Nyla & Tara - Week 1

It’s been almost a week since the team has left and we are getting into a routine of what’s to come for the next 5 weeks! During the week we spend most of our time with Cindy in her English classes at the church and her English classes at Seiko! The students get the chance to practice their English even more and we get the chance the know them better and build friendships. On Tuesday’s and Friday’s we are at Seiko. We attend chapel and head to class.

This week we had the chance to learn the students names and ask them what they thought of the big group coming. They commented on our height, eye color and thought we were very friendly and we seemed much older than we actually were. We can’t wait to really get to know these students and dive deeper into conversations!

Every Thursday we drive to Koriyama which is an hour to an hour and half away. In Koriyama there is a small church where we help with more English classes. In addition to helping with English classes we get to help clean up the church by painting, pulling weeds, setting a prayer room, etc. We are so excited to see the church come to life even more!

On Friday nights we have a friendship night where people can come and go from the church. We have the sanctuary set up as a prayer room. We have a prayer board, art, building blocks, etc. Each station gives people the chance to pray and worship in different ways! Our first night was this Friday and it turned out to be more than we expected it to be which was so fruitful. We had the chance to watch the Matsutani girls (Ikoi and Kihoy) from church. What we thought would be just a fun night of games it was so much more! The girls asked to pray with us and we ended up spending 2 hours praying and praising. We used all the stations and got the chance to see god work in these girls and see their hearts for him through drawing, praying together, and building things with blocks. It was a beautiful start to our first friendship night and we can’t wait to see what god can do thru it and thru the people of Fukushima.

Saturday was mostly a day of rest and dealing with the mice and one rat! Attempting to get rid of them is a big project and we may have just begun. On Sunday we had church at Izumi and unexpectedly got invited by Ye to a cultural exchange cooking event. We headed there after church and had no idea what to expect. There were a few Japanese students, us, and the rest of the group was Chinese. We all made yoza which is both a Japanese food and a Chinese food just cooked a different way so we made both! Everyone knew what to do while cooking so watched and learned! Surprisingly after eating all together we played American bingo with prizes and bananas for desert at the end! Ye was so kind for taking us and even printed off pictures for us to remember our experience! It was definitely something we won’t forget! 

Prayer Requests:

-Prayers for the students at Seiko. Prayers that they can truly know who god is and who he made them to be-known and loved. That they can root their identity in him and not their accomplishments or how they look. 

-Prayers for the kids at Izumi church whether that is growing them in their faith  or protecting their faith as well. 

-Prayers for the city of Fukushima and the people. 

-Prayers for the church in Koriyama

-Prayers for all 3 of our energy’s throughout the week! 

-Prayers for getting rid of the mice and rat in the house and that we can be intentional listeners to whatever god is teaching us through it! 

Nyla