English Camp Pictures

'Click here' and it will take you to my English Program blog where you can find a video of my English camp from July 23, 2011. Thanks!

Vlog and Pics

Part 1: Vlog...check out the featured video called "Level Up"

Part 2: Pics

Two sundays ago, the church gave me a ukata for being here for 1 year. This is probably the most special gift I've been given, because it represents such a special mile stone in my ministry here. It was perfect timing to get that ukata on sunday too because there just so happened to be a HUGE festival happening downtown. So, a bunch of friends from church went downtown to enjoy the festivities that afternoon.

Each prefecture in Japan has their own special festival in the summer time...I don't really know the best way to describe it other then they are kind of a big deal. Well, this year they decided to have a special festival in Sendai that celebrated all of Tohoku's summer festivals in one place. (The Tohoku region are the 6 most northern prefectures on the Honshu island) So the prefectures represented were, Aomori, Akita, Iwate, Yamagata, Miyagi (where I live) and Fukushima. Here are a few pictures from that day, enjoy!

There was music!

(you can hear a little bit of music in the featured videos)

There were people with awesome hats

I got to wear a bullet train with my friend Hisashi and we got our picture taken with TWO people wearng awesome hats

PHOTO BOMB!

Me and Tomoari dancing at MANY people with awesome hats!...aka Nebuta

(feel free to watch and listen to the music and dance in the featured videos, the action starts at 00:40)

Who did we meet?...Miss Nebuta, representing Aomori's prefecture.

Sendai Samurai...nbd

May to June

Things have been a bit busy around here the past few weeks, so my apologies for taking such a long time to write a new post. Today was the first time that I had a chance to sit down and think about the past month. If you would rather listen to this latest post, you can do so clicking on the "featured video," to watch/listen. Thanks for reading/watching/listening, enjoy!

So much has happened in the time since I’ve been back. Its been hard to sit down, think about and comprehend what has happened the month that I’ve been here, along with the 2 months that I’ve been gone. I haven’t been able to comprehend the changes in people’s lives that needed to be made.

When I came back I really wanted to help out and be involved with the relief effort. At the same time, I was also planning on starting my classes back up and to continue my ministry in the church, because that is and was my main priority. The past month, that's exactly what I’ve been doing. Dedicating all of my time to English and the church. Sometimes I sit back and think, “Man, I wish I could go to the ocean and help.” But, I’m beginning to realize that as much as I’d like to help out hands on cleaning up and building, there is also the need to help in the church. Its important for me to continue doing what I was called here to do. I trust that God will provide the time for me to go to places that were affected by the Tsunami, but for the time being, he has been able to use me in good ways here at the church and the English program.

Unfortunately, we lost 5 students due to busy schedules, or obvious changes in their life. Either they needed to move or they are trying to help family out. It’s sad that I lost 5 students, but at the same time, it could have been much worse. I feel really lucky that I only lost 5. On a happier note, in the past 2 weeks, 3 new students have jointed. It’s been a huge blessing and encouragement to the church and myself. I am looking forward to getting to know them, teach them English and share Gods love with them.

The difficult part about being back is understanding and being sensative with the adult students in regards to what has happened in the past 3 months. I know that they have gone through a lot and I want to be sensitive to that. In my classes now, I’m really tuned into understanding how they are feeling emotionally or physically that day. It adds a new twist because you can’t assume that all the students are going to be in high spirits. There is still a lot of sadness, uncertainty, or people trying to understand why this happened. When they come to class, I am very happy and thankful and blessed that they are spending their last bits of energy (sometimes) with me, learning English.

It’s hard for me to have a real accurate description of what people’s emotional states are. Number one, there is a language barrier, and so they can’t always express exactly how they are feeling. Number two, the area that I live in was very fortunate to have not been affected by the tsunami, and was not damaged to heavily by the earthquake. So, talking with someone from my part of the town would be day and night if I were to talk with someone that lived closer to the ocean. And since I’ve only been here at the church, I haven’t talked with anyone face to face that has lost their home or family members. The way of life in Ayashi is pretty much back to normal. Everyone is back in their daily routines. They can go to the grocery store and get whatever food they want. But there is still that dark cloud lingering in everyone’s mind.

