Japlasian

RIght now is Friday night. In approximately 36 hours I'll be standing in front of a Japanese sized congregation giving my testimony. Normally that's not a problem. Most of the time I don't plan what I'm going to say and just trust for God to give me the words as I open my mouth. That's because most of the time I don't know I'm doing it until five minutes before. But I've known about this one for about three weeks. I'm a procrastinator so of course I'm just writing it now. There's one thing that throws me off about it and makes it harder than any I've done before...it's in Japanese. What a gong show. What a need for God's grace and ability to think like a Japanese.

None of my testimonies end up being real testimonies, as in telling specific time periods in my life or how I became a Christian. I always just end up preaching and throwing random bits of my life in for details. This time is no different. I'm talking about God's love, and apparently his guidance. I didn't plan to, it just happened. I had no idea where to start, not even in English. So I prayed and then started writing and Japanese came out...kind of. Half of it was real Japanese, half of it was Erika-ese. I talk like a two year old, not even. But I guess that's really what God wants from us, to be like children, to have childlike faith. These people on Sunday will definitely be hearing childlike faith because I don't have the vocabulary or sentence structure to talk like an adult. I suppose that's fine with me if it's okay with God.

I finished writing my testimony today and had one of my Japanese friends check it. What a humbling experience. I realized that you can have like a whole language in your head, but nobody else may be able to understand it. (I think it would be fun to make up a language and then teach it to your children; your family could have their own secret code language...might mess them up for their first year of school though...) But that's a little what it felt like. Or like that whole stereotypical situation where you hand in a paper and it comes back bleeding red and has arrows pointing everywhere except in the direction you thought was right. Only about half of my sentences made it through unscathed. But that doesn't really matter. The only thing I hope for is that the message of God's love and guidance will come through. It doesn't matter if they hear all of it or not, just the fact that God loves them individually, and that my life has been changed by God enough to get up there and speak to them about this amazing love I've received...in another language, their language...one I'm definitely not fluent in. But by God's grace He will speak to them through it.

That will be the other challenge though: actually getting it out, reading Japanese in front of a bunch of year-weathered failing ears in a voice that allows them to hear. I need to install a microphone into my voice box. Maybe God will do that for me, if not for just the ten minutes I'm speaking on Sunday.
This is definitely a stretching experience for me, this whole Japan thing is...but it's all an experience I wouldn't trade for the world.
And please pray for the people hearing my God-given words of a child on Sunday.

My Fridge and a Sea Urchin

I'm officially domesticating, but just in the food department. All for Lael. She's here and I decided that maybe she would not like to eat rice and tofu every day, or just whatever happens to come from the deli like I normally do. So I'm finally learning to cook for real. It's an adventure. An adventure that takes a lot of work and thinking, hurts the pride because I'm not so good, but (mostly) tastes good in the end. One day I grilled these Japanese perogies for us. We both decided we liked them better when they were a little burnt (like the first time I had made them) so I tried to do it again. And yes I did succeed in burning them. For real, who TRIES to burn their meals? Apparently I do. But since I got it the way that I was aiming for, does that mean I'm a good cook?
There's so much food in my fridge it's ridiculous. I've never had a full fridge and freezer and shelves like that since I've gotten here. So many choices for every meal. It's like trying to decide what to wear, but I guess trying to decide what you're going to digest. It's wonderful. I opened the fridge yesterday and thought that one of the lights had burnt out because it didn't cast as much light into my dark kitchen as it normally does. Then I realized there was just too much food in the way of the light. What a day.
On a side note, we went for sushi yesterday with Lael and three of my friends. It was amazing; all the food travelled right before your eyes on a conveyor belt and you just had to pick off what you wanted to eat (yes there were desserts on it and yes I did take one). When I grow up and get my own house I'm installing one of those things in my bedroom so I can just sit in bed and all this amazing food travels by, homecooked by my husband who's making everything in the kitchen. No just jokes. But it's a good thought. Of course I ate raw fish, but I also ate weird things too, like jellyfish, crab brain and sea urchin.
Oh speaking of sea urchin...I am convinced that God makes me blurt out Japanese that's wrong, just for the entertainment factor. Absolutely convinced. It's not unusual for me to substitute the right word with any one of hundreds of wrong words. And I normally know these words that I'm trying to say; I think God changes the connection in my brain in the last moment before the word comes out of my mouth. It's definitely right up to that point. Last night we went bowling after the sushi restaurant...and another restaurant.....and we were all saying goodbye and going to our cars. Now, this has never happened to me in my life, and I'm pretty sure I know the difference between when it's light outside and when it's dark outside, but when everyone was saying 'goodnight, goodbye!' I blurt out in a really loud voice, "Good morning!" And I was like, what the heck did I just say...and why did I not say goodnight like everybody else. And we all laughed.
And the sea urchin story. I should maybe tell that one. The Japanese for sea urchin is 'uni'. I have no idea why, but whenever I try to say 'uni' I end up saying 'unchi'...which may or may not mean 'poop'. So there I was sitting at the sushi bar watching those poor little sliced fish and other random sea things sliding by on the conveyor belt, someone brought up the fact I had said I was going to try uni. You only live once right, so I was like, Yeah, I wanna try some uni. But...this is where the story gets horrible. Of course I opened my mouth and out came, I wanna try some unchi! And of course I had to say it in a louder voice than normal so all my friends and everyone around us could hear, and of course the sushi man was standing right in front of me. So again, I was the entertainment of the night at my expense. In my defense, driving home last night, my one friend told me that uni and unchi look the same. I agree with her...but I shouldn't have had to say it in the restaurant.
Yeah, what can I say, life is a whole lot more interesting when you're trying to live in a different language.

