Our family is leaving tomorrow morning for 4 days to attend a pastor’s conference in Hamamatsu, Japan. Frank Damazio, my senior pastor in Portland, from City Bible Church will be the main speaker! We are very excited to be able to be with and hear from Pastor Frank!
There will about 600 pastors from all over the country. It is by far the largest pastor’s gathering in Japan and if you know Pastor Frank, he is the pastor’s pastor. He is the leader of leaders! He really excels in teaching and ministering to other pastors and leaders. We are believing that this conference will have a national impact on all of the pastors and churches represented!
We are (Hope Church) in charge of all of the administration for the conference so it will be very busy for us, but it will be tons of fun!!
This week was a busy, challenging and a rewarding week. I interpreted for Wagner Leadership Institute Japan. It is an official Bible College that has classes all day on Tuesday to Friday of every 3rd week of the month. I interpreted for two great teachers who were an honor to meet and interpret for: Israel Kim from Virgina, US, who is the Chancellor of WLI Japan. The other person Brian Thomson was from Red Deer, Canada.
One of my core values in life is to always be improving, especially if it relates to my calling. I really do not have much official interpreting experience so I was surprised to be asked to interpret for a Peter Wagner Bible college. Here are some of my highlights and observations:
- I really felt the help of the Holy Spirit.
- There were so many times where I couldn’t think of the word and as I started the sentence I found myself saying the word and finishing the sentence perfectly.
- I had to read quite a bit of the Japanese Bible publicly (not an easy task). This meant I had to quickly turn to various portions of the Bible. There were so many times that I would flip the Bible open to the general area and the pages would literally fall open to the exact page. It happened so many times I always expected it to happen:)
- I was able to test my abilities and I was pleasantly surprised at how well I did. However, there were plenty of times where I made mistakes and was quite embarrassed, so don’t be thinking I am this amazing interpreter:)
- I was officially asked to come back on a monthly basis. Schedule permitting I will most likely be interpreting for them every 3rd week of the month.
- Being a part of training and equipping leaders and pastors in Japan.
- I was able to connect and spend some time with Apostle Israel Kim and Pastor Brian Thomas. This was the first time I met both of them, but we all had mutual friends which made it easy to connect.
- God confirmed various things that I had been thinking and praying about.
- Learned some various methods and practices of how to protect my voice and throat.
- Learned some new Japanese words.
- I got to experience what a typical business man in Tokyo does every day in commuting by train. I had a 1.5 hour commute one way right in the middle of rush hour.
After interpreting for 5 hours each day, 4 days in a row, I was quite tired and actually my throat is still a little sore. However, it was very stretching and a great learning experience. Definitely kept me out of my comfort zone all week. I am not sure if I can say that I am a better interpreter, but I can say that I have more confidence.
I have been asked to interpret for the Wagner Leadership Institute Japan once a month starting this week. It starts tomorrow and goes to Friday. This is a huge privilege and is a major stretch for me, and I am excited to take on the challenge (I am chasing my lion). I am fluent in English and Japanese, but interpreting is a whole another story. I do a decent job, but I am not a professional. I love this kind of opportunity and challenge as it rocks my comfort zone and only improvement can come out of this! Talk about hands on training, bring it on! Here is my daily schedule for the next four days. If you think of me I would appreciate your best prayer!
Day 1
- catch the 8:30am train for an 1hr one way commute
- arrive by train at 9:30am
- Worship at 10am
- 1st session starts at 10:15am
- Four 70 minutes sessions with two 15 minute breaks and one lunch breach.
- return by train during rush hour. probably around 5pm
- arrive home and enjoy my wive’s cooking and spend some time with my family
- prepare for the next day’s sessions
- take a nice long hot bath
- fall asleep
Day 2, 3, & 4–Repeat the process of Day 1:)
I am going to take a real hot bath and hit the sack. I have a great week ahead of me!
Happy New Year! Akemashite Omedeto Gozaimasu!
We are so excited about what God is going to do in 2008! We have definitely started the year off with a bang! Many new ministry opportunities have opened up and the kids are on the final stretch to finish their home schooling year. Celebrating the New Year in Japan has changed our whole perspective on “bringing in the New Year”. No staying quietly at home and watching the ball drop on TV. We began 2008 with a New Year’s Eve service at Hope Church. It was a very relaxed time of worship, testimonies and games. We had a countdown followed by snacks in the lobby; sushi and dried squid were side by side with pizza and birthday cake (Pastor Steven’s birthday is January 1st!). We packed up our sleepy children and went home around 2am.
