June 17, 2008
The Hornet, the Earthquake, and Me
June 10 - Tuesday
It was a normal morning, like any other. People were outside sharing the morning gossip, which I can never quite understand, and the sun was shining way too early for my liking, when I heard a THUD in my kitchen. That wasn't normal. I heard another THUD near my bathroom. I thought about how strange that was and then fell asleep again as it was anywhere from 5-7am still, and I didn't need to get up until 8.
Eight o'clock came around, and I decided I'd get my lazy bones up and go to the bathroom. NEVERMIND! There was a hornet on the floor guarding my bathroom door. I shakily stepped back into my bedroom and assessed the situation. The hornet had to die. But how?
I looked at the two large piles of books that a friend had helped me sort through the other day, and spied a large English dictionary that was in the pile that would stay in Japan. It was the perfect instrument for the execution I had in mind. I picked it up and slowly crept back towards the bathroom door. I held the dictionary still as I thought for a moment. How fortunate I was that this monstrous insect was on the floor in the first place instead of on the ceiling somewhere or behind a piece of furniture where I couldn't get at it easily. I said a quick prayer that I wouldn't miss and then threw the dictionary at the hornet. It struck the wooden floor and skidded up against the door adjacent to my bathroom.
I didn't see any sign of the hornet, so I assumed that it was under the dictionary. With that assumption, I got ready for my morning. I glanced back at the book every so often with a nervous suspicion that maybe it had made a quick getaway and was hiding behind the laundry basket or in the shoe closet. After I finished eating breakfast, I picked up my small ironing board and poked the dictionary with it. Nothing happened. Just to be absolutely sure that the hornet was under the book and that it was dead and not just stuck under there, I stepped on the book. I heard a loud CRUNCH. Oh, I was so happy it was under there and that it was dead.
Keep in mind that the tiny specks are ants, and you'll have an idea of how big it was.
June 14 - Saturday
It was morning again, and I was up eating breakfast and using the computer at the same time. The Cummings were going to come over later to help me pack the books I had sorted, among other things. Suddenly, I felt a jilt and knew that an earthquake was happening. This isn't all that uncommon, being Japan after all, but it kept going, and then it got stronger. When I started seeing dust coming off my walls, I decided it was time to go stand in the entryway which has a strong door frame and waited, prayed, and felt just about as scared as I've ever been. It continued to feel like I was on a very turbulent airplane for I don't know how long. I stood with my mouth hanging open and my hands on the door frame as I watched my light fixtures swinging back and forth crazily and listened to the rumbling and rattling of everything in my apartment. I thought, "This must be it. It's the Miyagi Oh Jishin (Miyagi Prefecture Big Earthquake) that everyone's said is coming."
And then it stopped. My apartment wasn't damaged, and nothing that fell broke, but I still shook for a couple of minutes after that. Both the Cummings and Uomotos called me that morning to see if I was OK. From what I hear, no one in Sendai had it too bad, and it wasn't the Miyagi Oh Jishin after all (oh, joy, we still have that to look forward to). The epicenter was a bit to the north of us, but Sendai was the nearest large city to it and measured between level 5 6 in my area. I hear the epicenter measured 7.2 - I can't imagine. Some of my Japanese friends said it was the largest earthquake they'd ever been in. The only ones who remember an earthquake that was bigger were those who lived in Sendai during the last Miyagi Oh Jishin about thirty years ago, which, as I already mentioned, is due to come again in the not too distant future.
This is a map from CNN.com that shows where the earthquake hit.
And now for me; well, my plan, that is. Several of you know this already, but my family and I have agreed that I should come home to the States earlier than I was expecting to. It looks like my family will need an extra pair of hands to help my grandma and Aunt Susie who are both in bad health, since Courtney will be going back to Suriname for another school year, and Grant and Ben will be in Georgia. I feel kind of bad since I had just agreed to stay here for a third year to help out the Japan OPC mission, but family circumstances as well as me being homesick, I have to admit, helped me make the decision to return to NC.
I believe that this is God's timing, even though I will miss the friends and students I have here. I will have been here for two years and three months altogether. I have been very privileged to see the "frontlines" of mission work and have had more opportunities to explain about Jesus than I ever have before in my life. This experience has also brought many weaknesses to my attention that still need a lot of work, one of the biggest being the fear of what people think about me. There are only so many times when the excuse "but I'm shyyyyyyyyyyy" doesn't seem like complete childishness, selfishness even. I've been so afraid of what my neighbors think of me (often imaging that the daily gossip is about me, which it very well may be sometimes, but SHOULD I CARE?) that I haven't talked to them much, thus cutting off one area of evangelism that I could have done something with if I'd been bolder.
