Important Notice

We are moving our blog from its current location to a new location listed below.
For all our fans and readers in cyberland who wish to continue reading please go to: www.somers-harris.com =D

See you there!

John, Rhonda, Sarah and Mary Somers-Harris

Outreach

These two boys, Takahiro and Akihiro are brothers and both of them became beleivers during the English camp in Urahoro (Hokkaido) where our students were team leaders.

Altogether seven people made personal decisions to follow Jesus, four of them as a result of the drama the DTS students put together and performed at the camp.

DTS

Praying for the nations is a key emphasis for the DTS and Krisytn had just shared with the students about intercession and here they are praying with the staff. Kristyn (bottom right) was the speaker for this particular week, being the powerful woman of prayer that she is =)

Sarah Somers-Harris

Urban Missions Conference

Never did I think that I would stay in one of the lovely apartment buildings in the West End of Vancouver! Here I am with Ken Arnold, our host while we attended the conference - held 2 blocks away! Ken and our family met each other in Tokyo about 5 years ago. Also from Canada, Ken was the boys' TBC Youth Band leader and such a blessing to their lives. A wonderful singer, Ken soloed many times with the boys and the rest of the band to support their creative visions! (In the background is Stanley Park, False Creek and the North Shore which glistens beautifully with snow and skiers most winters.)

DTS

Hey everybody =)

So this is our DTS team being welcomed into Japan by Nobuko san, a very powerful Japanese prayer warrior!
From left to right the DTS is: Mira from Finland, Mike from the States, Aaron from the states, Jocky from Scotland and Kyle from Canada.
We had a powerful time of welcoming them into Japan that night, though I must say Aaron was a little scared of the sword =D

Sarah Somers-Harris

Street Evangelism

Well well well, who are these dramatic people?
This is Mommy, Corrine and myself on street evangelism day which is organized by Corrine every month. At this time we are doing a drama which expresses how we are stuck on sin.
Please pray for us as we reach out to the Japanese people.

Sarah Somers-Harris

Christian History Tour

The Kenny Joseph family have documented Christian history in Japan which is surprisingly fuller and earlier than many have thought. We saw evidence of this as we took Kenny Joseph Jr.'s (top right) Christian History Tour with YWAM Greater Tokyo staff and members and pastors of various area churches. Here we are viewing the spot where Christians were crucified at the entrance to circa. 1600 Edo Tokyo as a reminder that Christianity was illegal. Prof. Uemura, specialist in ancient Japanese, reads the inscription at the site. Kristyn (tour organizer), Mary, Sarah, and Rhonda can also be seen.

Lydia

This wonderful face is our newest staff member, Lydia Jordi! She is from Switzerland, is in her early twenties and has a passion for God!
I gotta tell you guys this woman here is something else! I have never heard her speak harshly to anyone even though stressful situations come by. Her main concern is to shine Jesus and boy is she good at it!!
She had came to join the DTS staff and will be with us for two years. She started out living with us but now live with the DTS at the McDaniel's' please pray for God to provide Lydia with her every need.

Love you Lydia!!

Sarah Somers-Harris

Marine Reach 06

Bob and I did get a chance to be tourists for an afternoon but spent most of it trying to figure out how to pronounce the name of this place!
The conference was held in Rotorua which is a thermal part of NZ. You can visit and see boiling mud, hot springs and smell sulfur fumes all day long. We never did figure out how to pronounce this place properly so don't send us an email to find out!

Dictated by John typed by Sarah Somers-Harris.

Marine Reach 05

Here is my father and Bob being presented with a a plaque by Marine reach for being apart of Marine Reach Ministries.
From left to right there is Captain Brian who is the director of Marine Reach England, my father with the plaque, Captain Jesse who is the director of Marine Reach ministries and last but not least there is Bob.





This is a model of the "Pacific Link" a ship belonging to Marine Reach Ministries. After the conference my Dad and Bob transported it to Auckland, they almost refused to give it back!

Sarah Somers-Harris

Marine Reach 04

This here is Ben and Helen Applegate, they were at the conference to talk about the history of ships in YWAM.
Ben Applegate was the Captain for the Anastasis' maiden voyage, the ship where my parents met! My Mother was on the teaching staff of the ship and taught the Applegate's children. My father was the foreman of the deck crew where he worked for two years.
My father remembers Captain Ben as being a very funny man; in one instance the crew were informed that they could only boil food in their cabins due to fire hazards. A man then asked "What about popcorn? can we cook that?" to which Captain Ben promptly replied "Yes, if you like it boiled"!

