May Prayer Letter

Hi Everyone,

This Sunday the Immanuel Nagoya Church hosted our annual Kids Festival, featuring music, prizes and of course food! 21 kids came, and they all had a great time — and so did the grown-ups. Best of all, 12 of the kids who came were newcomers. Praise God for new connections with the community!

Other than that, the past month I’ve kept busy with Japanese studies, teaching English, and preparations for a short-term mission trip I’m hosting/leading just a few short days from now.

Please pray for my friends Mike and Nick, who are coming here from Canada to travel and do ministry with me for about a week. They’re scheduled to arrive on Tuesday afternoon (May 5), and flying out on Wednesday, May 13. Please pray for safe travel (both to and in Japan), fruitful ministry and for our physical and spiritual strength during this busy time.

Thanks as always for praying!

The Latest

Here is my latest newsletter, in PDF format. Follow the links below to view or download. If you want to print copies for your church, make sure to grab the right version. Below that is a New Year’s video postcard. You can view the YouTube version on the web, or follow the link to download it (in mp4 format) to share in your church. It’s also available on Facebook, for those of you following me over there. Thanks for all your prayers and support!

My Latest Newsletter:

• #10 – New Year’s 2009
• #10 – New Year’s 2009 – Printable (hi-res) Version

And a video:

Download the Video HERE.

Photo of the Week

Nagoya TV Tower, as seen from the bottom level of Oasis 21. I haven’t posted a photo of the tower in a while, and recently found this nice angle to shoot from. So here you go.

November Prayer Letter

Hi everyone,

Is it November already? It’s hard to believe it’s already been 10 months since I came back to Japan!

October was a busy month: In Gifu, the Gospel was preached (I spoke on the story of the Prodigal Son). In Hamamatsu, a church was encouraged (I did a solo and played a part in a short drama) and our church had a great time of learning and fellowship with the people of the Hamamatsu church. I also started a new (level 2) course at the YWCA Japanese Language School here in Nagoya, which is proving to be a big step UP in workload and difficulty — a good challenge but also a bit of an adjustment.

Please continue to pray for my English/Bible student; we haven’t gotten together in a while but I’m trusting that when he’s less busy we’ll get back to studying the Word again. Pray that God will draw him to Himself. Also, please pray for my church as we come to the nearer to end of the year and into a time of planning for the busy holiday ministry season and the coming year’s goals.

I’m sure my fellow Global Partners missionary to Japan, Andrea Swartout, would appreciate your prayers as well. She is currently in the US on home ministries, and is hoping to be back in Japan by the end of the year. Pray that her support comes in. If you want to keep up with her progress, you can check out her blog (http://swartyinjapan.blogspot.com).

Last, but not least, please keep praying for my language studies; pray that I will use my time wisely, stay focused, rely on God’s wisdom, get better at memorizing, and make some real, noticeable progress in the coming months.

I hope this email finds you all well. Thank you as always for your continued prayers and financial support, which have helped me to get this far. Let’s keep dreaming and believing together for the Lord!

- robin

ロビンホワイト

Robin White, Global Partners Missionary to Japan

My To-Not-Do List

First of all, many thanks to all of you who have been praying for me. As I’d predicted, this has been a busy month. School is getting harder and I had a couple of ministry trips, too. Last weekend I was in Gifu city, where I preached on Sunday about the Prodigal Son. It went well, but I’m glad to not have anywhere to rush off to this weekend.

As things get busier with school, though, I’m learning again to become a better time manager. My friend AJ wrote a post on his blog recently about focus that offers some good tips, not the least of which is the idea of a “stop doing” list. We get so focused on organizing and working through our to-do’s sometimes that we miss the fact that there may actually be stuff on the we don’t actually need to do.

For me, right now, learning Japanese has to take top priority. I’ve been having trouble keeping up, and last week one of my teachers sat me down to give me some advice — including the suggestion that should be studying about FIVE HOURS a day! That’s outside of class, meaning about 8 or 9 hours total, in class and out. So, to avoid distractions and stay focused, I’m forced to make my own to-not-do list…

1. I’m going to try not to go online more than once a day. I tried it this week, and did pretty well. If it’s work-related email or research I have to do, that’s one thing, but it’s amazing how we can feel compelled to check email, Facebook, and blogs several times a day. Well, no more, for me anyway. I’ll make an exception for weekends and holidays, but limiting my time online during the week will keep me more focused on more important things.

