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