Last Weekend in Nagoya (Re-Cap & Photo Gallery)

This past weekend I finished my first two-year term as a GP missionary in Japan. I had a good weekend spending time with friends:

Saturday morning, I went out for breakfast with a former classmate from Japanese school and then ran some errands. Then it was back to the church to hang out with some other friends. I had them help me move boxes, and then we did some preparation for Sunday, buying supplies and making some dessert for Sunday’s party. Really great excuse to hang out with 3 good friends. We ended the day with supper together at local Yoshinoya (Japanese fast food chain, and one of the things I’ll miss about Japan).

My last Sunday at the Nagoya church was, of course, bitter-sweet. I got to give some short farewell greetings in the AM service, but as I said to them, it’s “see you later”, not “goodbye”, because I do plan to be back. I had no ministry responsibilities this week, and it was nice to just hang out, chat, and eat together with my Church Family. The day ended with a young adults party; we ate nabe, followed by some great desserts.

Here are some photos from the weekend; click on any one of them for a close up and/or to flip through the gallery.

Monday morning, my pastor and one other friend drove me to the airport. We were early enough to have lunch together and spend some time chatting before I flew out in the afternoon. It was a good ending to my last weekend in Nagoya for the year.

Now I’m back in Canada, relaxing and waiting for the jet lag to wear off. Prayers for this period of transition are greatly appreciated. I’ll try to update you all soon on what’s next.

In the meantime, enjoy the holidays while you can!

Christmas Party

Well, I’ve safely arrived back in Canada after a really long day of traveling yesterday. Since I was up super early due to jetlag, I had the time to do some photo sorting and editing. So this and the next post will bring you up-to-date on some recent events, in words and pictures…

On December 6 I had the opportunity to lead/host a Christmas outreach event at my church in Nagoya. It was a bi-lingual Christmas party we called “Christmas Around the World” (that’s the event flyer on the left). The event was well-attended and a lot of fun. There were almost 60 people who showed up, a good handful of whom were not regular attenders at the church. After some games and music (but before the sweets) I shared a short message about how Jesus came so that we could find peace with God.

Below are some photos from the party; you can click on any of them for a close-up and to flip through the whole gallery.

It was a great “bridge-building” event — thanks for praying!

Photo of the Week : Laughter & Friends

This probably isn’t technically one of my best photos, but I really like it because of the candid moment of smiles and laughter that it captures. Also: sweet view from a 5th floor window. On the left is one of my church friends, Maiko. On the right is Eric, a new friend who was visiting me in Nagoya this weekend.

The interesting thing about having someone from back in North America visit is that it gives me a fresh perspective on my life here. I’ve been in Japan long enough now that what once seemed strange now seems normal. It’s easy to forget how much I’ve learned. It’s easy to take stuff for granted. So it’s always refreshing to see it all through a newcomer’s eyes again.

This time I was reminded of just how fortunate I am to be living in such a beautiful and interesting place, and to have such a great community of Believers as my Family here. I am blessed. And I am grateful.

Photo of the Week / Chukyo Seikai Re-Cap

Today’s photo is of a retreat centre in nearby Konan, where we stayed during Chukyo Seikai on August 13-14 (the week before the Tonicam).

Chukyo Seikai is the name of this area’s annual retreat (Chukyo is the name of the area and Seikai basically means “holiness meeting”) for the denomination. I had the opportunity — and challenge — to give a short testimony in Japanese, as well as sing a couple of songs, during one of the worship services. Thanks in large part to the help of some Japanese friends who checked/corrected my Japanese manuscript, it went pretty well, I think. It was definitely a step further than last year, anyway, when I did the same thing, but in English and with an interpreter. And more importantly, I think God used me to encourage some people.