What I hear most from my students is that there are a lot of people that are struggling with anxiety, stress and are overwhelmed with how much that needs to be done. Along with the importance of rebuilding homes, there also needs to be some sort of presence and support to share love and encouragement with the people down there

One of the big differences since I’ve been back is the number of children that are hanging around the church. There were a handful of students that would come for both Saturday school and Sunday school. Once those activities were over, they would leave and go back home. But since I’ve been back, there ahs been a huge change of trend. I think it’s really great! Everyday after school there are always a handful of kids playing in the church grounds. On Saturday, kids sometimes come 2 or 3 hours before Saturday school starts. Saturday school is from 3-5pm, and they often stay until 6. On Sunday morning they will arrive 15 and 30 min. before Sunday school starts. They stay at church during the service, although they don’t listen to the sermon, they instead play outside. Then they go home for lunch and usually return somewhere between 1:30 and 2 and stay till 6. It’s really great to see them feel this sense of safety at the church. We are praying that the children will continue to come and that the words that they hear at Saturday and Sunday school will begin to sink in to their minds and that they can begin to understand the Love of God and hopefully some day get baptized.

The number of children is not overwhelming, but there is a noticeable change of numbers before and after the earthquake. I don’t know if it’s related to the earthquake, or if it’s just a coincidence or what it is. But there has just been consistently many children and new children coming every few weeks or so. Its really exciting to see that growth and we are all praying that it will continue, and that Gods word will stick.

The area where I live had truly been blessed by God, as far as keeping it safe and allowing me to come back to teach and continue my ministry of sharing His love at the church. He has given me a great role that allows me to play and keep in touch with children in this area. Although we cannot communicate through speaking with each other, we can communicate through actions. I will continue to pray, and you can continue to pray that I can keep be a Lantern, allowing Gods light to shine to those who are looking for the light.

Showered With Food

Well, as most of you already know, I have returned to Japan. After being back in Edmonds for 2 months, I was eager to get back. I am so lucky to have great friends and family that made me feel so welcome while I was back; I had a great time. Once I got back, I stepped into the batters box right away and picked up right where I left off. The day after I got back, I got to help out with Saturday school, and then Sunday school the next day. That was a great time, but left my muscles soar for the next 5 days because I literally had a kid hanging on me the whole day, or I was running around playing capture the flag. But, all in all, it felt great to be back.

Tuesday was the start of my first week back. As I woke up on Tuesday morning I got to look ahead to a week of teaching 13 classes, just a weeee bit over whelming; considering I haven’t taught in 2 months. At that point, I was still trying to wrap my mind around that I was back in Japan. Even though I had already planned my lessons, I didn't really want to start class with teaching English. Remember, I haven’t seen any of my students in 2 months, I never said goodbye, and lots has happened that past two months. So, I felt it would be in poor taste if I started teaching without really catching up. This would prove to be easier with my adult classes than my elementary classes…so we played a few more games then usual in my younger classes.

If I were to give the week a score on a scale from 1 to 10, one being the worst week ever and 10 being the best week ever, I would give it a 7. It would be a ten except for the fact that it was a little bit of a tough teaching week, which was to be expected. Everything else in the week was and this past week has been amazing. Pretty much every day since I’ve been back, someone has given me a bag of groceries. I have so much food, I probs don’t need to go shopping for a month or two…not even kidding. Of course its great to get food right, but more then that, its been a little bit overwhelming how welcoming everyone is. This past Sunday we had a welcome back party for me after church. During the lunch, each table thought of a welcome back greeting, dance or song for me. Looking around at all that God has given me, and the people he has put in my life, I am truly blessed. Along with people giving me food, I have been busy accepting people invitations to come over to their house for lunch or dinner. Three different people had me over for some sort of meal, which didn’t seem necessary because I already have food coming out of my ears. But again, it all reminds me of how blessed I am.

