Friday

Yesterday morning I had my last class with one of my favorite classes (next Friday is technically my last class but we're going to HIrosaki to see the cherry blossoms instead of studying). Before ending the class early to have okonomiyaki we wrote a story together. First we chose words for every letter of the alphabet, then attempted to put every single word into one story that made sense. Yesterday's story was a continuation of last week, where there was a crying baby whose diapers were too small, a mom that was doing too many things to care, and a famous x-ray doctor who came home and told the family they were going on vacation. I thought I would share this week's story because it's hilarious (I think anyways) and we all shed a couple pounds laughing as we made it up.

On Vacation in Okinawa (continuation)
...They sailed on a YACHT and watched the WHALES. In the yacht there was a kitchen UNIT so they could eat ICE CREAM. THey took many PICTURES. The next day they went to the ZOO with the mother's SISTER. They spent a lot of MONEY. The father lost his JACKKNIFE there. When they were looking for it, they saw two men having an ARGUMENT in front of the elephants. They looked like BUSINESSMEN. Their faces were RED. The father said to them, "Have you seen my jackknife? It's my TREASURE."
"No we haven't," they replied, "We were arguing about which is better, CANADA or the United KINGDOM."
Just then they heard a gentle XYLOPHONE sound. A GENTLEMAN came closer to them. He said, "The QUEEN will be coming shortly, please be quiet."
She wore a FLORESCENT dress and was carrying an OCTOPUS, so her HEART was not so NATURAL. She said, "Today is VICTORY Day because I caught an octopus for the first time. I will be doing an EXAMINATION about animals and all of you can take part. Bless our country's DEVELOPMENT."
The End

How's that for a great story? I think it should be published...no just jokes.

Tomorrow is my Farewell Party at the church. We're having a barbeque and then I'll be doing a testimony/ talk about my year in Japan as well as singing a song for them. I just finished writing my speech yesterday.
Every Friday I take the train to Odate, and about twice a month I see the same lady; we've become friends over the year of riding the train together. Yesterday was the last time I would see her, so we went out for coffee in the afternoon. I asked her to help me with my talk by correcting my Japanese. It was actually a brilliant plan on God's part because she heard the gospel (written in my speech) in a way that was just her helping me. And she had to understand what it was about to get the Japanese right. She seemed to get it too, as she kept saying, 'oh, I see!' Also she talks in a pretty loud voice, so I'm pretty sure that everybody in Mr Donuts heard about Jesus that day too too. She got really excited about helping me with my Japanese speech, and even told me where to bow and how to speak where. When we left I gave her a New Testament (which God had prompted me to put in my backpack for her earlier this week), telling her that she could read it not read it, but she'll find out more about Jesus by reading it, whom she had said earlier she knew nothing about.
We'll see how the actual speech goes; you can pray along with me that many other people will see Jesus in it too.

Smiles Come For Free

It's funny how the days where you have nothing planned always seem to fill up unexpectedly. That's what happened to us (Kaila and I) today. I slept over at the church last night so we could watch a movie. (We've discovered how to turn the sanctuary room into our own personal movie theater by moving the alter, taking down the cross, covering the windows, hanging up a big white sheet and hooking Kaila's computer up to the projecter.) So after watching Mr and Mrs Smith, a Kaila who wanted to either dance or go shoot people (spy movies do that to the average civilian), a small mishap with an exploding necklace in the dark, and an almost sleepless night because of the continual rain pounding on the roof, we got a call from our friends wondering if we wanted to go to a dolphin show. After jumping out of bed, converting our personal movie theater back to a sanctuary and having a few fresh cinnimon buns, we were in the car headed for Aomori, a city on the north coast of the main island.
We got back to Takanosu with half an hour to spare before our supper arrangement (only because the Kaneda's were late in picking us up). We had such a feast; I ate more than I have eaten since I can remember (aka Canada) and I still hurt now, about two hours later. There was corn soup, a fruity coleslaw type salad, various kinds of vegetable tempura, special shrimp and mushroom rice, a carrot loaf and mountain vegetables, followed by tea and apple cake, followed by more tea and things like cookies and nuts. Too bad I'm out of season to hibernate because I think I've eaten enough to last for a couple of long winter weeks.
Tomorrow promises to be a busy day as well with going to church in Odate in the morning and Takanosu in the afternoon, followed by a tea time and my last visit to the onsen. I think I have mixed feelings about that one...
It's weird to start thinking about going home, writing a farewell speech and planning all these activities with people as a last hurrah before I leave. It's weird to think that the life I have gotten used to is suddenly going to change again, that what I used to think was normal (Canada) will maybe suddenly not fit and I'll have to find a new normal.
But something I've learned over the last year is that to create a new normal you only need three things: a camera, bible and guitar.
Smiles come for free.

kaeru mitai ne (Looks like I'm coming home)

It's now official: I'm coming home. I now have a flight to get me from my new home back to my old one. I'll be leaving Tokyo on May 5 at 7:00pm (Tokyo Time) and then and after a short stop in Vancouver getting into Saskatoon at 4:39pm the same day. Weird. Like a Time Slip. It'll be like I never got on the plane in the first place, I'll just be home.
And it's great because, mom, I'll be home for supper.
I don't have anything else exciting to write about today, but I just thought you all should know when I'll be coming home so you can plan your schedule in advance. I vote you should come to the airport to maximize my shock at being home again.

Back in Town

I went to Sendai (a city 4 hours away of about 1 million on the east coast of Japan) from Friday to Monday. A couple who teaches english with the same program as me live there and were amazing and hosted me, Kaila, and two others (who teach in Akita City). It was great to get away for a bit, and do things like have real pizza with real pepperoni (for the first time in over a year), walk around downtown Sendai and shop, hear live Mexican entertainment while eating an enchillada, and go to a salon. I hadn't gotten my haircut since the end of August before I got it cut on Sunday; it feels so good to not have split ends anymore. They also had free services like hand massage and pedicure. It was a really good price too, despite having to buy nail polish remover on my way home last night (I just couldn't handle light green sparkly nails with glued on gems any longer...)
I had a shyuji lesson today. One of my students (my oldest one actually, at 75) has been teaching me the art of Japanese calligraphy for a couple of months now. It is way harder than I thought it would be; even though I know the strokes and stroke order with a pencil, it's very hard to make it look nice with a big paintbrush.
It's been one of the ways that God has so greatly blessed me over here. This lady, who is like a grandmother to me, takes me to her house after the english class and feeds me (normally curry rice because she knows it's one of my favorites), and then takes the time to teach me. She told me today that it gives her great joy, that she's so glad to be able to teach me shuji; I was happy to hear that and also expressed my joy to be learning from her...I also told her that I've turned half Japanese, and she just laughed at me.
Maybe I'm not quite Japanese yet, but I definitely do have a heart for them now, for them to know and love God like He wants them to, and I hope they've seen God's heart through me over this past year.