A few weeks ago, a Japanese Christian singer came to volunteer at some temporary housing facilities. She sang a couple of songs at church and, in between songs, she shared an image of how she views the role of the church and of Christians in Japan. She shared that we are standing along a river t...
It seems like almost every time I ride the bullet train I am convicted and challenged by the scope of the spiritual need in Japan. Right now I am on the way to our anual JCGI (Japan Church Growth Institute) confrence south of Tokyo. JCGI is the Japanese led arm of A2 (Asian Access) here in Japan....
I started writing this post over a year ago. Rather than go with the “top 10 reasons” that I had started, I’ll simply write about one reason (of many) that I can think of regarding why Roberta in Japan is a bit of a shocker. What is it? Bonsai trees.
Bonsai is a Japanese art form that a lot of...
Father God. Abba Father. Touchan or Papachan (sweet Pops – my translation). I’ve sure been thinking about God as Father a lot over the last 3 days.
I’ll back up a little. When my dad passed, I was 12 years old. The way I saw Father God was very tied into how I saw my earthly dad. My dad l...
This last week, I was struck by 3 pretty major cultural differences that seemed to jump up and bite me in the face.
#1 – “inefficiency”
On Tuesday, I went to an hour-long “meeting” to talk with two other people about the selection of binders for an English class that I’ll be co-teaching. A part...
Because I value handing out coffee to strangers but still find it to be occasionally awkward, I usually prefer picking up trash at the beach during our Saturday morning “surf ministry” time. While my friend’s husband surfs, she picks up trash, too (and hangs out with friends – who is pretty m...
Yesterday after church, we had some pretty strong wind and rain. After hanging out with people for a while, Robert and I headed home. Thankfully, we had shut most of our windows and not too much water came in the house. Still, we had to wipe up a few places and hang a wet carpet. And we rea...
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