I am really looking forward to teaching again, and trying to build this program throughout this year. Due to the earthquake, four students have quit due to relocation. Of course I was a little bummed to hear that they won’t be coming back, but I am happy to know that they are safe. There are 2 new students that will join in June, which I guess just leaves me at -2 from where I was before the earthquake.

More stories to come soon…

Seattle Bound

From the time that the decision for me to leave was made, it was a scramble to figure out how to get me to a safer area. Thanks to Yoko, this hurdle became much more manageable. Yoko is the daughter to Pastor Hisashi and Junko, and she is a travel planner guru. She planned my trip to Korea, and has booked bus rides for me down to Yokohama a few times. This time, the travel arrangements were much more difficult because the transportation picture was very different then the other times she planned for me.

Due to the mass number of people trying to leave, trains not running, and the airport that was damaged by the tsunami, our options of finding a way out were limited. It was around 3:15 when we began to figure out a game plan for the first part of my journey. Our goal was to get me to the west side of Japan. There I would be safe from any earthquakes, but more importantly, it will bring me a safe distance from the radiation. We found an airport in the town of Tsuroka that flew to Haneda International Airport in Tokyo. According to Yoko, flying out of Tokyo would be the best way to go. I really wanted to leave town that night, just incase the radiation got worse. There was a flight leaving Tsuroka at 2pm the next day. Since that was the earliest I could head south, I said I’d take it. We checked the bus schedule and there was a bus leaving Sendai at 4:30. It was time to cram because now it was around 3:30 and I needed to go pack. I ran home and swapped some stuff from my emergency backpack for clothes. I ran back to the church were I quickly said my goodbyes to the Sasaki’s and my 3 friends at church, hopped in a car and headed for downtown.

We were already pushing my luck with this bus because it did not have reserved seating. We were praying that the line would not be too long. If I didn’t get on this bus, I wouldn’t be leaving town tonight. We got there around 4:20, and there were about 20 people in line in front of me. The bus dude seemed to think that there would be enough room for me. When the bus came, I said my last goodbyes to Yoko and Hiromitsu and found my seat. I was now on my way to Yamagata, and then I needed to get off and wait around a couple of hours for another bus that would take me up to Tsuroka. When I got on the bus in Sendai, I had no where I was going to sleep, but Yoko told me she would find a hotel for me to stay at and would email me the info once she had one reserved. While I was in Yamagata waiting for the next bus, I got an email of telling me the hotel that I was going to stay in for the night. Thank God I was able to get a place for the night, because Northern Japan was being hammered by a winter storm. It was -7 degrees centigrade and dumping snow.

Once I got all checked in at the hotel, I hopped online and tried to get in contact with my friend Billy. Billy, if you haven’t heard this sub-story, came out to visit me and was flying into Tokyo at the time of the earthquake. He then was rerouted to Nagoya, and unfortunately, we were unable to meet up. But, that was about to change. We had plans to meet each other at Haneda International Airport, and then figure out how to leave this country. We had heard that the US embassy was flying Americans out of Haneda and Narita international airport to “Asia Safe Zones.” We figured this would be the easiest way to get out. We began figuring out a game plan for the next day when I arrive in Tokyo. We wanted to figure out these US Embassy flights, but we knew that there would be TONS of people and probs TONS of people thinking the same thing as us. Anywho, I eventually went to sleep. I woke up bright and early at 6:00, went up and ate some breakfast and checked out of the Washington hotel (which I thought was a very fitting hotel for me to stay in). Because I didn’t want to get stuck waiting in super long lines, I thought it would be a good idea to get to the airport at 9:00 for my 2:00 flight. When I got there, I realized that it was a super small airport, and getting there that early was pointless, but I went inside to check it. As I was checking in, I noticed that there were 2 seats available on a 9:30 flight. Apparently it was no problem to switch to that flight. So, I called up Billy, told him that I would be in Tokyo at 10:30. And just like that, I was movin’ south.