Sarah Somers-Harris

Marine Reach 03

So this is my father and Bob at the "2008 Marine Reach Global Summit" where they shared their vision for a ship for Japan! They were there by request of Jesse Misa who is director of Marine reach. He is very committed to seeing the dream of "Ship4Japan" realized.
The theme of the conference is behind their heads and says "Waves of Mercy ... Unleashed!"
They they are wearing really cool Japanese Happi coats designed by YWAM Japan .. yup there they are representing. I am so proud~

Sarah Somers-Harris

Marine Reach 02

While Daddy was in Auckland he was able to visit with my Aunt, his sister Liz (Elizabeth) and her husband Peter. Seeing them was such a blessing as he had not met up with them in seven years!
Through God's leading they moved to NZ last year and live a short 3 min walk from Uncle Roger and Auntie Maureen who have been in NZ for many years.
My Aunt is a trained nurse and my Uncle worked as a porter. Please pray for them as they adjust to a new country and lifestyle, like having Christmas in the summer!
They are both amazing people who I am so proud to call my Uncle and Aunt =)

Sarah Somers-Harris

Marine Reach 01

This is my Dad and Bob Bastable on their flight to NZ for the Marine Reach Global Conference in February of this year. People from Australia, NZ, Philippines, Japan and England came to this conference. On their flight they were told that they could fly first class!! I wonder if the flight attendants knew how little money they had?!

Sarah Somers-Harris

Hokkaido 9

Well it is time I finished the Hokkaido report. One of the main reasons to go to Hokkaido was to pray on the land and learn from the local Christians how they saw God at work in the island. Abraham and his wife took us to a mountain where many religious groups had places of gathering as they all seemed to understand that this was a special place spiritually. We prayed, read from the bible and even left some verses on the mountain.

The rest of the day we played tourist visiting a lake that froze over in the winter and was was reported to be the coldest place in Japan where they held a winter festival on the first Saturday in February. There was a huge bonfire, lots of food stalls, a concert ice tents to stay over night - about 150 people came to do this - and a hot bath that Joon Samuel and I just had to try.

Good News

David Passed his Driving test on Tuesday in Vancouver. I hope to add a picture later. Just wanted you all to know.

Hokkaido 8

Yes!! We finally made it to he museum. The Ainu were the original inhabitatns of the Japanese Islands. They moved futher and futher North as the present Japanese people moved in. Now they have assimilated so much that it is almost impossible to find any pure Ainu people.


Many of the artifacts had similarities with Northern Indian culture we even saw a log canoe.

Hokkaido 7

Finding the Ainu Musuem proved qiuite a challanging job but first we had to make sure we could get back home it seems they put in a special sign just for me. Hope you like it too. The sign is across the road so you can see the snow is everywhere.


We passed the museum and I pulled into a parking lot to ask directions. It was there that I discovered some animals and Joon, fearless leader that he is decided we needed to preach the gospel to every creature. Kristyn was right behind him and the third picture shows their first convert. After getting directions we headed back and spent about twenty minutes looking at several artifacts of Ainu culture. Some of the clothing on display was over 100 years old. This was our first venture out alone and my first time driving on snow in Hokkaido.

Hokkaido 6

Kristyn arrived that evening and it was out with the maps and planning a strategy for our prayer time on Saturday Abraham Lee also a keen prayer warrior explained where he had already been to pray and other significant spiritual hot spots in the area.

Meanwhile Joon settled in to his role as a student learning the basic skills needed to master rubics cube from a veteran player. Samuel Lee, Abrahams son (14) was the 先生 or teacher.

Obihiro

When researching a new area it is of utmost importance to understand the local culture and high on the list of culturally relevant things to knowabout is FOOD. Here Joon is leading us in an experience of the local Obihiro culture.

Buta Don is a speciality of the Obihiro area and they make a special version called Bara Buta. Bara means Rose and Buta means Pig. The pork is layed out on top of the rice with a rose like pattern. The sauce is also a local speciality so altoghther thanks to Joon's leadership in this important matter we enjoyed a wonderful meal while waiting for Pastor Lee.

Hokkaido 5

Next we took the train to Obihiro where we were met by Pastor Murata who is the head of the Pastors group in the area. I met him at the Church Planting Institute conference (CPI) in Hakone last year and we talked about this trip together then.

Interestingly enough, Pastor Murata began his church in Obihiro the same year that Rhonda and I came to Japan.

We discussed several options for working together when the DTS comes to Obihiro for their outreach. Pastor Murata had had one of his congregation attend our mission's DTS in Okinawa and was wanting to see more people go out into missions.

Sapporo Interlude 2

Every year on Odori street in Sapporo they have an ice festival. This year it began on the 5th of February - the day after we returned to Tokyo. Huge displays are built out of ice and snow with incredible detail and awesome size.

This display is being built by the self-defense forces of Japan - That's right our tax yen hard at work again. While snow always amazes me with the power of God and the beauty of His creation, I also marvel when it is combined with the creative abilities God endowed His people whom He made.

Sapporo Interlude 1

The cities of Hokkaido unlike most of Japan have been build on a grid system. It kinda of doesn't look or feel like Japan at all. However the station signs are fairly similar and JR is one step ahead of Tokyo. In Tokyo only the subway stations are numbered to help the 外人 bewildered tourists.

