The Tortoise and the Hare

Hello once again!

Wow… I think this week consisted of many:

·     Oh my gosh, what time is it?!

·     What day is it?!

·     Is it really _______ already?!

·     That was this week?!

·     It’s not even 10 AM?!

·     What?! It’s 3 AM already?!!

·     “Kevin, can you do this?” (4 people talking to me at the same time)

The list goes on…

Some days I feel like the “Tortoise”, crawling slowly and getting things done in a very procrastinating manner, but there are days where I feel like the “Hare” that is going warp speed trying to do all these things at once in span of 5 minutes. I think back to this past week and I cannot believe that I did all those things/events this week. I really feel like it has been 2 months since I’ve done these things.

It’s been quite a tough, fun, slow, fast, long, tiring, enjoyable week. There were many things that I have seen that are not usually in those pictures we normally see about Japan. Like these…

Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera on me when I went through the areas where it does not look like this.... Maybe my next post I will put it up and show you all. 

This week I have been able to talk with people I don’t normally talk to as much, so that was good for me. One was a girl named Shoko (the one looking at the camera)

Shoko Hatta:

This girl is actually exactly one day younger than me. Haha. She also has a passion for worship and singing in the Gospel Choir. She is still a fairly new Christian, but indeed growing more and more. I just had a chance to talk with her (with Mimi, fluent in Japanese) and she was asking some good (but hard) questions about Christianity and God. It’s good that she is at least asking and wanting to learn more about God. There are times when she messes up, but she isn’t afraid to come back to God even after she messes up. That is what I am most impressed about her. Hopefully she can continue growing and eventually be a strong leader here at J-House!!

As I was finally starting to get used to my responsibilities here as a Jesus Soldier, I just received several more bigger responsibilities. One of them is being a “Set-up” leader/director. I did this at CUMC, but it is much harder when things are written and spoken to me in Japanese. Knowing Pastor Katsuya, he likes to do things all of a sudden a lot, so for me to be able to react quickly to that, I need to know Japanese. It is very stressful for me because I want to do a good job in it, because I know how to do it, but it is frustrating that I can’t do it comfortably and quickly as I would like to. My body is getting tired and my heart is wanting to do things better, but I have limits and I can’t do everything right all the time. I need to constantly remind myself that I will be here for 10 more months, I don’t have to do everything, I don’t have to talk to everyone before they go home on Sunday, I need to slow down. It is ironic that I need to slow down, because everything feels so slow already. I guess that is just my working mentality…

Keep praying for J-House and Japan!!