It was great to finally see Billy, a little ironic that he met me at the airport, but it was good to finally meet up. I guess earlier that morning, Billy heard that the US embassy was flying Americans out to Taipei, Taiwan at 7pm that night, but only out of Narita airport. Since there was noting to loose, we thought we’d shoot for it, being that we had not plan at this point. So we hopped on a bus and traveled an hour and a half east to Narita International airport. Upon arrival, a sea of travelers and long lines met us. It was a bit overwhelming, but not as bad as the news was making it out to be. We looked around for these US Embassy people who were supposedly warring “bright eye catching orange vests.” We couldn’t find these people anywhere, so we started to ask around, but no body seemed to know what we were talking about. At some point we realized that we were wasting time trying to find the embassy people. So instead I started asking different airlines about flights out of the country. I was shocked to hear some of the prices they were asking for a one-way ticket back to America. The most expensive was $7,000. The average price for a one-way ticket was $6,500. It was time to slow down and think. Billy pulled out his computer and started looking at flights on orbits. Billy is another person who is super good at figuring travel stuff out and was able to find a flight on Air Canada that left the next night at 7:30.

Now that we had a way out of Japan, Oh, I should mention that Billy’s return ticket was scheduled to leave 2 hours before this one that I had just bought. We hadn’t really eaten much that day; so we decided to find a place to eat, and then find a hotel. The next morning we came back to the airport and waited around for a long, long time. I had plenty of time to get my family souvenirs, but I was becoming very anxious to just fly out. When I checked in, I found out that this flight was not direct to Vancouver like I originally though, we had to drop down at Osaka first. It wasn’t a big deal, but it just meant that I was going to be waiting around longer, thus delaying my arrival to Vancouver by 3 hours. Luckily I was able to sleep for a lot of the flight, so it went by pretty fast. It was great to finally arrive on North American soil. I was a customs and Immigration agent away from meeting my family. I’m almost home.

I have some sub stories from this main story that I won’t write about, so if you’d like to hear them, you can ask about my last meal in Japan, or Air Canada’s in flight entertainment. The most important part of this story is to see Gods faithfulness through it all. He was with me every step of the way, opened up all of the right doors, and most importantly brought me home safely. Now, not to sound braggy or anything, but as stressful sounding that this trip back may sound, I was not worried any step of the way. There is one reason for that. It was simply, God. I knew that if God wanted me to come back to Seattle, he would get me there. I was able to rely on him to take me every step of the way, so there was no reason for me to worry, or become stressed about what might happen next because I knew and had complete faith in God that he would protect me.

Learning how to live in the peace of God has been the most valuable learning experience of this past year. I have realized that if we listen to God’s voice, and do what he wants us to do, there is no reason at all to get worried. God has a plan for us, and he will bring us to the places that he wants us to be. That is such a great thing, because it is not our problem or our responsibility to know how we will get there. The only thing that we are responsible for is hearing and obeying Gods voice. God will provide everything else.

Radiation Can Create Difficult Decisions

When Wednesday night came to a close, the Sasaki’s and I had a very long decision about how we could use this earthquake to reach out to so many people that needed to feel Gods love and how we could continue to focus our efforts of outreaching to students now that my English classes would be put on hold. We also talked about my future in Japan through this disaster. I shared with them that I would stay and continue to be a support to the church in every way possible. Since I am a healthy able body, they could use my strength if they needed it, and they could also use my light hearted spirit in this time of fear and sadness. I had a new type of excited energy inside of me, ready to continue my service at the Ayashi Church…or so I though.

When I woke up Thursday morning on March 17^th, the US Embassy had put out a report advising US citizens within a 50 mile radius to evacuate the area, or if that was not possible, to stay indoors. I obviously needed to figure out how far away I was. According to Google Earth, the church is 52 miles away from the reactor at question. Great! Right on the fence of safety. If the winds were to blow up north, how much more at risk of being exposed to radiation would I be. It also didn’t help that it was dumping snow, which apparently picks up a lot of radiation.

