Dear Friends – It’s 8AM Wednesday morning – our last day in Japan. It seems like we just arrived. As I write, the TV in our room is showing the commemoration of the bombing of Hiroshima sixty-nine years ago. The pain and sorrow in the eyes of the people is very sobering – a reminder of the pain people inflict upon one another. How fortunate we are to have a God who can rescue us from that inhumanity and suffering.
We arrived in Yokohama safely on Monday and were met at the train station by Kumi, Fumi and Tyler from the mission team to Sendai. After a short visit, Kumi and Fumi left us and will stay in Japan to visit family and friends. Tyler joined us to do all the tourist things – shopping and eating. We spent the rest of the day in the area around our hotel – next to the Chinatown district. Seems a little strange to be in Japan and to see so many Chinese restaurants. Yesterday, on Tuesday, we went to Asakusa for the day. It was about 40 minutes away by train and subway. We had to take a detour because of delays on the railway. Thank goodness for Shizuka who was able to get us to Asakusa by an alternate route. After lunch, we split into smaller groups for an afternoon of heavy-duty shopping. Tyler was easily the champion shopper among us. Many of his family and friends will be happy to receive their gifts – they will probably be happy to see Tyler, also.
Today we will check out of the hotel at 10AM, deposit our luggage in a storage locker, and do some final shopping and sightseeing. We’ll go to the Narita airport about 3PM or so until our flight leaves about 7PM. It’s a good thing Shizuka is our mission team co-leader – she keeps track of all these details and gets us everywhere we need to be on time.
Writing to you on this blog is like showing you a handful of photographs of our stay. They fail miserably in expressing all that we’ve experienced here in Japan. And while they give you some images of what we’ve seen and who we’ve encountered, they do not express how our hearts have been touched nor our lives changed. We give great thanks to all of you who supported us financially and with your prayers. And as has been said before, you are here with us in all we do – embedded deep within our hearts. As Paul expressed in his letter to the Thessalonians –“We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers…” This will most likely be my last post from Japan – I will try to post some photos after I return home. God bless you always. Love, Don
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