Intermission... Sorry!

So, I promised to post pictures of Hell... uhh, of the hot springs (read earlier posts if you don't understand what I mean by "Hell") but when I went to upload the pictures... I had errors! So, instead, I thought I would blog without pictures until it starts working again! Please excuse this slight intermission!

Many of you may be wondering what I'm doing here and why I came, I will give a short account of the why, then answer the what...

Well, it seems like just last week I was driving in the car on the way home from CT with Mrs. Peragallo when we started talking about the prospective but still unplanned mission trip for this summer. I shared with her my desire to be a blessing to a missionary family, to lighten their load somewhat, so that they could better serve the Lord, because I see that as a most effective way for me to do mission work as a single young lady. So, next thing I new, we were talking about the Winters and she was saying three months! Now here I am, a third of the way through those three months!

A typical week looks like this:

Sunday: Japanese service in the morning, lunch, English service, dinner.
Monday: Teach Alyssa and Kayla piano, teach Ethan guitar, help with English class.
Tuesday: Food shopping, other activities, record hymns at the church
Wednesday: English class, Teach Rachal piano, Young Ladies Bible Study (with Kayla, Rachal, and Natsuki)
Thursday: Music lessons again, English class with Mrs. Winters
Friday: Activity as a family, or rest day, or random activities, record music at the church
Saturday: Errands, Activity, or record music at the church

The Winters have 17 different English classes a week, and I am scheduled to help different ones each week, so the English class schedule is always changing.
Other activities we have done include: Going to a summer festival (natsu-matsuri), swim in the river, ride bikes, visit the library, sew, bake, cook, do chores, do laundry, have a Japanese BBQ, light off sparklers, sleep out under the stars, do kid Bible Studies, family devotions, practice music, practice singing in Japanese, practice reading kid books in Japanese, ask "What's this in Japanese?", paint our nails, play at the park, and give massages! :) I'm sure there are other things we have been doing, but that covers most of them!

In a couple weeks we will be having a follow-up VBS, including an evening Jr. High session. The Winters explained to me that it is extremely difficult to get the teens to come to any events or even to church because they are so busy! I can see that they are! They are constantly riding their bikes or walking by our house in uniforms on their way to some sort of sport practice or summer group! Pray that many teens would come to the Jr. High VBS in spite of the conflict with all their activities!

Praise the Lord for the salvation of two ladies within a week! Midori and Nami trusted the Lord Jesus Christ to be their Savior! We are thrilled to see them understand the Gospel and pray that others would soon follow their example and be baptized and added to the church!

The Lord is GOOD and greatly to be praised! Praise ye the Lord!

Killer......MONKEYS?!

Here are some more pictures of our touring days! Monkey Mountain and the jigoku pictures are from our touring day on Friday! The first few pictures are from touring on Tuesday.

The Japan Sea

The youth on the team, all wearing our sunglasses! :)

Jonah - making faces on the bus!

Noah, holding up the Nagasaki statue!

 On Friday, we travelled to visit a Monkey Mountain and Hell... yes, that is what it translates to. Hell's is a group of hot springs called "Jigoku" in Japanese. Jigoku is the Japanese word for hell, and the hot  springs were named that because it is thought that the hot springs are as hot as hell.

I was slightly... concerned at the thoughts of walking in the midst of a bunch of hungry wild monkeys, but everyone reassured me that it was perfectly safe... as long as I didn't look the monkeys in the eye! Oh, what a comforting thought!
It turned out to be perfectly safe, and the monkeys were quite tame as they sat around picking bugs off of each other and lazily relaxing in the shade. All the references to killer monkeys and monkeys attacking are simply a narrative of my imaginations! :) It was a really unique and exciting experience though!

There it is... Monkey Mountain!!!

Roughly translated, this sign says, "Do not make eye contact with the monkeys or they will attack you! They may look cute and cuddly, but don't be fooled by their big eyes and adorable antics, these guys are killers!" :)

Courageously making our way to the monkey area...

I wasn't fooled by their innocent gazes!

AGH! Not the big eyes!!!

Feeding time!

Then it started to rain!

Notice the swastika... they did not originate in World War II, they have roots in Buddhism and other Asian religions.

Well, that's all I have time for now... I will post pictures of the jigoku soon! I still have a lot of catching up to do, but I will catch up soon! :)
God Bless!

International Exchange Day!

Saturday

Sorry I'm jumping around a little bit in the account of our Mission Trip! On Saturday we split up into groups and handed out church flyers and flyers inviting kids to the International Day and the Summer Splash. It was hot and humid so we were sweaty, but overall had a good time!