I went online and started chatting with my dad who supported me in whatever decision made to make. This was great for me to hear because I have a hard time listening when people tell me what they think is best, especially in this situation because no one could understand what was going on around me, or feel the emotions of those around me. All anyone outside of Japan could understand were the frightening images cycling through every news channel.

What people didn’t understand was that we as a church has come together and become a close family. During the week I slept at the church with some friends, ate all 3 meals at the church with the same friends, and played with little kids at the church since they did not have school. Despite all that was going on around us, our church had turned in a place of refuge for children to distract their minds from all the devastation that was happening around us. I loved being apart of this and this was something that I did not want to part from, and it was a side of this disaster that friends and family were not aware of.

With all of that being said, I know that this was a decision that I could not make on my own. It didn’t matter what I decided, my decision would have a huge impact on both parties. If I decided to stay, I know that the hundreds of people praying for me would continue to worry about my health and safety amidst all of this radiation. If I were to leave, I knew that I would be creating a big hole in the church that I’m serving and that many students would have a hard time with my absence. There came to a point where I realized that there was no “right” decision, but there was a best decision. Well then, what’s the best decision?

Back in May upon my decision weather or not to move to Japan I realized that there are two questions that I needed to ask myself. Is this what I want? Or, is this what God wants? It is easy to follow and get what you want, but sometimes it’s not in the best interest for you. I have found great peace in living for God and doing what he wants me to do. If you do what God wants, you can live with the peace of mind that he will protect you and take care of your every need. So far, in the past 8 months God has show me his protection and he has in fact proven that in the past weeks 9.0 earthquake and tsunami. So, I started praying and seeking direction. Now, I did not hear a deep voice in my head saying, “Kris, I want you to go back to Seattle.” Instead, many little pieces started coming together and once enough pieces were put together I could see what God wanted me to do. Now, I could probably write pages and pages about this, but I will try to keep it short to a few things that were reviled to me that afternoon.

Since the time of the earthquake and news of the Fukushima nuclear reactors in some sort of melt down, my inbox was being flooded by friends, parents of friends and extended family encouraging me to come home. At first glance when I read these, I felt touched and overwhelmed by all the thoughts and prayers that were going out to me. I appreciated their concern, but I didn’t want to be persuaded by the wants of other people because that is not what God wanted for me. But on March 17^th, I started thinking about the value of my life and why God has put me here in Japan. I believe that one of the major reasons why I was here in Japan was to be a light in darkness and to share his love through my ability and wantingness to serve and love others. With this new development of being 50 miles away from the reactors, I saw this as a warning for me. I had complete faith that God would keep this church and the people who serve here safe, but this was something that people on the other side of the ocean to understand. This was the main reason why I didn’t want to leave because I knew that God would keep me safe. But then there was the overshadowing thought that if the winds were to change, I could possible be quarantined inside where I would no longer be able to be a light, thus my work would have stopped. I also realized that if anything tragic were to happen to me, many people state side would be affected by my stubbornness to stay.

An idea popped into my mind. It was an idea that would be difficult for me to work out, but I believe this realization came from God. I realized that the thing that was keeping me here in Japan was me, I wanted to be here. Where and what did God want me to do? I believe that he wanted me to go back to Seattle and continue my ministry there, where I could be more effective. God has given me a great story to tell, and my faith has grown so much in the past eight months, I could share my story and encourage others and continue shining Gods light to those who have been praying and supporting me.

Later that day, I sat down with pastor Hisashi and his wife Junko and had a 2 to 3 hour conversation expressing my concerns about staying, but also explained how difficult it would be for me to leave. The understood where I was coming from, and we eventually came to a mutual decision that I would continue to serve the Ayashi Church as a missionary to Seattle until it was safe for me to come back to Japan. This was no easy decision by any means, but the fact that it was what God wanted me to do, made it so much easier to leave.