Tonicam Photos & Reflections

Tonicam is the name of our Japanese denomination’s youth camp. This summer’s event was held last week in Nagano, as mentioned in the previous entry. Our group from Nagoya was pretty small; there were nine of us, but only four were campers while the rest of us were staff. I had the opportunity to play guitar on the worship team all week, which was a challenge — it’s hard enough to read sheet music in English, let alone in Japanese — but a good challenge and a lot of fun. Leading worship through music is one of my passions, and in Japan I haven’t had the chance to do much of it, so it felt good to get to work with the worship band the whole four days of camp.

The stage is also a great place to watch the crowd from. It gets me excited to see Japanese teens getting excited about worshiping Jesus and letting Him work in their lives. And God definitely was at work in people’s lives during Tonicam. I’m thankful I got to be there to see it.

Below are some of the photos I didn’t accidentally delete after camp. You can click on the first one to see it close-up, and then use the arrows to navigate through the slideshow and see the rest:

Recent Happenings

As those of you on my email list may remember, this month we had a couple of events at the church that I’d asked for prayer about. Let me take a moment to tell you how things went.

The kids’ Ice Cream Party was held on July 5, and was a big success. We had over 47 show up, a large number of whom were first time visitors! And in the weeks following that event, we’ve had a handful of those kids coming back for our regular programs as well. Also, our Jr. High band did some music for the kids’ event. One band member invited some friends, and there were about 15 who showed up! Please pray that these connections to the community will continue to grow.

On July 15, with the help of some church members, hosted a Canada Day party (only 2+ weeks after the real Canada Day). We had a good time of games, English conversation practice, music, prizes and food. Around 36 people attended, a good handful of whom were visitors. Please continue to pray for my weekly English classes, and that God would use me to help this church build bridges with the community around us.

Following are some photos from the Canada Day party, as well as a young adults’ gathering the same evening. Click on any image to see it full-size and un-cropped, and to flip through the whole lot as a slideshow.

(Please let me know if you have trouble viewing these pics. It’s my first time using this gallery feature.)

Cuteness

This photo — featuring my friend Makiko, a little girl and frighteningly huge pink bunny — was shot on Sunday at our church’s annual Kids Festival. For more on that and other ministry-related stuff, check out my latest prayer letter over at JapanLog.

A Good Day Off

Today was a full and tiring but really good day.

This morning I had an almost two-hour conference call on Skype sharing dreams with a couple of fellow-ministry-minded creative-types. It was inspiring and gets me excited about the future when I think about it. I left home immediately after that and met up with my fellow-Canadian, Hooch (whose blog is so out of date I’m not sure why I bother linking to it — hint, hint, Hooch), and went to Gifu Castle (as seen in the photos above and below). Great view. Good times.

I got back from Gifu with about a half hour to spare before our young adults’ prayer and planning meeting. After being out all afternoon sight-seeing, I was feeling rather tired, and honestly kind of wishing I didn’t have a meeting to go to. But I went, and of course I was glad I did. Not only was there some great food to be shared, but some great people to share it with. Have I mentioned how much I love these people? They’re a pretty amazing bunch.

All in all, a refreshing and fun day off. And I’m thankful.

Welcome to the New

Welcome to my new site. It’s been one year as of today that I’ve been back in Japan. And in less than 3 days, 2009 will be upon us. These things, plus the fact that I’m not back in language school yet and thus have a little extra time on my hands this week (in theory) made it feel like a good time for a fresh start in terms of my online presence. But really, you may be wondering, why the new site? Why a new blogging home yet again? Well…

1. I had this domain name and wasn’t really doing anything with it. So now I am.

2. I’ve been wanting one main website (not just a blog) where all my ministry info as well as other stuff like music, photos and comics can be found. This will be the place. Your one-stop-shop for all things Whitey.

3. I want to streamline and simplify my blogging. I’ve experimented with a couple of side-projects (a photoblog and a comics-related blog) this year and decided I don’t need the extra hassle of maintaining multiple sites. Instead I’ll blog about whatever I want to, and do it all here, in one place. I had initially imported everything from the old JapanLog here, but decided to delete the old posts and start fresh here, with fewer categories and less clutter. I may re-visit some of those topics again here, though, and I’ll definitely be re-re-running at least some of my cartoons here, as well as posting sketches and stuff.