2. On a related note, I’m limiting my blogging to weekends. You might see stuff show up during the week, but usually it’ll be pre-written on the weekend, unless it’s really pressing (which it never is).

3. I’m going to stop doing the photoblog. For now, at least. I was doing all my pre-loading over there on the weekend, anyway, so it hasn’t been a huge time-sink. But it hasn’t been as fun as I’d hoped and may be a bit redundant, since I can and do post photos here as well. I think the occasional gallery and the weekly photo here is better than the daily photoblog thing, though.

4. I’m going to stop renting movies. I find I have a bad habit of renting something and then never actually getting around to watching it before it’s time to take back anyway. So this’ll save me money too. Plus my computer has run out of region-code switches and has forced my hand; I can watch my Canandian-purchased DVDs but not Japanese ones, without hacking. So my hand is forced.

5. I’m going to stop eating out so much. I tried coming straight home most days this week, instead of eating out and then studying and the coffee shop as I often do, and I had some really productive days. This one hinges on keeping a well-stocked fridge and coffee supply, though.

6. I’m going to not feel obligated to show up at every event. My church has been good about not pressuring me to get overly involved or giving me too responsibility, and letting me focus on my studies. But I’ve stilled tried to be involved and show up as much as I could. As a guy I knew in college once said, though: “Use your skips wisely.” I’m going to that now.

7. The podcast. It’s gotten so little response it’s probably not worth my time. Maybe once in a while, but no promises.

Well, there’s a parade going past the building now, and since it’s Saturday, I think I’ll go out and enjoy it. Have a great weekend, wherever you are.

Another Random Re-Cap

Other than my latest Newsletter, I’ve been pretty quiet on here since coming back from my August Adventures. So I thought I’d take a few minutes and tell you what’s going on and what’s on my mind. So here, in point form, it is:

1. I don’t know if it’s my connection, my computer, my browser or the files themselves — or myself for that matter — but there seems to be something wrong with my Newsletters. Someone told me there were having trouble viewing it, so I checked it out, and I can’t seem to view or download it either. Anyone else having this problem? Let me know if you are. Maybe I need to re-think how I post them.

2. It’s the end of the semester for me, meaning this week and next are heavy on studies and tests. My interview / speaking test is on Friday, and “the big one” (the final exam) is next Thursday, the 18th. If you’re a pray-er, please pray.

3. I’m still planning to post some photos and stuff from the summer. So do check back soon.

4. I have a huge new desk in my room (actually it’s not new, I just swapped my small wooden desks — yes 2 — for this one big one that was being stored elsewhere in the church). It’s one of those big metal kind that are so common here in Japan. I read somewhere that these things first came to Japan with the Allied forces at the end of the World War Two. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I could certainly believe they are of military origin. This thing’s built like tank!

5. Because of the new desk, there’s been lots of re-arranging going on. I moved the desk in on the weekend, and my apartment’s still a mess now. Actually my room looks quite a bit different now, between this and several other little changes over the past several months. I’ll have to post a new video sometime.

6. I’m pretty excited about a few potential opportunities coming my way: First, there are a couple of possible short-term missions teams coming here next year. I’m really hoping at least one of them works out. And, I may have a new cartooning gig coming my way. But that’s about all I can say about either of these things right now. Still, pretty cool. Trust me.

7. I’m planning a dinner party. Hmmm… “Dinner party” makes it sound fancier than it will be, so let’s call it “having some guys over to eat and hang out.” I want to introduce my non-Christian English/Bible student to some of my Japanese Christian friends. It should be a fun time of making connections and planting spiritual seeds.

8. I’m reading the Biography of Hudson Taylor… Wow. I’m pretty early into it but I’m sure I’ll get a lot out of it. He was a man of prayer and a man of action, and I could stand to be a lot more of a man of both.

Eight is enough.

Good night.

New Newsletter and News

My latest newsletter has just been added to the Newsletters page. Check it out to see what I’ve been up to for the past month or so.

In website news, I’ll try to have some new photo albums up soon. There are a lot to sort through and this is a pretty busy week, but we’ll see what I can pull off on the weekend.

Prayers and support are much appreciated! Thanks!