Getting out was no easy task either. It would be a race against time and weather to get out of there before the possibility of winds changing that could possibly delay me departure from Sendai. But, I had no worries. I believed that God wanted me to come home, and if he wanted me to come home then he would bring me home safely. The Next 48hrs would be an adventure that I will never forget that led me to take 5 buses, stay in 2 hotels, ride on three airplanes and visit 5 airports…but more on that later.

Thanks so much for the prayers!

Easter Japan Earthquake | Saturday, March 12

After a rough nights sleep of waking up to earthquake alarms, my eyes no longer felt heavy. Junko made some tea for me and Isa san, an older church member that also slept at their house. Being that the power was still out and we had no working stove, we kept ourselves entertained by keeping ourselves warm and listening to the news reports. We continued to feel a number of earthquakes, each of us questioning weather or not it would be another big one. When we got the morning newspaper, we were able to see for the first time many of the images of the communities and towns that are not too far from where we are. We continued to realize how blessed we were. Perhaps it was just me, but I could have never imagined seeing that amount of devastation compared to how intact everything is around here. The news had started reporting that they were finding hundreds of bodies here, and hundreds over there. We still couldn’t believe how fortunate we were to have a place to shelter us, and that we were all safe.

Later that morning, one of the Sunday school kids that live near by rode his bike to the church and wanted me to come outside and play with him. It was a beautiful day with the sun shining. I was torn on what to do. I really wanted to keep trying to somehow find Internet or a phone connection to better report my safety to friends and family, but alas, I gave up and played with Kazuki. A couple of friends named Chikara and Josh came out as well and we all played a round of bocci ball.

Later that day, we had our normal church staff meeting because we needed to prepare for out Sunday morning service. We did our normal Saturday cleaning but this time we changed the look of our sanctuary. In order to keep people warm in a cold sanctuary, we brought in a kerosene stove and had the pews horseshoed around our only source of heat. After we accomplished our normal clean up of the church, we stayed a bit longer to clean up the mess that Friday’s earthquake made of the libraries. In our small English library, both bookshelf’s had tipped over, making big piles of books that needed replacing. In the Japanese library, many books fell off the shelf. In our photocopy room, reams of paper had fallen off the shelf making a decent sized mess on the floor. As inconvenient as it was, it by no means compared to the devastation that had happened to many families. I couldn’t help forget how thankful I was to actually be sleeping and eating under a roof, in a bed.

We didn’t think that any children would show up for our weekly Saturday School, but three kids ended up coming, despite the constant earthquakes throughout the day. Along with the 3 children, there were many young adults that help out at the church to entertain them. Eight of us had a blast running around the church playing a Saturday School favorite, Capture the Flag. When 5:00 rolled around, the kids went home and I stood there and reflected on the day, I had so much fun. But a sense of guilt quickly filled its place. I felt terrible for forgetting about those thousands of people that were missing, and people looking for loved ones and people that no longer have a home. But again, I said a prayer of thanksgiving to God for protecting us and giving us so much.

Since it was around dinnertime, Chikara, Tomoari and I were invited to join the Sasaki’s for dinner. Junko had prepared a delicious spaghetti dinner. This time I was not only thankful for food, but also very thankful for being around people that treat me like one of their family and care about me.

After we ate our meal, we all thought that it would be safest to stay in large numbers. So Tomoari and I slept over at Chikara’s apartment. Before we settled in at Chikara’s for the night, we stopped by my apartment to grab some supplies and to stock up as much water as I could. I filled my bathtub and every pot and empty bottle I had, incase of our water being turned off. I also found my big hiking backpack and packed some clean underwear and socks, my ski clothes (the nights have been dipping below freezing), some extra clothes, non perishable food, my passport and anything else that I might need incase of another devastating earthquake. The other guys gave me a hand carrying my bedding up to Chikara’s apartment, and after we made our beds. Since we had all got such little sleep the night before, we quickly fell asleep.