Chelsea, Jena, and Kayla handing out flyers in Otsukadai (a little neighborhood) 

One of the skinny streets here.

Ready for lunch at the church!

Thankfully, we had chopstick lessons before we came! We certainly used those skills! Thank you, David for teaching us! :)

A delicious lunch and friendly fellowship!

The intersection near the church was flooded! Thankfully we did not get stuck out in the rain when we were distributing flyers!

Sunday

I did not get any pictures of our first Sunday because I was at the piano for both services, but it was a great day! The team did the skit on showing Christ-like love and sang a special. Pastor preached Jesus Christ and Mr. Winters translated into Japanese. I forgot to explain that we have two services on Sundays, the morning one is all Japanese, while the afternoon service is all English. The goal of the English service is to reach unsaved foreigners in the area.

Monday

Finally, we arrive at Monday's events! We all travelled to the Community Center in shifts. We thought the doors didn't open until 9:00am and we knew people would be arriving as soon as 9:15, so we were worried we wouldn't have enough time to set up, but, thanks to the Lord, the doors opened sooner, and we had plenty of time to get ready! That was a special blessing from God!

I don't remember the exact number, but I believe there were around 30 kids at the International Event! We played games with the kids and tried to teach them to sing Jesus Loves Me in English. There was no piano in the room, but thankfully, Mr. Winters guitar (which had been sitting in storage for a few years) was in working condition and was able to be tuned and played at the event. I played guitar and sang with the team our infamous "Smile Song" (It became much more well known to all of us after we sang it about 10 times throughout the course of the VBS and church services! Well, it's a good song, it went a long way, though I'm sure none of us are minding the break from it!). The Lord gave me the grace to share (and act out) the story of "The Good Samaritan" from the Bible. I tried to speak slowly, and use motions to help the children understand as much as possible, though it was in English. Also, I used pictures from a little book that illustrates a few Bible Stories. We also played with the parachute! That was a big hit! The kids really loved doing the mushroom! (I love doing it too!!)

Playing "Seated" Volleyball, while waiting for the rest of the kids to come

I think he is explaining a game... not quite sure!

Precious Children!!!

I love this tradition! It's so fun to be barefoot!

Saying good bye and inviting the kids to Summer Splash! What a wonderful day that was!

Touring Kyushu!

On Tuesday we (The Winters, Wyatts, Mission Team, and a few Japanese friends) rented a bus and traveled to see Kuratsu Castle, an old, rebuilt, historic castle now turned into a museum. 

A model of the castle.

View from a window in the Castle.

The best picture I could get of Kuratsu Castle from below.

 After touring the castle, we traveled to Arita; a city known for it's pottery. We had lunch at a Japanese buffet... of course it was Japanese... I'm in Japan... Anyway, after lunch, we shopped in the pottery stores! They had some beautiful pottery, mostly all hand-made!

After Arita, we went to Nagasaki. We walked around the Peace Park, where this statue is, and toured the museum at another nearby location where the bomb was actually dropped. I heard a few different stories, but I believe the arm pointing up signifies the threat of nuclear weapons, while the outstretched arm signifies peace. (Don't quote me on that one though because I could be wrong!) The way he is sitting means something as well, but I'm not sure what, so I won't even guess!

The exact location of where the atomic bomb was dropped. It exploded 500km above this location.

A picture in the museum of devastation after the bombing in Hiroshima.

 What I have seen thus far of Kyushu is lush glorious landscape! These pictures were captured on the bus ride home from Nagasaki. Some credit must be given to Chelsea who sacrificed her own comfort and safety in order to allow me to get these amazing images! (She let me sit on her so I could get at just the right angle!)

Somehow I accidentally skipped our International Exchange day, which was on Monday. That will be my next blog post! Until then, thank you for your prayers, they are needed and appreciated!

Christ's Servant,
Jordan

Konichiwa!

Konichiwa is Hello in Japanese!
So much has happened since my last blog post! The mission team left this past Tuesday at 5:00am. They are all now safely home, and I have been settling into life here in the Winters home! I will try to give a quick summary of all the wonderful adventures we had while the mission team was here!

On our way to New York for our flight to Tokyo!

