September Newsletter

I haven't posted in a while. Now I guess I'll make up for it with one big post... our newsletter! I would have just posted the PDF version, but I didn't want to post our contact info. Let me know if you want a copy, and I'll email you one. Here goes...

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オルソンは日本へ来ました
The Olsons Have Arrived in Japan
Newsletter #1, September 1, 2009

Dear friends,
After living here in Sapporo for a month, we are filled with thankfulness, and we are eager to share our news with you.

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The Daily Grind

We’ve been thinking a lot about what we do every day... since for the past couple of weeks, daily activities have been a major topic of study and conversation in our Japanese classes. In fact, last night’s homework for Kanji class was 300-400 characters on our weekly schedule. Here is a short sample from Celia’s assignment: 私は午前六時におきます。　そして聖書を読みます。　毎朝七時になっとうとげんまいを食べます。 (I get up at 6:00 a.m. After that, I read the Bible. Every morning at 7:00 I eat natto and brown rice.)

We are presently studying 4 days a week. Each day we have 2 sessions of conversation and grammar class and 1 session of Kanji class. We were expecting to find the grammar easy and the conversation difficult, and such has proved to be the case. Celia is dealing with the second language problem, and thus has actually started speaking German in Japanese class. Progress seems slow, but when we look back, we really have come a long way. We can talk to people! We can mostly talk about the weather and our daily activities, but we are gradually adding more vocabulary and conversation topics to our repertoire. Every small gain is exciting.
 

The rest of the day is usually taken up with studying, cooking, grocery shopping, other housework, and occasionally meeting friends for a meal. Amazingly, we still have enough time left over for pleasure reading! Although we currently live upstairs in the same building as the school, Celia has been diligent about making bentos to make sure we are able to eat a healthy lunch. It’s also conveniently packaged to bring downstairs to eat in the student lounge. We usually eat Japanese food, since it’s delicious… and also a lot more economical than eating a lot of imported food. We are starting to think there’s something magical about the soil in Hokkaido. The vegetables are amazing, even out of urban gardens here in Sapporo! Every last bit of empty land is carefully cultivated… or paved.

Celia practices her cello every day. She will be playing frequently in our church, along with Keith on piano, and Celia will play in other churches as requested for worship services and events. Currently the music of choice is Bach and Bach alone, but other music will be added as it is requested.
 
Keith will start teaching English this week on Fridays and Saturdays. This job has some perks: the church holding the English classes recently acquired a pipe organ, and Keith has been invited to play it between classes! “It has manual action!” Keith exclaimed excitedly.
 
Sundays of course we go to church. Since most Japanese are extremely busy during the week, including Saturdays, Sundays tend to be very busy days: church, social engagements, rehearsals, and meetings all happen on Sundays. Monday morning we are exhausted! Our church is small and family oriented. We meet in the living room of a large house. Tony and Pat, our mentors and the pastors of the church, live upstairs. After every service we eat lunch together. This is a great chance for us to practice our Japanese! Many of the other missionaries find the formality of Japanese churches hard to take. We don’t really mind, since we are accustomed to worshipping in a set pattern every week. It’s very helpful to us as foreigners, since it’s easier to follow what’s going on with minimal Japanese. Tony and Pat give us their sermon outlines so we can follow along with the sermon. This is also very helpful, since when we know what to expect, it is much easier to start catching some of the Japanese.
 
Our work is picking up a bit, with more to come when the university starts up again in October, as we will be involved as English conversation partners and in Bible studies and other events. At that point we will drop back to 1 or 2 days a week in language study so we can manage our workload.

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Some Japanese Words

Bento (おべんとう): Japanese boxed lunch. The preparing of bentos (cute or not) is a fine art in Japan, and it is catching on elsewhere in the world.

Gaijin (外人): foreigner. That would be us. This is our excuse for all kinds of mistakes and (unintentional) bad behaviour.

Kanji (漢字): Chinese characters used in Japanese writing. With so many homonyms, Japanese would be incomprehensible without them. By high school graduation, students need to know about 2000 characters, but there are about 80,000 characters total. We’re aiming for those first 2000…

Natto (なっとう): fermented soybeans. They taste (according to Celia) like coffee-flavoured cheese. Westerners typically find natto rather vile, because of the stringy consistency and strong smell. Celia loves it. Keith’s comment: “I don’t like coffee; what makes you think I’d like coffee-flavoured cheese?”

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Feelings of Helplessness
Things aren’t all a bed of roses. Here are some of Keith’s experiences with Japanese language and prayer.

At church last week, we broke into small groups to discuss the sermon and prayer topics. Obviously, the conversation was in Japanese, and in the month I've been here, I have gotten used to not following any Japanese conversation. During the discussion time, however, I felt that I was hindering the intimacy of the group because I had nothing to contribute. Someone spoke after me in my group and said something so moving that it brought tears to another group member's eyes. I have at times felt frustrated at not being able to distinguish face cream from toothpaste at the grocery store, but this was the first time I felt like I was really missing out on something good. It made me question what I am doing here.