Talk of Battle

I have just become aware again of how important armor is when you're in the middle of a battle. And by battle I mean every day life. And by armor...I'm not sure what I mean because I don't understand it exactly; I don't know what it tangibly looks like or exactly how it works, but I do know that it consists of a belt of truth, breastplate of righteousness, shoes fitted with readiness to share the gospel of peace, a helmet of salvation, a shield of faith, and the sword of the spirit. And what I also know is that it works - but maybe more importantly: you need it.
It almost seems ridiculous or sci-fi to me that we, as humans, are in a war every day of our lives, whether we are awake or sleeping, able to see it or not, or even if we're aware of it or not. Most people aren't. Most people would say that the things that you can see with your eyes are what's real; I'm almost tempted to say that the things you can't see with your eyes are what's real. And these things that you can't see are constantly waged in a battle for your soul, either driven by the God of Love or the Lord of Hate.
In the real world, or the world that we can presently see with our physical eyes, you would be a fool to step onto the battlefield without any sort of weapon or protection; you'd get seriously injured or killed instantly. But often that's what we do as both Christians and non-Christians. The only difference between those that know God and those that don't, on this level, is that we've been told about this war. But the thing that I don't understand is that if we've been given the heads up, why do we numbly read it and go on to the next page, why do we numbly hear it and go on like the way we've been living? We have this advantage but we don't do anything about it.
God told us about this war and he told us about the armor he gives us, the armor that makes it impossible for the enemy to penetrate when we're wearing it. And if God told us obviously it's important. But why don't we listen? It would seem to me that if someone knew of a battle they would do something, anything, to protect themselves and their family. And if it meant putting on armor and fighting, most people would do it.
Even if you're a Christian you're not invincible. Your heart may be saved by God and inhabited by the Holy Spirit at it's very core, but satan is very clever at getting that core to be so enbalmed with sin and darkness to a point that it almost becomes ineffective. That's his goal for our lives, to make us ineffective Christians. And making us ignorant about the spiritual battle and the armor of God is one way he does it, paralyzing our soft heart of flesh with coating upon coating of fear or any other sin is another. We as Christians are not invincible; we need to call out to God for help all the time. Better yet, we need to live every minute of our day with God, covered in the armor he gives, and let him stand there and fight for us whenever we approach anything harmful.
Satan hates us. He hates that we are Christians, and he hates that God loves us. He's doing his best day and night to pull us away from this love and make us unresponsive to it. So of course you're going to have battles and feel the effects of them. It's like riding in a motorboat; when you're moving the boat bounces up and down on the waves as you drive over them. Reversely, if you're not moving at all in the boat, you don't bounce. It's like our lives as Christians; if we're feeling the waves and being bounced up at down it's a good thing - that means we're moving. But if we are not feeling anything, whether it be growth in our relationship with God or opposition from the devil, that's no good; it means we're not going anywhere in our faith and satan is succeeding. When you start to become an effective Christian, loving everyone in your path and sharing God's joy with everyone you see, satan will start to fight you back. He'll fight you back and you better be wearing your armor. Good thing it's free and good thing it's 100% effective. Put it on every day, if not only for the great deal that it is.
But what are you going to do, keep sitting there numbly, or put on your armor and fight?