November Newsletter

Seasons
Keith and Celia Olson
Newsletter #34
November 30, 2016

Newly completed bar counter at Matsu House!

Dear Friends and Family,

Greetings from snow-covered Ishikari. The snow came early this year, and we are still trying to prepare our garden and house for winter. Keith has been busy plastic-wrapping windows to conserve energy and researching the least-stinky kerosene heater for use in our bedroom. We hope to get the first floor rooms completed in time for welcoming friends for Christmas meals and other holiday gatherings.

Meanwhile, Celia has been practicing the fourth Bach cello suite for her Christmas Day concert at Wakaba Church. Sambi Reihai (our informal afternoon worship service with music and scripture readings) stopped while we were on home assignment, but we hope that this Christmas “concert,” which will involve participation from many church members and include some of the same elements as Sambi Reihai, will be a step towards getting it started again.
***

Prayer Points

• Christmas events at Wakaba include women’s Christmas tea (Dec 3), children’s Christmas party (Dec 11), Celia’s small group Christmas tea (Dec 17), youth Christmas party (Dec 23), Christmas Eve worship, and Christmas Day worship, lunch and Celia’s concert. Please pray for those who will invite friends and family. Please pray also for us, as we hope to have friends over for meals; pray for wisdom for whom to invite and when.
• Please pray for first floor house reforms to be done in time for Christmas hospitality.
• Keith’s small group is hoping to start “Kodomo no shokudo,” a ministry in which they hope to occasionally provide supper for children in our community whose parents work late. Please pray for a clear vision for how to get started and what they hope to accomplish.
• Please pray for more energy. We have been feeling tired and unproductive, which is discouraging. Please pray for us to depend on God’s strength, not our own, and to get enough rest.
• A number of our friends are facing serious health issues. In particular, please pray for David Ferguson (OMF Japan field director, blood cancer), SL (our close friend and OMF colleague, recently diagnosed with type 1 diabetes), and KS (Wakaba church member, cancer).
• Please pray for our ongoing preparations for teaching at HBI (Keith) and arts ministry (Celia). Please also pray for Keith’s safe travel to and from HBI classes (in winter, the trip takes about an hour each way on icy roads).

***

Decisions, Decisions
In the process of discussing our second term ministry with our pastor and with OMF leadership in September and October, we discovered that it would be impossible to continue in all the ministries we were involved in during our first term. We therefore decided that we would continue training small group leaders (and take part in each of our groups’ activities), preaching (mostly Keith), and worship leading. Celia plans to start a small Bible study group for the benefit of a new Christian, with hopes that the members of this group will become more confident in their faith and that perhaps they would be able to lead Bible studies with seekers in the future. Keith has started auditing classes at Hokkaido Bible Institute (HBI), where he will teach, and Celia is in the visioning stage for her new arts ministry. Thus we decided to step back from youth ministry for the time being, since we already had many other things on our plate.
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Preparing to Teach at Hokkaido Bible Institute
I (Keith) have been studying Japanese for 7 years, and some of my well-meaning Japanese friends have hinted that my Japanese level must be somewhere around a 7-year-old’s. Using this logic, when I turn 8 in Japanese next year, I will start teaching Isaiah to graduate level students. Now imagine a third grader walk to the front of a class of pastors in training, call everyone to order, and open his briefcase to take out his class notes. Give that third grader a beard and tweed jacket, and that is not entirely unlike the position in which I imagine myself to be in one year’s time.

Keith's first day auditing classes at HBI

As intimidating as it feels to teach Isaiah in Japanese, I am equally excited to see how God has been equipping me for it, and likewise, excited to see how this next year will unfold as I brush up my Hebrew and Greek (among other things) by taking classes at HBI. Since coming to Japan, reading the Bible with Japanese people has always been one of my greatest joys. This passion is perhaps the main way God has guided me to this position at HBI.

As I look back on my life before Japan, another piece that has fallen into place is my desire to teach. In college, I took several teaching classes (before I escaped via music degree); I’ve enjoyed many teaching assistant positions and tutoring jobs along the way; and during seminary I even started to pursue various Bible teaching positions at private schools. I have found that if I really want to own what I have learned for myself, I must teach it, and even while teaching, I learn with the students and come to a deeper understanding. Basically, I teach in order to be a better learner.

And finally, a passion I have that connects a core value of OMF with HBI, is to see churches planted in areas where there is no church, especially in towns and cities of rural Japan. During our camping vacation in September, Celia and I experienced first hand what it is like to attend church in rural Japan. After much searching, we found that the closest church to our campground was over an hour away by car in Bihoro, and we passed several towns to get there. The closest town, Teshikaga (population 8,680), had a church a number of years ago, but it since closed.

Even now, our friends at the church plant in Nayoro (population 30,920), where I preached and Celia played a concert in 2014, have been waiting several years for a full-time Japanese pastor or evangelist to partner with them. At the same time, churches without pastors are increasing as the church, with the rest of Japan, ages. In order to see more church plants, we need to see more pastors trained to fill the vacuum of pastorless churches and unchurched towns, and to fulfill the role of the Japanese church in global missions in those ways in which the Japanese church is uniquely gifted.
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HBI Quick Facts

• Started in 1964.
• Has a three-pronged approach to Bible training: study, life, and service, which is reflected in their motto, which, roughly translated is "Know Christ in order to serve the church, the world, and this generation." (Sounds cooler in Japanese.)
• Has around 15 full time students as well as other attendees. Right now, we are praying for 5 new students to start next year in April. 
• Offers a 1 year “Believer’s Course” and a 3 year Pastor’s degree.
• If you are interested in supporting the work of HBI, please use this link.