The following week is one of the biggest holidays in Japan. This is considered time to spend with family. Many Japanese will return to their hometown, visit relatives, or just actually spend time with their immediate family. Many stores as well as clinics, government offices and the post office are closed. The malls however, are still open and the one time we happened to brave the crowds we were very sorry we did. This is one of the busiest times of the year for retailers. This is due largely in part to surprise grab bags. They are sealed bags filled with $30-40 worth of merchandise for the price of $10. You cannot see what you are getting but people line up in advance just to buy these surprise bags! In
Japan, you cannot return items so you are stuck with whatever is in the bag! New Year’s in
Japan is full of surprises!
MINISTRY (by Joel)
We have been so blessed to be a part of Hope Church and learn from their leadership during our 4 months in
Japan.
Christmas Weekend December was a very busy month. Hope Church had two specific evangelistic events: Hope Kids Christmas Party & Christmas Eve at Hope Church. We had 100 children and their parents (nearly 200 altogether) come to Hope Church for games, snacks and a fun gospel story. The majority of attendees were non -Christians invited by church members. A principal of a kindergarten also came and asked if he could use Hope Church for their “graduation ceremony”.
We were privileged to be a part of “Christmas Eve at Hope Church”. It was an evangelistic event with many non Christian friends attending. Kelly and an accomplished violinist in the church performed a mini Christmas concert. I was asked to share a short message of the true meaning of Christmas. Here are some of the highlights:
- Listening to 15 minutes of professional level classical Christmas music performed by the wife of Yours Truly. If you don’t know already, Kelly is one amazing woman fitting right into
Japan!
- Kelly explained in Japanese that they were going to perform a 30 minute song by Bach in 3 minutes! Not only was her Japanese excellent, she got a good laugh out of that one!
- I had fun sharing how Jesus was born in a barn and how our hearts are like a barn….dirty. 2000 years ago Jesus was born in a barn, but today He wants to come into your heart.
- I heard later that at least 2 people decided to be baptized after attending the Christmas Eve event.
- We recently reconnected with a young couple that we met in
Portland. They just so happen to live in our area. They responded to our invitation and attended our Christmas Eve event. It is very rewarding to see some of the seeds that were sown in Portland come to fruition in
Japan! We are thrilled with this relationship and hope to continually develop these relationships.
Baptismal Service at Hope Church
Hope Church had a baptismal service on the last Sunday of 2007. What a great way to end the year!! Baptismal services at Hope Church are very festive. At the end of the Sunday service we took almost an hour to baptize 9 people. We took pictures, heard testimonies, prayed over them, baptized them, worshipped and took more pictures with family and friends. It was quite the celebration and most of us were moved to tears again and again as we witnessed this sacred part of the Great Commission: Go and baptize!
College Ministry
Recently, the church leadership asked us to oversee the college ministry. The college students have been a part of the youth group, but since their needs are so different to Jr. High and High School students, the church leadership felt that it was time to create a College specific group/ministry. We have worked with and have had a burden for college students for quite a few years. We are very excited about this new challenge that has been presented to us. The next few months we will be a transition in developing the college ministry. Stayed tuned to future Newsletters and blogs about what’s happening with Hope Church College Student Ministry (ok, HCCSM is not the name of the group. We are working on a good English word that sounds cool in Japanese and also represents our vision for the college students)
FROM WHERE WE STAND
Elisa–The picture on top is a picture of me & my second cousin. Her name is Elisa too. In the picture she has a similar dress as mine. Yesterday (Monday) for Family day we went bowling. We had a lot of fun. My dad won 1st, my mom 2nd, my brother 3rd and I lost. My first Christmas in Japan was really fun. For Christmas I got a tennis racket, 4 DVD’s. But my favorite present was Wii. My first new year in Japan was so fun! Hope Church had a New Years party. The party started at 9:30 pm. It went to 2 or 3 in the morning. When it was 12am they turned the lights out & every body screamed but I thought my dad was the loudest. He was screaming so loud and running around like crazy!
Joshua–We went bowling on Monday. It was a lot of fun. I got a spare. Afterwards, I went to the game center and played a race car game and a game with a gigantic spider. We were very hungry after that so we went to a restaurant where you sit on the floor and had fried rice and gyoza (potstickers). It was very yummy!