3. This new layout allows me to post photos on a larger scale than on JapanLog, which is one of the things I would have missed from the photoblog. Special thanks to Andy Gray for pointing me to this nice, simple, wide WordPress theme.

4. Having a self-hosted WordPress site instead of a WordPress.com blog will allow me to do things here that I couldn’t there, in terms of customization and such.

And speaking of customization, I probably went live sooner than I should have, so there’s still a lot of tweaking to do. Please be patient with me if there are any dead links or other weirdness over the next few days.

Also, my apologies to those of you who are here just for my ministry-related stuff, and may not be interested in some of the “off-topic” stuff I’ll be discussing. But it’s all on-topic to me, because it’s all a part of who I am, so I’m going to go ahead with it. I hope many of you will stick around and enjoy the ride.

Life is Fast

I’ve been back in Japan for almost a year now. Crazy. I wish I could say I’ve made more progress in my Japanese than I have. But the biggest thing I’ve learned is how to learn. Actually I’m still learning. Hopefully the next year I can apply what I’ve already learned — both the “how to learn” and the actual language skills — and really see some measurable progress.

It’s Sunday afternoon, a rainy day, and with this cold I’ve caught, a great day to say inside. It’s a pretty good time to get sick, though. At school they’re having our annual health checks this week. Yes, my language school gives us health checks; I think it’s a law here. And actually kind of nice that they take responsibility for their students’ well-being like that.

I really don’t have much to say today. I just wanted an excuse to post a couple of photos. I’m thinking I’ll completely can the photoblog and instead just post more photos here. Maybe a re-design would help, though, something that lets me post them at a larger size and really let ‘em shine. What do you think?

The above photo, by the way, was taken at a Nagoya Station subway platform. Below, something a little more peaceful and traditional — yet another shot from the Nakamura Festival. These are dancers from the same group as the girl in my most recent Photo of the Week.

Prayer Letter and Pics

The following is a copy of my October Prayer Letter, as I just sent to my supporters via email. As an added bonus, I’m posting some photos with it here. If you’d like to be on the email list, you can sign up via my Support Info page. Thanks.

The guys.

Hi everyone,

First of all, thank you for your prayers during my recent end-of-term studies and testings. The good news is I passed the course and can go on to the next level, which starts next Monday.

Last night, I had a group of guys over to my place for a meal. A few guys from the church came, as well as my English student, who is not a Christian. It was a lot of fun, and a good chance for me to connect a non-Christian friend with some of his fellow-Japanese who are Christians. Please keep praying for my friend and for our English/Bible studies.

I’ve been enjoying a little bit of downtime since the first semester of full-time language studies ended. But as I said, next week I’m back to class. In addition, I’ve got a few additions to my schedule that will make for a busy month. Please pray for my studies and for each of these events. Pray that I’ll keep up with the studies and that God will bless and use the events I get to be a part of. Here are some dates…

Oct. 4 (this weekend) — I’ll be in Osaka visiting some friends, and I’ve been asked to provide some music for a charity dinner, where they’re raising funds to help build schools in Africa.

Oct. 12-13 — I’m planning on being a part of a team from my church going to Hamamatsu, where we’ll be doing some music, drama, etc, to help a partner church there do some outreach.

Oct. 19 — I’m scheduled to preach at the Immanuel Church in nearby Gifu. Pastor Oda will be interpreting again.

Thanks again for your prayers, support and encouragement! As always, you can check my blog for more information, news and thoughts on my life and ministry here in Japan.

God bless,

- robin

ロビンホワイト

We also played Jenga. Remember Jenga???

Photo of the Week (and other stuff)

This is a shot of Oda Sensei interpreting for me during my recent ministry visit to Gifu.

Scroll down for to read my latest prayer letter, if you haven’t already, or to listen to the latest podcast.

And in other news, as mentioned in the podcast, I recently did a guest post at Worship and the Arts. It’s part of their “Spiritual Bridges in Anime” series. Check it out.