Hi family and friends!
It’s been a few months since our vision trip to Japan and we wanted to show you how the trip went and talk about some things the Lord spoke to us while we were there. In this first newsletter, we want to give more of a general recap of our time and some experiences. But in our next newsletter, we want to go a bit deeper and share some things the Lord put on our hearts while we were there, and explain why we feel called to be missionaries in Japan.
But first, we were able to film some of our experiences so you can get a better glimpse of what we did and the church we partnered with. We created 2 videos below, one “through Lydia’s eyes” and one “through Geoff’s eyes.” They each capture different aspects of our trip so we hope you enjoy watching!
Stumbling Over Ourselves in Japan
The first few weeks of our trip were definitely spent settling in, figuring out our train route, and trying to adapt to the new systems of everyday life in Japan. At first it was a little overwhelming, having to learn many basic things that everyone else already knows and that you feel you should already know too (like how to order at a restaurant, how to use all the toilet buttons, and even how to simply walk down a sidewalk!) And when you do something even slightly wrong or different than everyone else there, suddenly every Japanese head swivels around in your direction in silent judgement. We felt like 2 incompetent people stumbling over themselves several times. However, we knew it was all part of the process of learning a new culture, and we were eventually able to find weekly routines, which helped us feel a little less off balance.
Our Time with Calvary Chapel Abide Osaka
We truly fell in love with Abide Osaka, a body of joyful Christian believers of all nationalities. We really enjoyed jumping into ministry where we could, and getting to know the believers’ unique stories. With our limited knowledge of Japanese, we also tried our best to converse in their language, though we are still at the beginning stages of our comprehension! They were always very gracious and happy to help teach us new phrases here and there.
We were able to attend the different bible studies they had every week and got to serve in childcare every Sunday. What a learning experience that was! Japanese children are raised to be very independent from a young age and so we encountered a few things that we weren’t used to in our American culture. One little kid who was hanging out in the children’s room suddenly got up mid-service, took his backpack, and walked out to take himself to a test he was scheduled for that day! We didn’t know what was happening at first so we thought we had lost a kid under our watch on our very first Sunday haha.
Goodbye for Now
It was such a blessing to be able to go to Osaka, Japan for an extended time and learn more about the culture, make new friends, experience the beautiful church body of CC Abide Osaka, and learn under Pastor Joseph Totsis and his wife Amy. We also enjoyed being with our dear friends Jeff and Alishia Root again who moved to Osaka as missionaries last year during our first trip!
By the time we had to leave Japan, we finally felt like we had gotten used to where we were and were sad to leave Abide. But where we came with many questions, we ended up leaving with such assuring clarity from the Lord. We are excited to move forward in preparing to move to Japan as SGWM missionaries. More on that in the next newsletter!
We hope you enjoyed watching our 2 videos and through them were able to feel a little bit more a part of what’s going on in Osaka. Thank you so much for reading this update from us, we are really blessed to share with you what the Lord is doing in our lives! We are so grateful for your love and support.
Sincerely,
Geoff & Lydia