But God has been merciful and has directed me to people I've been able to help through rough times and places where I've been able to help out. I also feel that I've been able to encourage other Christians living here, Japanese or otherwise, who often feel that their faith is met with coldness and prejudice, oftentimes by their own families. I see all the work that God has done through me, and I feel like it is incomplete, but I trust that He will raise up others to continue encouraging and befriending the people I've gotten to know these past two years.
Much as I will miss all of my friends here in Japan, I am really looking forward to coming home. I hear that a gazillion babies have been born in my church (Pilgrim OPC) that I haven't seen yet, and I'm sure that the ones I did see the last time (a year and a half ago) are walking and maybe even talking now. And as much as I love the potlucks here where just about every dish has an eyeball or a tentacle of some sort sticking out of it, I do miss our potlucks at Pilgrim Church and chatting with all of you.
It is now June 28th, and I have at least three more farewell parties to go to. I'm going to explode! What am I going to do with myself after I get back to the States? Life will be too normal. Well, maybe not, but whatever it will be, I look forward to it.
| By Melissa | 7:44 PM
May 11, 2008
Grant's Graduation
It was early April, and my big brother, Grant, was due to graduate on May 3rd. The phone rang in my apartment; it was Mom.
"Melissa, could you poooooosibly come home for Grant's graduation?"
She told me that he had been asked to speak at his graduation ceremony and that Courtney, who had also thought that she couldn't make it, was suddenly able to go (I'll leave that part of the story to Courtney). I hadn't seen either of my brothers for almost a year and a half, and she told me that my grandparents from NY, whom I hadn't seen in over two years, were also coming. I looked at my schedule and realized that it would happen during "Golden Week", one of Japan's longest vacations (one whole week!). The more I thought about it, the more I realized that it was actually doable.
So it was that about three weeks before Grant's graduation, I realized I could actually attend and started making plans. The one catch was that I was allowed to tell no one in the States that I was coming because it was supposed to be a surprise for Grant.
The main thing I dreaded was the traveling itself. It's roughly a 24 hour trip (give or take 6 hours) from where I live here in Sendai to the east coast of the USA, and a good 6-8 hours of that is just sitting in the airport, trying not to buy too much airport junk (I did buy imitation coin key chains for my brothers, however - JUNK! :P Hope you like them, guys.) I thought about the rarity of what was happening: 1. my brother was going to give a speech before thousands of people at his own graduation after we were so worried that he wouldn't even graduate on time, 2. all of my immediate family and my grandparents from NY would be able to go, 3. the graduation date fell on a Japanese holiday, so I could take time off from work, 4. I got a window seat on every single flight (OK, I didn't find that out until much later). Anyway, it was clear that God was opening a door for me to go to Georgia for this event, so I went for it.
And so I found myself on April 29th (28th for those of you who are Stateside) on the bullet train bound for Narita Airport in Tokyo. Yes, there were layovers, delays, and I bought some random junk, but it was as smooth a trip as it could have been, and like I mentioned before, I did get window seats on all of the flights, which are my favorite. For my first flight, I was seated next to a Japanese lady in her twenties or thirties who was returning to Chicago from her hometown in Tokyo. She was already missing her home after a nice visit, but she was friendly and talkative (in both languages). It made me think of what my situation would be after my trip was over, but I quickly shoved that out of my mind as I looked forward to going home for the first time in a while.
The flight from Chicago to Raleigh was an hour delayed, so I got there around 10:30pm pretty exhausted. Mom and Dad were there to meet me. It was so nice to see them. Bronte the cat seemed to remember me, so she didn't run like she does with strangers.
Here's my pretty kitty. She scratched me the morning we left - she knows what suitcases mean. I can still see it now - helps me remember that I was actually in America. :-)
Continue reading "Grant's Graduation"
| By Melissa | 10:02 PM | Comments (6)
March 30, 2008
"Camping"
This past week, I went on a "camping" trip with the middle and high school students from the various RCJ Reformed Church of Japan) churches around here. There were about 24 people in all with about 7 staff members. Four of those 7 were pastors Yoshioka sensei (pastor of Canaan Church), Tateishi sensei (pastor of Higashi (East) Sendai Church), E sensei (pastor of Eiko (Glory) Church), and Rev. Cal Cummings (who preaches at different pastorless churches each week). Two of those 7 staff members were possibly overgrown kids who just wanted to come along - wait make that three - me too!. Kohji and Kazuki are both college students, but they always show up at the middle/high school camps anyway. However, this year, Kazuki asked that he be called by his family name, Kitada, instead of his given name. I don't think Kohji could care less. Here are some pictures to give the cast of characters above faces.