Random Re-Cap

Since I wasn’t around on Friday, and didn’t get anything up on Monday, here’s a re-cap of recent goings-on in my life, along with random thoughts running through my head tonight…

1. Had a great time in Tokyo, hanging out with Zach before and after the meeting I went up there for. Friday night we hit up Tokyo Tower, and Sunday afternoon we visited Yoyogi Park. Yoyogi Park is amazing on Sunday afternoons, with hundreds of people coming and going. There were countless bands and musicians doing their thing. Many of them were awful (it reminded me of round one of American Idol or something) but some of them were pretty good. There were also the famous rockabilly dancers, artists and other freaks. It’s an incredibly creatively-stimulating place. I will have to post some video and photos when I sift through the stuff I shot.

2. The aforementioned meeting (held on Saturday) was all day long and all-Japanese. It was a struggle to sit through at times, I’ll admit. Added to the length and language, most of it didn’t affect me directly. But it was a good learning experience on the Japanese way of doing things. It was also a good look into the youth ministry leadership of the church we work with here in Japan.

3. The downside of the weekend was breaking the lens of my camera, and finding out it will probably cost almost as much to fix as it would be to replace it. Ouch. Any readers know of a good replacement for the kit lens of the Nikon D-50? If I’m going to buy a new one anyway, I may do a little upgrade. And not just because the sales guy at Bic Camera tried to sell me one when we stopped in to check on repair costs. Really.

4. Last Monday’s big test went much better than the previous one. So I’m moving in the right direction. This week I’ve got a kanji reading test on Thursday and a speech contest on Friday — lots of memorizing to do between now and the end of the week.

5. During the month of August, my class goes on natsu yasumi — summer vacation. For me, the whole month isn’t a holiday, though, because August is also the month of three major events I’m going to be a part of: my church’s youth camp, the national denominational youth camp, and all-ages area retreat. After that, I’ll have 11 days before school’s back in, so I’m planning to take some vacation time then. Not sure where, though.

6. I realized tonight, as I was rushing around the 100-yen shop, stationary store and grocery store (all in one building) that the best time to go shopping is right before closing — not because of any deals I got but because when there’s a time limit I don’t linger too long, waste too much time, or spend too much money. I should do that more often. Go late I mean.

7. I’ve been Twittering lately, and more so now that I’ve figured out who to do it via my cell phone. I used to think it was silly and pointless, but today I realized that there’s a haiku-like beauty and simplicity in micro-blogging. Okay, maybe it is silly. But it’s also a great way to keep people posted when you’re not able to sit down at a computer and type up a full blog post like this. If you’re on Twitter, feel free to follow me: I’m called skitzoman over there.

8. This weekend’s a long weekend. I’m not sure what the occasion is, but Monday’s a holiday. And, after the busyness of the past couple of weeks, I’m looking forward to it. Unfortunately, a big part of it will probably be spent cleaning house, something that definitely goes on the back-burner when I’m busy.

And… I guess that’s a wrap. Come back soon for the above-mentioned photos and videos, as well as other fun stuff I should have time to put up on the weekend. See I won’t be just cleaning.

Spring 2008 Newsletter

My latest newsletter is now online, and you can check it out HERE.

Since this’ll bring you up to date, and since I’m going away tomorrow, there will be no Weekly Re-Cap this week. But hopefully I’ll have stuff to share next week when I’m back from my trip to Osaka.

Have a great weekend!

New Newsletter

My latest newsletter is now online. Visit the Newsletter Page to check it out.

In other news, you may have noticed a new banner at the top of the blog. That’s from a picture of Nagoya Castle I shot the other day. Also, the photo album uploading issues I’ve been having should be over soon. I may have them up before bed tonight. Which will be around noon for most of you probably.

Update

If you went looking for new photos in the past couple of days, sorry. I had some uploading trouble, and still seem to be, so for now the Photo page is down. Hopefully I can remedy that soon, though.

In the meantime, a brief update: I’ve enrolled in a part-time Japanese language course at YWCA Nagoya. It seems most schools start their full-time courses in April or October, corresponding to the Japanese school year. So I’m going part-time for now, starting this Wednesday, and when April rolls around will take a full-time course (20-odd hours a week) at either the YWCA or another local language school.

More news soon, I hope. Stay tuned.

Here.

This is just a quick note to let you all know I’ve made it safely to Nagoya, Japan. So far so good. More news and regularity of blogging in the new year.

Happy New Year.