Flat3D

Graduating

About an hour and a half ago I got back from Hakodate. A whole herd of us went up to go to Mary’s (the penultimate Elliot) graduation, going up yesterday on the train (under the tunnel again) and then Aaron and I returned today, Aaron had to be home for 6:30pm to go to the youth group at Itayanagi and I came home to perform general tasks to keep the animal welfare protesters at bay (ie feed the cats and feed and walk the dog). And it’s not that Mary didn’t do a good job ad deserve her graudation or anything, but I kind of think I shouldn’t have gone. I mean I’m not a huge graduation fan (especially when I can’t understand any of the talking, it was translated but into russian, which isn’t much good for me) and it was hugely expensive (moreso that I thought it would be) to go all the way to Hakodate and back. What’s more I was looking forward to the trip to see around the area some as I didn’t really get to see much of the city the last time I was there, but as I had to come home tonight I didn’t have the chance to.
I’m also feeling a bit grumpy due to lack of sleep (Yesterday I had to get up at 5am to take John to the station so that he could go ahead early to help Mary sort out some Visa stuff) and it’s not looking like I am going to get too early a night as I have to wait for Angela to come get her key to her apartment as she came home from her conference a day early…

But beside all that I have been considering the future. Both my future here in Japan before I leave and then what to do afterwards.
This april the Elliots go on Home Assignment and thus I can no longer stay with them. So I am being moved to Itayanagi with the Ghents and yesterday while waiting for the remaining Elliots to come to Itayanagi to get the train I had a chat with Martin Ghent and Kevin Ueta (who arrived on Wednesday) about what we might be doing. The plan is for the church to rent a place in Hirosaki and begin student ministry near to the smaller second university there which would be pretty good I think. The chance to work with Kevin, possibly Micah and some other folk and the chance to live in the city and experience a more long term version of that… But all this hinges on Itayanagi church being able to rent/buy a place in Hirosaki. When I told Laurie she didn’t seem to impressed with the whole thing for reasons she sort of didn’t really fully explain in the Laurie Elliot kind of way. But I figure I am in no place to make overly large judgements regarding this kind of stuff other than pray about it.

And I have also been thinking hard about long term future. What to do when I get home and from there on out. When I came to Japan I did it because I felt God was calling me here, but I really didn’t know what for or what to do. As I have been here I still feel God is calling me to be here (perhaps cos he doesn’t want me just thinking about getting to go home!) but I don’t feel the call to be a missionary. I have thought about it quite a lot and some things appeal to me and others don’t. But in the end thats irrelevant, I need to determine if God is calling me to be one and if he is do it and if not then not do it. At the moment I don’t hear Him calling to missions. So my current thoughts are as to what to do in Japan… and I think the best plan is to come back to learn Japanese to a (at least close to) fluent level that would mean I could actually aim to get a job here. This also however means at least a year back in NI to find and apply for some kind of scholarship programme to get me a visa and some support to come back… And through a lot of suggestions from people I think that time should be spent going to Bible College. As Bruce put it, if you study for 4 years to do a job for 40, surely some full time study should go into what you’ll be doing for eternity! I also think if I was to move to somewhere like Japan where Christianity has a tiny, tiny representation it would be good to have a good solid base of study and teaching to work from.
It also means there will be a bit more time for God to point me in a firm direction

So please pray for me! :cheese_ee: