Brief rundown on the last few days

It's Friday night, around 10 pm. Due to the schedule we've kept over the past few days I've been unable to make any entries for the blog. So let me try to catch up on all that's happened over the last few days.

We continued at SYME in Karuizawa on Tuesday and Wednesday. On Tuesday, we attended classes all day with the SYME students. It was very helpful to experience their schedule. It has given us a much better feel for what and how they are learning both English and Christian discipleship.

On Wednesday, I preached for the mid-day chapel service on how to "do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus" as we are commanded in Colossians 3:17. The students were very attentive and appreciative. I have included this lesson as the blog entry just before this one. To access it, just continue to scroll down.

We traveled back to Tokyo Wednesday afternoon, arriving at our hotel around 9:30 pm. Then, on Thursday, we attended the BMM field Bible Conference in Joe Mita's church in Iwatski. Dr. Tomioka, a Japanese-national missionary to Bangladesh, was the featured speaker. Dr. Tomioka is both a surgeon and church planter. We gave greetings to everyone from our church; of course, all of them send their greetings back as well. Many of them asked specifically for the chi alpha students and adult sponsors whom they knew from last year's ministry. We arrive back at the hotel late Thursday night.

Today was our first free day. We took trains to the southwest side of Tokyo to see what is called "The Daibutsu." It is a giant Bhuddha statue. We'll show some pictures of it when we return. It is located in an area where there are numerous temples. What amazed us the most is how crowded this area was, especially with young students who were making a kind of spiritual trek to each temple. It is so incredibly sad to see these students and older people alike praying to a piece of metal or stone. By the way, if you pay about 30 cents, you can walk up into The Daibutsu and look out a window. Elliott asked with the sound of indignation in his voice, "Why do these people think this is god since they can climb up inside it!"

As heartbreaking as it was to see the hold Buddhism has on this nation, today was a very productive day as far as us being able to distribute tracts and share with others about Jesus.

Finally, tomorrow we will have a very long day. We start early, going to visit the Pastor from the Tama church. Later in the day, we will meet up with a friend of mine from graduate school at WMU. We are planning to take him with us to attend a Saturday night service at Tokyo Baptist Church.

One more thing--since we have been able to accomplish all of our goals for the trip, we will be able to return home two days early. We changed our flights to Sunday, June 15. Lord willing, we will arrive home on Sunday night, around 10 pm Indy time.