrificially to those in need. It's a wonderful change from the materialistic culture of the United States. They also love God very, very much. They trust Him foreverything, and He always gives them what they need. Whenever we would thank Bernardo for anything, he would always immediately say instead, "Thanks be to God."

The bright side to how hard it was to say goodbye is that we did form long-lasting relationships. Hopefully we can continue to partner with Bernardo's church and give encouragement, even from the States. Besides that, several of us are hoping that it can work out to return next summer to visit the churches we worked with. I firmly believe that if we have faith, just like Bernardo does, God will work out a way for us to return there next summer. Even if it seems unlikely, with God, all things are possible.

Picture 1: Saying goodbye to Bernardo and his wife.

Stuck in the Mud, Part 2

Thursday was our last day of VBS. It was also the second day that we got completely stuck in the mud. The night before, it had rained. As we drove to the site in our van "Grande Azul," or "Big Blue," we started getting a little worried, seeing how much water was left on the roads. After we turned off of the paved road to go the rest of the way to the church, we started to hit the muddy spots. Finally, just a short ways from the church, we got stuck. At first the van just fishtailed over toward the left side of the street and onto the grass. Then, the wheels kept on spinning, but the van didn't move anywhere.

We decided to just walk the short distance to thechurch, then, and get the van out after our last VBS program at that church. As we started walking back towards the van, it started to rain. As we pushed the van, with help from some of the bigger kids that went to VBS, it started to rain even harder. Pushing didn't seem to be doing much good at first, as the van's wheels would spin but only allow the van to move forward at a crawl. Even then, as the back part of the van got pushed out of the grass and back onto the road, it didn't last long. The rear part of the van would swing out, but then it would skid right back towards the grass. We only got it out by having just as many people push on the side than on the back.We did finally get it out, although it was again covered in mud that we tracked in. Not only that, but we were all thoroughly soaked, too. Things like this are rarely fun at the time, but they make great memories!

Picture 1: First time the van got stuck. This time, instead of deep mud, we got stuck with a thin, slippery layer of mud on top. As a side note, the second van got stuck in the exact same spot shortly after we got out.
Picture 2: Bonus shot of the first time we got stuck. No shots of this time, since I was actually pushing. Notice how deep the mud was the other time.

Picture Post: Us with the Kids

The girls from our group with some of the girls that cameto VBS.


Friends at our afternoon site.


Playing a game with the kids during VBS.


Helping out one of the little boys with his craft.


Sitting with friends at our afternoon site, near the end of the craft time.

Coming up...

Coming up as soon as I land in Michigan, look for more updates on some of the following:
-Stuck in Mud, Part 2
-Saying goodbyes at our VBS sites
-Many more pictures
-Replies to the comments that have been left so far (thanks for commenting, it really is an encouragement).

-Once we're back in the States, video clips and descriptions of the other sites people have been at.