So, the last few days have been a whirlwind of activity and I apologize for not updating as soon as I'd hoped.
Saturday found Pastor Shelley and I taking the bus to the church where we spent most of the day organizing and setting up a small office area. We ate packed lunches (I had peanut butter and jelly with warm vegetable croquets which are basically deep fried veggie patties with corn meal holding them together) with Pastors Bill and Carol Paris - the pastors of Tokyo ICA church.
Prayer meeting was held in the afternoon and I got to meet two people closer to my age - Yuri and Teiko who invited me to the XA (Chi Alpha) center later that night. There was an IHOP team there holding a special worship night and I agreed to go. To fill in time between, we went shopping in Ueno which was an experience indeed! To get there, we took the train, which was my first time on the Tokyo train system. Boy was that an experience! (With my bad balance combined with the train's speed, I almost fell into a couple of people but regained my balance by holding onto the handholds for dear life.) It was easy to navigate once I was on the train since there were announcements in both Japanese and English. The trick, of course, is getting on the right train in the first place! I'm sure it will become easier with practice but for that day, I stuck closely to Yuri and Teiko. At the XA center, I met Amanda Fosburg (I am known as the "other Amanda") who has been in Japan for 11 months and is planning to return to the states soon, and Liz who arrived in Japan just one day after me and is doing the same type of internship as I am with XA. We were both recovering from jet lag and had an interesting time relating to one other that night. :) I also met other wonderful and friendly people such as Hyunhee and Anna who helped make me feel right at home. Speaking of home, getting back to Komagome (where I live) from the center was interesting. The person I was originally supposed to follow home was not able to make it that night, so I was blessed to follow Tomohara-san, a Japanese woman, back to Komagome station. Between her little bit of English and my little bit of Japanese, we eventually made it back without trouble. :) Good times.
Sunday dawned bright and early at 6:30 am to get ready and leave for church by 8 am. We stayed at the church all day with services at 11 am and 4 pm and meetings, sunday school, children's church, and Starbucks (praise God) in between. I met a ton of people from other countries with ICA being an international church. Services are held in English with Japanese and French translation since those are the common languages. There are people there representing Japan, America, the Philippines, Singapore, China, Korea, and several African countries (where the French comes in). And everyone worships the same AWESOME God! :) I really enjoyed Sunday, but by the end of it, all the languages had my brain scrambled! The Lord is good and has really blessed me to be in a place of cultural crossroads where I can experience so many flavors of people (and food!).
Today is Monday and is our designated day of rest. I don't plan on doing much of anything today except head to a XA meeting tonight. Let's see if I can make it to the center by train without getting lost. :) Life is always an adventure when you're following Christ.
Peace,
Amanda