Our travels here to Japan went extremely smoothly! On our flight from New York to Tokyo there were many empty seats! I had an empty seat to my left with a kind quiet lady in the window seat. Jena was across the isle from me, and we had fun laughing at the plane food and making friendship bracelets in the dark! The other teens were about 3 rows in front of me, and Pastor and Mrs. Peragallo were in the row in front of me, with an extra seat in between them! The flight went very smoothly and it was actually relaxing for me! I studied my Bible lessons for the VBS, journaled, made many bracelets, watched "Up" and "Ratatouille," tried to sleep for about 30 minutes, and ate. They fed us one snack, two meals, and one "lunch" type meal. Jena and I were stuffed by the end of the flight!

Flying up over Canada towards Japan!

The Team - Safely in Japan, ready to sleep!

On Thursday evening, our first day here in Japan, we went to a Hawks baseball game. It was raining, and it was an adventure getting to the stadium, because we had forgotten umbrellas so Mr. Winters ran to a convenience store and bought some. We were all a bit tired and droopy at the game, but we all enjoyed it!

The opponent's cheering section!

Release of the balloons in the seventh inning!

The cheering squad for the opponent's team was really into their cheering! They had all sorts of songs, cheers, hand motions, and chants. It was quite distracting from the game, but very entertaining! The drums and trumpets backed them up, and there were a few flag wavers as well. We couldn't stay until the end of the game, and I don't remember who ended up winning, but it was a fun and new experience!

We are off to ride our bikes and get ice cream (well, I'm getting sherbet)! I'll write more soon!
God Bless!

New York to Tokyo

Tomorrow we leave for Japan!!! Our first flight is from New York to Tokyo! Then we will take a short flight down to Fukuoka. It is hard to convince myself that I am really going. I'm sure it will all begin to sink in as I leave my family tomorrow and board my 13 hour flight to Tokyo! Can you believe that I can fly to the opposite side of the world in just 13 hours?! That is amazing to me!

I spent most of yesterday packing. Yes, I know... Why did it take me so long to pack? I kept asking myself that, and I concluded that it is because I am leaving for so long, that I am trying to think of everything I might need, while still bring the least amount possible!

I said goodbye to some of my church family this Sunday, but did not get to see everyone. :( I will miss my dear church, but I know I need to go where God calls me! On Sunday, our song leader chose the hymn "Follow, Follow, I will Follow Jesus." I thought that was very appropriate! The chorus says, "Anywhere, everywhere, I will follow on... Anywhere He leads me I will follow on." I feel that way. The Lord has lead me to go to Japan, and I will follow, ANYWHERE! Even though I'm scared and feel unqualified, I'm able to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ! I have been meditating on Deuteronomy 31:8 "And the Lord, He it is that doth go before thee; He will be with thee, He will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed."

Jesus is already there, and He already knows what I will go through, and He promises to be with me, to never leave me, and to never fail me! I am simply commanded to FEAR NOT neither be dismayed. Yes, simply trust.

I was greatly encouraged yesterday by a call from a dear sweet lady I go to church with. She called to tell me she was praying for me, but also to ask if I had a "life verse" so she could pray that for me! She encouraged my heart, and lifted my spirits! Thank you!

Pray for safe travels for us tomorrow, and pray that we would be a radiant example and testimony of God's excellence and love everywhere we go! I am praying that we will have opportunities to tell people what God has done for us as we travel.

Joshua 1:9 Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.

Christ's Follower,
Jordan :)

Scrambling and Clinging!

Right now I have a headache from thinking about all the things I am trying to do before I leave for Japan in just under 3 weeks! I'm sorry that I have already not been very faithful to blogging! :( All I have time for now is a quick update:

The team of 5 young people (including me) has been preparing for serving in Japan. We are practicing songs to sing for special music at church, practicing running games with the kids at church on Wednesday nights, preparing Bible lessons, doing fundraisers, praying, and learning to work as a team! 

I have been so blessed by the donations of friends and family! Thank you for your prayers, oh, how I need them! 

I am clinging to these verses as I scramble around, preparing for my trip: 

Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.

It is so easy for me to trust in myself, and depend on my own wisdom, skill, experience, ideas, and knowledge, but God wants me to simply put my trust (yes, all of it!) in the Lord. Trust is such a difficult concept to put into action, because it usually requires a letting go of something that makes me feel secure, such as my own intellect. As I prepare for this trip, my goal is to learn to trust God by letting go of my expectations and ideas of "how things should be," replacing that with a firm, whole-hearted belief that God is able to do "exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us,"(Eph. 3:20). Can I trust the God who created the entire world, set it in motion, and gives me each breath I breathe? Oh Yes, whole-heartedly, by His Grace!

Christ's Servant,

Jordan :)

"My prayer today is that others would see

More of Christ and less of me..." ~Jo