The trip so far. Wow, it’s been a whirlwind.
It seems like a year since we arrived yet its only a little under two weeks until we go back home. We’re nearly half done with what we’ve set out to do, yet we can see so much more work that needs to be done here.
The drama classes with the missionary kids have been wonderful. This week we didn’t just work with TEAM missionary children but also the missionary children of a few other organizations as well including SYME (School of Youth Ministry in English) and also some German missionaries as well. So, some of these MKs are German, Australian, Half Chinese, Half Japanese, and American. It’s truly an international effort.
The main end of working with the missionary children this week was to empower them to use drama as ministry. In particular, we have an opportunity to make this happen tomorrow at noon. The kids have been working hard and one of them is willing to try a paragraph in Japanese for one of our dramas. This was dependent on another helping with the translation. And of course, another MK drew a pictorial representation of Christ crucified.
This conference at Karuizawa is a local gathering of missionaries to this area. As referenced before we have a few different nationalities represented here–Australian, German, Swiss, American, Swedish, and yes, even Japanese. Ironically though, that Japanese isn’t the language we’re struggling to understand here, it’s German.
Anyway, not all of the schedule speakers and presenters were able to make it to the conference in a timely manner so our team was able to fill in the gaps by helping out with the younger children’s program as well. Matt, Charlsie, and Tiffani were pleased to step up to the plate to help out. And Sandy was able to supply vocals for the worship time for most of the week including some special music. And you know me, I was able to throw a few dramatic sketches in at appropriate times in the worship throughout the week with Matt and Tiffani to help out.
I also had the wonderful opportunity to share the vision of CYT with a Japanese pastor here who was able to stay at the retreat center as well. He greatly encouraged me to see this vision through and come to Japan with it.
The weather has been warm, the bugs plentiful, and the company great. I’m getting over my bug bites and really, really looking forward to the TEAM missionary conference where we plan to do a more CYT type of drama day camp.
That’s all for now. Faithfully,
Eric Stapleton