The Learning Process

Monday, 23rd June, 2008 in Faith
Tags: Christian, Christianity, Dr. Hattori, Faith, hikikomori, Northstar, Northstar Outdoor Adventures, Tokyo

So here it goes. Everything that I have wanted to share, but haven’t over the past six weeks of life in Japan. I am heading into my third month with Northstar Outdoor Adventures, and I can still say that it is cold! Rainy season will last until mid-July. This is not a promising sign that I can stop wearing sweatshirts and rain jackets. If this keeps up I am definitely going to need more sweaters.

I have been busy with my English classes once a week in a local school here. I teach first through ninth graders all with my exceptional Japanese translation skills [that I do not have]. All in all, this usually works out for the better because it allows the students the opportunity to hear more English. I can do much of the explanation that is needed using examples and an adequate amount of charades. I am also especially enjoying the adult English class I work with getting to know my students who are all my superiors - many of them being forty-five years and older. I am even planning to take a trip to climb Fuji-san [Mt. Fuji] with one of my closest friends from the class, Ichiro-san. Hopefully, our schedules will allow us to make the trip sometime in August.

Here at Northstar, we are now slowing down from the busy winter. One of our last backcountry camps was an especially fun project lead by the Burton snowboard company. We had a video shoot with young exceptional snowboarders called the Kirara Kids Camp. We started preparing by building some intense jumps for the kids to ride for the shoot. It was a blast! Since I don’t have any snowboarding skills, I was limited to the use of a sled to get myself back down the mountain. I enjoyed the looks everyone gave me heading up the mountain with a blue plastic sled strapped to my pack while everyone with skis and snowboards showed signs of bewilderment for exactly what I was going to use it for. On the last day, I had to try the jumps for myself and got to hit one with my sled. I even made the landing! I was stoked.

This jump was quite terrifying, especially for the kids, since the minimal landing distance was around ten meters [30 ft.].

These kids were unbelievably good snowboarders. Most of them were between 6-14 years old.

It was such a beautiful weekend to be out on the mountain enjoying the snow and the fun.

After this camp, we had a week long camp with an international school. They came for their senior trip to prepare for college and share their last time together as a class before many of them head off to universities in Australia, Europe, Canada, and the US. The kids had a great time learning how to make curry and soba. I had some great conversations with many of the students on our nature hike, and had fun dressing up like a kangaroo. I pray that many of them will be able to connect with believers and other Christian ministries when they head off to college.

Over the past couple of weeks, God has allowed me to have several great experiences getting better acquainted with people here in Japan as well as the Japanese culture. I spent one weekend with a family from my local church, the Miyahara’s. They have three boys who are very energetic. I enjoyed getting to know the Miyahara’s and appreciated being able to stay in a home. My back had a somewhat different opinion after having several kids sit on my shoulders and on my back for two days! I think they had fun. The Miyahara’s also showed me around the Olympic center in Nagano from the 1998 winter Olympics. We had fun sledding on cardboard boxes. I have to say that grass can give nasty carpet burn. Here’s some pics from the weekend.

Here I am with the Olympic torch and the main event stadium in the background.

Mistu and I in front of the Olympic stadium.

I also had the chance to get away from the mountain setting over a weekend to visit Tokyo. I was invited by an American friend [who ironically graduated from Moody Bible Institute] teaching English here in the nearest city, Matsumoto, for the trip. My friend, Luke, had been invited to meet with a psychologist about a social psychological phenomenon known as hikikomori. [Follow the hyperlink to find a full explanation of hikikomori from Wikipedia.] Interestingly enough, this visit was coming just after a young man, seemingly experiencing some of these same symptoms as reported on t.v. news, had run a vehicle into a crowd of people in a busy area of Tokyo killing three and jumped out to stab and kill four more. Sadly, although this young man had a “good” background in which he was raised to be an exceptional student and Japanese by all appearances, no one had helped him deal with the kinds of inner turmoil he was in fact experiencing.

This occasion set the back-drop for our evening conversation with Dr. Hattori and a company of other guests. Little did I know that I was going to get a grand introduction to the history of the modern Japanese “cultic” culture, as Dr. Hattori calls it. We spent an entire evening together, engrossed in all that Dr. Hattori had himself been intensively researching over the past five+ years. Dr. Hattori, who is now a believer because of aspects of American culture that led him to see major differences between his mother country and the western mind, is now a firm believer that his clients are in a prime position in their lives to find Christ and understand a different way of life as understood through the Bible. Over the course of our conversation, Dr. Hattori himself gave many analogies to aspects of American history driven by biblical values that do not exist in Japanese culture. One interesting point I began to recognize was the fact that the Japanese have no example or cultural value of forgiveness. In fact, as I learned that same week, there exists no word for “forgiveness” in the Japanese language. The best sort of translation for this idea is best understood as giving permission to do something or not permitting some sort of behavior. I began to see how for the Japanese, the concept of God’s grace and forgiveness are very difficult to connect with and deeply understand because there is simply no cultural example from which to understand God’s act of sacrifice to save us [His creation] from our sin.

Now, the concept of sin is also a whole different idea for the Japanese as well that I won’t write about at this time, but I just wanted to share a little bit of this that you might take time to reflect a bit about how you appreciate and understand God’s grace in your life as I did after this deeply interesting evening with Dr. Hattori. I can say that because of this I have been more deeply celebrating God’s faithfulness to His children and the depth of His forgiveness. I had just been reading and meditating the week prior on Psalm 32 in which King David shares his joy for God’s willingness to forgive those who confess their sins to Him. In Psalm 32:5 David says, “Then I acknowledged my sin to You and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord’ - and You forgave the guilt of my sin.” We can see from David’s example that in finding forgiveness there is great freedom - freedom from guilt and the heavy burden this brings to our lives. A freedom to live a new life as Paul describes in His letter to the Ephesians. My prayer is that you too can have a deeper appreciation and celebration for the freedom that only Christ brings!

I hope to share more in days and weeks to come about these important facts about Japanese culture. Please keep these in mind and prayer when you think about these islands in the Pacific ocean.

Thanks,
Brad