Flat3D

Hole diggin…

Here is Aaron Ghent, OMF missionary kid and son of Martin and Ruth Ghent, standing in a hole he dug in the snow!

Click to see more!

I say a hole because he in fact dug 2 holes. The one above is the deeper (maybe 6 feet deep!) of the two. Following these excavations he proceeded to tunnel between them, a distance of 3 or 4 metres.

There is a third hole which has an interesting story. Due to the warmer weather the sides of the tunnel and roof were melting away a little. So when Aaron showed me how sturdy the roof was by stamping on it from above, his foot came through… But the skylight was just what the dark tunnel needed!

There is only one question. Why did Aaron make like a mole and dig?
It’s quite simple, because he can.

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:

Narnia

Last Saturday (26th Feb) we went to see a preview of the Narnia movie. We had actively not read the book before going because it was long enough for most of us since we had read it to have a relatively fresh experience from the movie and be able to enjoy it’s presentation etc.

Now before I go any further I must explain that it takes 3 months or so before films make it to Japan due to translation into Japanese, which can’t be done direct like French or something due to the vastly differing structures etc…

So yeah, we saw the preview (4 of us) then read the book during the week then saw the movie on it’s release with a load of people. It was interesting to see how things differ… It’s also interesting to see how things are portrayed by the screenplay. Certain things in movies (obviously) need to be portrayed in a tangible way, such as Edmund’s realisation of his state while in prison through meeting Tumnas etc.
It was also curious, as Sarah here pointed out, that the focus of the movie shifted from Aslan to become more about the family of kids… It almost seemed that Aslan was dying for Edmund alone, which he was of course, but the fact that Edmund was required to fulfill the prophecy and restore the land and through that Aslan was dying for the good of the whole of Narnia (both good and bad, whether they realised it or not).

So yeah, interesting. I wonder if most people here realise what it is all about… Wonderful opportunity all the same!

Better head to bed here and get some sleep. We are handing out fliers at a elementary school tomorrow, then I’m going snowboarding with Kris!