Yoshioka sensei is the one on the left looking at the vegetables. Tateishi sensei is the one standing in the background in the white shirt. We competed in various silly games to win fake 100 bills so we could "buy" vegetables for the curry dishes that we later cooked. I tell you, what these guys do for fun. :P
Actually, it was fun to cook with everyone in the kitchen at once. Everyone's curry tasted really good! And there's just something funny about seeing a room full of teenagers cooking and not complaining one bit about it. See also this video I took on my cell phone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqxCEfYSLa4
Here's Pastor Cummings, or Camingusu sensei as the Japanese call him (I just call him Uncle Cal). He had a great time playing sports with everyone on our sports day. Actually, he pretty much just jumped into everything the kids were doing. :)
I didn't actually get a picture of E sensei, but I did get a cool video of him playing basketball - he's the one in the light blue shirt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yiX7rCy46o
| By Melissa | 1:52 AM
March 25, 2008
Today is Easter Sunday. I went to Megumi Church this morning, and tried in vain to catch most of what Pastor Ogata said. I still have a lot of trouble understanding Japanese sermons, so I only caught a sentence here and there - not much. He was saying something about how people in Japan know about holidays like Christmas and Easter, but they generally have no idea what the church celebrates on those days (Jesus' birth on Christmas and His resurrection on Easter). I heard him say something like, "'So who's birthday do we celebrate on Christmas? Not Santa Clause's! Ha, ha, ha!'" I understood a little more than that, but that's all I can remember right now. Ogata sensei is really funny, but I wish I could understand him better.
After the service, we had lunch together (I brought an all-American PB&J sammich - do you know how hard it is to find REAL peanut butter over here?!). Then we headed over to the graveyard where the members of the RCJ (Reformed Church of Japan) churches are buried. This is a tradition among the Japanese churches to remember and celebrate Jesus' resurrection. It's also one of the few times a year that all of the RCJ Churches in Sendai (5 or 6 of them) get together all in one place. I talked to some people I hadn't talked to since the same time last year!
I think it's interesting how collective Japanese graves are - each plot is a miniature vault where one family can be buried generation after generation since they are all cremated and only the bones are left. I talked to one lady who said she has three family members whose bones are already in the churches' grave (yes, churches, not just one grave for one church). I also think it's interesting that they decided to have a church grave instead of individual family ones, but I think that has to do with them not wanting to continue their ancestors' tradition of ancestry worship since that is forbidden in the Bible. Perhaps they discontinued burying their dead in the traditional family graves because their non-Christian family members still burn incense, offer food, etc. to their ancestors, or maybe they (like me, actually) see the other church members as family. A mixture of both? I should really ask again, but I think that's accurate.
Keep reading to see some pictures and to hear me talk from my soap box. :)
| By Melissa | 12:46 AM | Comments (3)
February 22, 2008
Sick Day -zu
Sorry, I just had to stick the "zu" on the end because that's what the Japanese say when they remember that a word should be plural; instead of saying the word again with the 's' included, they add 'su' or 'zu' by itself as an afterthought. Eg. "I have three cat." -long pause- "Tsu".
Like the title says, I've been sick these past few days. I called off my afternoon classes yesterday after realizing how spacey I was during my morning class. I also called off my classes this afternoon and evening.
So let's see, before this nasty cold got too bad, I had a really good meeting with one of my friends, Yoshiko. Yoshiko is a woman in her thirties who is married with no children. She has a little bit of a mental problem which makes her extremely nervous around people in general, but if she knows ahead of time that they're nice people then it's OK. She called me on the phone one time, and we talked for almost an hour. I often had to look up words in the dictionary, but we managed to have a decent conversation. She talked mainly about how difficult it is for her to live in Japanese society even though she's Japanese. She wishes that she could live in another country or even just move to a friendlier place within Japan. And here I thought I felt that people around here were cold just because I'm a foreigner (not all of them!!!).
Continue reading "Sick Day -zu"
| By Melissa | 8:03 PM | Comments (1)
February 2, 2008
Procrastinating
OK, I'm still procrastinating on that report I have to do, so I may as well write some more down on my blog here.
A family just moved into the apartment next door to me. So far I've only spoken to the mother once and the daughter twice, but I hope to get over some of my "yikes, new person!" shyness and go over there and invite them to the next ladies' Bible study. It sounds like the mother is able to speak English and Japanese (she's Filipino), and her daughter only speaks Japanese, I think. They gave me two pieces of cake from a cake shop as an introduction gift. The Japanese find all sorts of excuses to give and get gifts, and moving into a new place is one of them. It's been about a week, and I haven't gone back next door, so everyone bug me until I go and talk to my next door neighbor again (even if just to give her a couple apples or something)! Bug me to get my report done too! I'm such a procrastinator!!!
| By Melissa | 8:00 PM