Yesterday made me question even more. I have been playing soccer on Fridays at the local recreation center. Usually this is fine because I don't need to say much to kick the ball around. Last night a kid on my team tripped over the ball and landed on his arm hard. When I came up to him I saw that his left arm had a very unnatural dip in the middle. I wanted to tell the staff at the center what happened, call his parents, and send him on his way to the hospital. Basically, I wanted to take charge of the situation, but I did not even know how to tell him not to move his arm. I played soccer with this kid three times already, and I don't even know his name. "What am I doing in Japan? What can I do for this kid?" I asked myself. I can pray, so I did. It may have been the first time that anyone has prayed for him specifically. I can let these situations of toothpaste and broken arms make me question my calling to Japan, or I can let them encourage me to act in ways I normally would not and spur me on to learn the language. When the kid broke his arm, my first instinct was to take charge, and only when this was not in my ability did I pray. Perhaps I have put too much stock in communicating with words; what I really must concentrate on is how I can communicate the love of God in actions.

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Prayer Points

Looking back, we are thankful for…

• Our safe arrival in Japan, on time, and a relatively painless transition to life here
• The guidance of our leaders (Alaric Dunsmore-Rouse and Tony and Pat Schmidt)
• New friendships among the students in the language school and at church
• Our praying and donating friends who enabled us to come to Japan
• Good health, good food, and a chance to rest from all the craziness that surrounded our departure
• Progress in our studies and our work. We are glad to have had some Japanese before becoming more involved in the churches here.
• Evidence of God’s work here; we are excited and thankful to be a part of that.

Looking forward, we are praying for…

• Satsunae Lighthouse Church, where we are attending: our church, which is currently missionary led, is preparing to call a Japanese pastor. This will bring a greater financial burden on this small congregation. In addition, the church will need to make some changes in order to welcome a Japanese pastor—in short, become more Japanese. Change happens slowly in Japanese churches.
• Our language studies: patience, patience, patience! Also, diligence in private study, courage to speak when we are out and about… and to avoid offending people by accidentally saying something impolite. Japanese language has a complex layering of different tiers of politeness. Luckily most Japanese people seem to be very willing to forgive a gaijin who is trying to learn their language.
• Keith, who has been having trouble sleeping. This is not a new problem, but the new environment, with so many interesting things to see and think about, has exacerbated it.
• Celia, whose cello practice sessions have been going very well! Pray for confidence, diligence, and flexibility in preparing for worship services and concerts coming up this fall.
• The people we will be ministering to in our various teaching and musical engagements: that they would come with open hearts, and that in serving them, we would model the love of Christ. (We’re not going to mince words: we are here to tell people about Jesus. We want to convince them, by our words, actions, and prayers, that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. It is our prayer that all of Japan would be saved.)
• The church in Japan: unity in the Body of Christ, faithful living every day of the week, not just Sundays, and the strength to persevere in the face of pressure from society and family
• The Japanese people: that they would find true hope in the One True God. We have already experienced a “delay” on the subway, which is code language for “someone threw him/herself in front of the train.” The economy is in bad shape; in this time of crisis, pray that people would turn to God and not to their pocketbook or even the new government for hope and security. We do also pray for wisdom for the newly elected government to effectively care for the needs of the people, especially the poor.
• Our future: we still are waiting for God's call either to full time ministry in Japan or to something else that he has planned for us. May we see the sign when he gives it, may we have strength to follow it, and may we be patient until it comes.

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Celia’s Cooking Corner
Recipe Contest

I love cooking! Exploring all the new flavours (and enjoying certain familiar flavours for significantly cheaper than in Vancouver) has been quite a thrill. However, now that autumn is upon us, I’m starting to crave the rich soups and stews of my native land… and finding it somewhat difficult to adapt the recipes I’m accustomed to, since some of my standard ingredients are hard to find here.

Thus I solicit your advice. You’ve supported me in prayer, now I ask you to support me with recipes. Whoever sends the best recipe gets some kind of cute Japanese prize! Here are the rules:

1. The recipe must be for soup or stew. That’s what I’m craving. More contests may follow with other themes.
2. The recipe must contain onions. We live in an onion growing region. They are fresh, cheap, and delicious.
3. The recipe must contain a source of protein: the best options here are seafood, pork, and tofu. Beans are also nice, but here they are expensive and limited in variety.
4. Recipes must not require fancy equipment. We are limited to a stove, a tiny oven, a cutting board, a couple of knives, a soup pot, a frying pan, a vegetable slicer (last weekend’s splurge), and some measuring cups.
5. Extra points for economy. We’re on a missionary budget after all…
6. Recipes will lose points for using imported ingredients. Typical Japanese flavours are rice, soy sauce, sesame, rice-based vinegar and alcohol, shiitake mushrooms, vegetables (especially root crops, cabbage, and leeks; no zucchini or beets, to my surprise), and the above-named protein sources. These are cheap and easy to find. Try to avoid: cheese (milk and yogurt are okay), “exotic” herbs and spices (including what you would typically find in Southwestern or Mediterranean cooking… sigh…), lime, peanuts, lentils and other “unusual” legumes, wine (too expensive, and technically we’re not supposed to have any), and regionally specific vegetables (use “hot peppers” instead of “jalapeno peppers,” for example.)

That’s it! Email me if you have questions.

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Engrish of the Month

“To produce music is also in a sense to produce children.”

—Music composition notebook

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We hope you have enjoyed our very first Japan newsletter. Hopefully we will be doing this with some regularity. Until next time, keep praying! Blessings on each of you.

Love,
Keith and Celia