Despite being on a parallel with northern France Hokkaido has way more snow than my home city of Brighton in England. It snowed everyday we were there. They know how to handle it though; the traffic was flowing smoothly where in Tokyo a little snow can bring everything to a stop very quickly.

They have heated pads for the pavement (sidewalks) so even the pedestrians have no problem getting around. Subways are a little more expensive though with the first stop coming in at 200 yen

Hokkaido 4

We spent the rest of the day playing tourist before returning to Ino's Hostel but here are some interesting shots.

Bike riding in Sapporo has lots of challanges and will never be the same for me again. Kids at school ski during recess or skate in the school playground.

Interestingly enough even though the temperature is minus most of the time I never really felt cold.

Finally here is the warning on the subway for terrorist activities much more interesting than in Tokyo.

Hokkaido 3

Ino's proved to be a very pleasent hostel with the owners a young family both speaking excellent English and gueninly freindly. We checked in grabbed some tourist information dumped our stuff in our room and headed off to Coen.

The proprietor Mark was a missionary Kid raised here in Japan. He runs the cafe with his family hoping got connect with the Japanese using English. Hence the name of the place CO for connect and EN for English. interestingly 公園 in Japanese also pronounced COEN means "park"

Mark was very interested in our team comng to Sapporo and so were several of his regular customers whom we met that day. This picture shows Mark and his son Erin with Joon & me.

Hokkaido 2

Sapporo. We arrived at Chitose airport, took the train to Sapporo station and then had to find Andy and his family. This was a more formidable task then we imagined as they wanted to meet at Starucks and Sapporo station has two Starbucks locations. Guess what? Your right we went to the wrong one first. Here is Andy and his family! The sad news was that they would not be in Hokkaido when we would return as they were expecting their second child and would be returning to USA for the birth.

They did give us some very useful information that led us to a coffee shop where our team would be able to do outreach.

Leaving the Station Joon and I had to navigate through the snow to find our way to Ino's place. A backpackers hostel somewhere in Sapporo.

Hokkaido 1

Joon & I woke up at 04:00. We had to stay at Bob's house as the trains from our station did not run early enough to get us to the airport (Haneda) on time. Bob also got up and made us coffee which as you can see we needed to get us going.

The trip was very smooth but we were surprised by how many people were riding trains at five in the morning. Arriving at Haneda check in was smooth and the nice lady got us seats together.

The bonus for me was that right across from the departure gate was a Starbucks coffee shop that was open. We were off to a good start.

Our Team

The day after I left for Hokkaido. Lydia Jordi arrived to join our team here in Tokyo. I was supposed to meet her at the airport but a little misunderstanding of the date line had me on a different island when she landed. Bob met her at the airport and then she went to David's house for time with the team before coming to our home where Lydia will stay until the Discipleship Training School (DTS) begins in April.

We are all enjoying getting to know Lydia and are very grateful that she has volunteered to do the finances for the coming school.

Outreach

After Topi left we went to another part of the park and worshipped together then saw several different groups each "doing their own thing". One group came up to us and asked if we would like to play tag with them for awhile. There was an artist who danced while painting a pictue. He drew quite a large crowd. Others juggled and one group was giving out free hugs. It was quite a fun time to just take in all that was going on around us and inspired us to consider new ways to reach out in friendship and share the love of Jesus with these funloving people.

Outreach

Topi Kivimaki was in town doing weddings and was able to join us inbetween wedding appointments and do some street preaching. We were blessed to have Topi with us and he was so blessed to be able to do street preaching in Japanese again.

Here you see Topi and I sharing with a man who watched the drama skit and stayed to talk.





In the second picture Topi is praying with a homeless man who lives in the park. Topi also bought him a lunch from a nearby stand.

Outreach

Corrine taught us a skit and we performed it several times in Yoyogi Park. Joon joined us and Sarah & Mary brushed up on their drama skills learned at Tokyo Baptist church in Kids camps.

The weather was splendid and we thourghly enjoyed ourselves. Getting back on the streets and doing evangelism together was a great beginning for us as a Kanto Area.

Corrine seen in the second picture works with a churchplanting team in Narita as she is the person closest to having graduated her DTS she proved to be the one best able to refresh us in the outreach skits. We all enjoyed ourselves so much we decided to do this again next month

Outreach

Harajuku. How can one explain Harajuku? It is much more than a station, it is a cultural hang out for many people especially the goth kids. It is also where we carried out our Kanto evangelism. We met up with Corrine at Harajuku then walked to a nearby doutor coffee shop and had a time of prayer before the days events began.
In the second picture you can see us from right to left Corrine, Mommy (Rhonda), Mary and yours truely gathered together in a small corner of the coffee shop praying. After which we will be ready for anything, BRING IT ON!!!

Sarah Somers-Harris

Playing Othello

After the meal was cooked and and eaten the Othello board was brought out. What started as a friendly game turned into the ancient Japan verses Korea face off. On the Japan side we had Takuya and representing Korea was Joon. This time around Japan emerged the victor =D Best wishes on the next round Joon (smarty)!

Sarah Somers-Harris