Speech Day

Friday was our big Speech Day! It was the culmination of all we learned the first half of language school. We wrote, memorized and shared our speeches with our fellow classmates, friends, supervisors, Japanese pastors, and parishioners. It was a bit intimidating to be publicly speaking Japanese in front of so many Japanese people, but it was a lot of fun and, as is custom in Japan, we had a party afterwards and ate a lot of great food! I can't believe we are halfway through language school and how much information we've covered. I feel pretty good about my ability to use the grammar that I've learned, but the vast amount of vocabulary is definitely my "Goliath" right now.

I am so glad to be studying language now and for the place it will play in enabling me to build relationships with Japanese people. And although we are currently "on break", there are ample opportunities for study and practice; our home stays in Niigata, for instance. And also then many Christmas gatherings and parties with both language schools and churches.

We went to one such Christmas party last night with a church young adult group (called youth group) and I met a young woman who is excited about being baptized next week. Her husband is looking for a new job where he will not have to work so many hours (the work expectations are very different in Japan) so that he can spend more time with his wife. In this culture, a husbands workload puts a considerable amount of strain on marital relationships and families. It is not at all uncommon for children to only see their fathers on the weekend. I met one man on the train who said he sees his children about one weekend a month. The families are not "broken" in the sense of divorce as we know it in the states, but the time families have together appears the same. That's why what this man, Sugi, had said struck me so strongly. It is his wife, Lisa, who is to be baptized. What a powerful witness this young couple is to the people around them- both inside and outside of the church.