CULTURE CORNER
There are several New Year’s traditions that we have learned. The first is called otoshi dama. Relatives give grandchildren, nieces and nephews, sons and daughters money gifts at New Year’s. We were very surprised when our neighbors knocked on our door and presented two envelopes to Elisa and Joshua. They were so surprised and delighted to receive the gifts. Knowing the Japanese culture, I am sure it was their way of saying thank you to the Christmas cookies we gave them and told them “our kids made these for you”J
Another tradition is the wearing of kimonos at New Year’s. The first Sunday of 2008 we saw many bright and colorful kimonos spread throughout the auditorium. A unique holiday in January is the “Coming of Age Celebration” (seijinshiki). Every young adult who will turn twenty in the coming year celebrates on that particular day. They dress up in traditional dress, and go to a city sponsored ceremony where the mayor will greet them and acknowledge their transition into adulthood. Many reunite with their junior high and high school classmates. Many will go out drinking and will also go to the temple and give offerings. The two girls pictured below wore their kimonos to church where Pastor Steven acknowledged them and prayed over them. This was a much better alternative than going to the local temple.
On a more personal note, I (Kelly) am learning much about Japanese shopping. The cheapest store, Terao, was closed for 5 days during the New Year holiday. I needed to go shopping and so decided to go as soon as it opened after the holiday. When I arrived, there was a line of 10 cars waiting to get into the parking lot. There were at least 50 bicycles and a huge line of people and the store had only been open for 15 minutes. I have never seen so many people crammed into such a small place. You had to wait for a shopping cart and the cashier line stretched from the front of the store to the back!! My friend went to Terao that evening and there was practically nothing left. One learns to go shopping early in the day, no matter the day, if you are shopping at Terao!
GOD’S FAVOR AND PROVISION
God has continued to surprise us with offerings from individual like you. We are living by faith each month convinced that this is where we are supposed to be. As you know, along with the holiday season comes extra expenses, but all of our needs have been provided for. God is so faithful! Don’t forget that your financial and prayer support make it possible for us to be here and you are playing a part in reaching Japan for Christ!!
SIGN OF THE MONTH
(This is an actual water dispenser that we saw at Sizzlers. The jokes and laughs lasted a while on this one.)
Happy New YearJoel, Kelly, Elisa & Joshua Kaylor
One of my favorite books that I read in 2007 was In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day by Mark Batterson. This book was such an encouragement for me as we “chased our lion” to move to Japan. He wrote a manifesto based on the book. Mark Batterson is one of my favorite blogging pastors and he just posted this on his blog so I thought I would pass it on.
Book link
Blog link
Quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. Set God-sized goals. Pursue God-ordained passions. Go after a dream that is destined to fail without divine intervention. Keep asking questions. Keep making mistakes. Keep seeking God. Stop pointing out problems and become part of the solution. Stop repeating the past and start creating the future. Stop playing it safe and start taking risks. Expand your horizons. Accumulate experiences. Enjoy the journey. Find every excuse you can to celebrate everything you can. Live like today is the first day and last day of your life. Don’t let what’s wrong with you keep you from worshiping what’s right with God. Burn sinful bridges. Blaze new trails. Criticize by creating. Worry less about what people think and more about what God thinks. Don’t try to be who you’re not. Be yourself. Laugh at yourself. Quit holding out. Quit holding back. Quit running away.Chase the lion.
2007 was absolutely amazing for us as we made the move to Japan. We responded to God’s leading and timing to move to Japan and so many of you stepped up and supported us with finances and prayer. We would not be here ministering in Japan without your support. We are fulfilling God’s call on our life and you are playing a significant role in reaching Japan, raising Japanese leaders and builing churches here!!!! We can not say thank you enough to all of you!!!!
This was our first New Year in Tokyo. We attended the annual Hope Church New Years Eve Count Down service. It was a great time of reflecting on 2007 and looking forward to 2008. We worshipped, prayed, heard testimonies, exhortations and did a one minute count down! And of course celebrated the New Year with sushi and dried squid!
2008 is going to be the best year we have all experienced. With God everything gets better! With God its a done deal that 2008 is a going to be better. Are we going to partner with Him in making it that way? I have been challenged about three things that I am responsible for making 2008 the best year that I have ever had. My thoughts, my prayers and my actions. Are your thoughts, prayers and actions aligning up with God’s plan for a great year?