Japan - A nation in need of Jesus

My other purpose for writting this blog is to bring attention to some of the issues that I see or hear about in Japan. Just as I was inspired and challenged to come to Japan by a number of blogs being written by people living in Japan, I want to also inspire more Young people to come to Japan. Blogs that inspired me:
izumi's blog

daveandnat

Today I came across a sad article about babies being dumped off at a hospital.
The associated press

A least the babies are well cared for. I just find it sad to hear about this stories. This is just one place that recieves babies; It would be interesting to know if this was a big problem.

I found another article from last year;
Japan baby drop box abused

Adventure World

During Golden week our good friends Yuichi and Tomomi took us to Wakayama.

We visited Adventure world. The home of the Panda Bear.

Everyone wants to be a Panda.

Kawai ne. Aren't they cute?

That's not all though. How about a kiss from the camel?

Or a lick from a giraffe?

Many cool animals. It is really amazing to think how creative God is. There are so many peculiar looking animals. God must have had a good time making all these weird animals and then he lets Adam name them. Adam must have been smart. I don't think Charles Darwin was all that smart. How could he think all these creatures came form on singular cell/slime. Sorry he missed the point I think he just couldn't accept that someone smater then him created them all and us.

We were made by a creative God who loves us all immensely.

The Kiss of Aslan

I have been preaching a lot about Grace and I am using a story that Jesus told about a son who asked his father for his inheritance and than the son goes to a far land and spends it all. When he comes to himself he decides to return to the father and ask for forgiveness. The response from the father is amazing. Luke 15:11- 32

Many people would think the father would attack the son with abuse or pull out a samurai sword and hack him to pieces. But the father runs to the son, and hugs and kisses him. Instead of anger the father shows grace. Just like this lion instead of attacking her he kisses her.

God doesn't want to judge and condemn you he wants to kiss you which means to accept you as his son / daughter.

When I preached this at Church I said, "Tonight we are going to focus on the kiss of the father. For you to fully understand this message I need for you to experience a kiss. SO everybody please stand." One girl shot to her feet while every one was looking around nervously. "Is he for real?" Then I said, "jordan desu." (Just kidding.) The pastor said to me, "Japanese are too reserved for that." I replied, "Don't worry I was just kidding." The funniest thing was the girl who jumped up. She really wanted a kiss. lol

Grace that runs to me.

I have been inspired by the story of the prodigal Luke 15. It is a great story from Jesus to the pharisees of why he hangs out with sinners. We can learn so much from this for our own lives and our attitude to reaching lost people with God's grace.

But first we need to experience grace. How do most Christians respond to grace? I have met so many that still feel bad for the things they did many years ago. Or they made a few mistakes through the week and now wonder what does God think of me? Would Jesus want to hang out with me now?

Through this story I see that through Grace, God the father runs to us just like the father did in this story. He hugs us with an embrace that accepts us no matter what we've done. While preparing these messages I came across the free hugs video.

We watched this video in church the night I preached about the hug. I think you need to experience a hug to relate to Grace hugging you.

In Japanese culture hugging is kind of a thing that is not done and is even considered childish. The bow is all about respect but no hugging is carried on in the general culture. I have heard many responses to this but I will write more later.

The night I preached on hugging it was good to see the church embracing each other and showing acceptance to each other.

The grace of God wants to run and embrace you, to give you big bear hug.

Purikura

We had an experience of Purikura (print club) last year with some friends last year. Japanese girls just love them. I remember our home stay from Japan in 2006 had a book full of pictures of herslf and her friends.

We decided to make one of the items that people had to get for Nexus pictures from a purikura machine.

When we planned the night we didn't know that only girls were allowed into the building where all the machines were; unless they were with a girl. This created a problem for my team as we were all boys and they didn't want to go in. I couldn't read the signs so I was wondering what's wrong with these guys. Eventually one of the guys sister came with us while we took our pic's.

Highlights from April

Well for anyone who remembered it was my birthday. I love having a birthday here in Japan. Not sure if it's a Japanese thing or just that our friends and English students here are so thoughtful and caring. Recieved presents, cards and letters so happy birthday. And 4 birthday cakes at different times.

We did a lot of sightseeing with our friend Beccy. See previous post.

April was the first night of nexus for this year. For more info on what we do at Nexus click on the link http://www.nexuskyoto.blogspot.com/

More Sakura pic's

Just thought I'd add some more pic's of Sakura. You can see how beautiful Japan can be.

These pic's are from Kiyomizu dera (Temple)