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Matsu House Update
Thanks for praying! Since the last newsletter, Keith finished painting both sides of the bedroom and build bookshelves in the “hallway” between. He also painted part of the roof to enable snow to slide off. Mr. Inoue (Shino’s dad) completed the bar counter in the kitchen, which Keith coated with finish. Mr. Inoue and Keith then moved on the the next big project: the dining room. Keith stripped the wallpaper, put additional insulation in the floor, enlarged the doorway to the kitchen, and painted the trim, while Mr. Inoue installed wood flooring. They are currently in the middle of applying keisodo (a traditional plaster used for tea rooms) on the walls.

Keith models his new bookshelf (and tweed jacket).

Installing the last strip of flooring in the dining room

First dinner party in the dining room! (Walls yet to be plastered...)

We have discovered that a house that needs work improves our relationship with guys of our acquaintance, since many of them are eager to help us out and work together with Keith. We’re very thankful for helpful friends. Please continue to pray with us as we continue to work towards a home in which we can show God’s love through hospitality.
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Enjoying Hokkaido Autumn
Remember Mr. and Mrs. K who were baptized last year? Guess what? Mr. K is a hiker! God brought us a hiking friend!

Mr. K is in the center, between Keith and Celia. Behind him is Noriko. The others are co-workers and friends.

We also went on an onsen expedition in early November. Thankful for new friends!

Mrs. K is next to Celia. In the background are Noriko, Miki (Takakashi-sensei's daughter) and Mina (Takahashi-sensei's wife)

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Language Corner
The owner of our house left us two tiny electric heaters, which heat tiny spaces in our house through the Hokkaido winter. They came with the added benefit of interesting English.

The box reads: “Mini Fan said, ‘I will give you a petit hot, and clean air.’” Thanks, Mini Fan.

The fan itself also promises that it's a "clean pet" and it includes "air remover." Oh my.
***

Thanks for praying! May God bless you with his presence this Advent.

Love in Christ,
Keith and Celia

Remember me? I'm the grapefruit tree. I'm glad to be in my new home, and not outside... it's cold out there! (I had a haircut.)

Leaning into joy

Today’s coffee was a long time ago. It’s a little too late for coffee now…

I’m sitting in our kotatsu, serenaded by the sound of a hand saw--Keith fitting a frame around the newly-enlarged dining room doorway. Now taller-than-Keith friends will not bonk their heads on this doorway, at least. All the other doors… sorry. Yeah… the doors are exactly Keith’s height. I guess this house is a perfect fit? In any case, I’m really excited that pretty soon we will have a dining room. Flooring is going in Monday, and at some point later on, we’ll plaster the walls using a traditional Japanese method. (Living in a house that needs a lot of work has been great for our relationships with guys at church, and Shino’s dad, too. We have received much cheerful help. Very thankful.)

This week I had one of those days that confirmed over and over again that we are in the right place. It started as an invitation to go hiking. (We now have hiking friends at church!) We said we would go, if the weather was okay. The leader of the expedition insisted it would be fine. We started asking around at church to see if anyone else wanted to go.

The night before, the weather started to look iffy… so the outing changed to “maybe hiking, but definitely lunch and onsen.” Expedition-leader’s wife (who doesn’t like bugs or cold) decided that if there was onsen, it might be okay to come along. In addition, Takahashi-sensei and his wife and daughter, our friend, Noriko, and our colleague, Aaron would join the group.

The morning started with everyone showing up 10 minutes early to our house, and rushing around trying to get ready. Then we picked up two more people and headed into the mountains to take the scenic route to Jozankei onsen… and oh, Hokkaido, how I love you, especially in the fall. The colors! I never experienced fall colors like this, even when I lived in New England. Mist and early snowfall high on the mountainside, providing a contrast to the orange birch trees and larches and brilliant red maples.

Meanwhile, chatting in the car, I discovered that expedition-leader’s wife played violin and piano in her childhood, loves to sing… and loves Bach. She is a new Christian, and she shared how her understanding and experience of St. Matthew Passion changed when she came to faith. (We’re planning to study the Bible together… Matthew’s Passion narrative is definitely on the reading list!)

First stop: onsen manju! At Jozankei, you can get them fresh and hot… and so delicious! Manju are steamed buns filled with sweet bean paste. The dough is flavored with dark brown sugar.

Then lunch. Noriko figured out where to go and what to eat. I didn’t have to do anything or figure anything out. Lunch buffet at an onsen hotel with some of my favorite comfort foods on the menu. (I have Japanese comfort foods now.) As we talked and ate, snowflakes drifted lazily around the bright yellow birch tree outside the window.

After lunch, onsen. Sleepy, satisfied, happy...

Since we got in the car outside our house, I had been suggesting that we make onsen eggs. At Jozankei onsen, there is a special onsen bath for eggs! I wasn’t entirely sure everyone else was interested in sitting around waiting for eggs to cook… but it turns out they were. While the eggs took a 70 degree (celsius) bath for 15 minutes, we took a walk along the river.

Boys' team sat with the eggs. Girls' team went for a walk.

Looking up the river from a very picturesque suspension bridge

The egg bath was really popular, since it was a holiday.

Eggs are done!

This was dinner.

I can really even explain properly why this particular day was so special. We didn’t even get to go hiking. I guess it was the uninterrupted time with people who are special to me and time to slowly enjoy Hokkaido’s natural beauty. While we were on home assignment, we felt like God was inviting us to “lean in” to frustration and pain and not to brush difficult things aside, but on this particular day, I felt like God’s invitation was to “lean in” to joy and thankfulness, because friends, colorful trees, snow, onsen, Bach, and even onsen eggs, are all gifts from God.

It’s taken more than five and months, but I think I’m finally starting to get back into my groove again.