Thursday in Osaka

Dear Friends - It is now 7:40AM in Osaka - our second day here.  It is hard finding time and the energy to write blogs this trip.  I wanted to tell you about our last Sunday in Chino, but I'm getting further and further behind in telling about our trip.  I hope to write you about Sunday - maybe after the mission is over.  After spending Monday and Tuesday in Toyama, we moved on to Osaka on Wednesday.  We spent the day in Kyoto visiting a few Buddhist temples and other historical sites.  The purpose of visiting the temples and shrines is for Kagiwada-sensei to give us a historical and cultural perspective to Japan's reluctance to accept Christianity.  He is a storehouse of knowledge as we go from place to place - sometimes having more information than our guides.  Today we will be heading out to Kyoto once again.  Last night we had dinner at the restaurant owned by the mother of Hyun-sensei, the pastor of the Japanese-speaking congregation at Crossway Church, and his sister Yooka, a member of Crossway church, also.  As proprietor of the restaurant, she is the hostess, waitress, server, cook, and chief bottle washer.  She runs the restaurant by herself.  We had a great meal in this restaurant specializing in grilled meats on skewers.  The restaurant has about 10 seats and is frequented by many regulars - Kagiwada-sensei said diners often engage in conversation and the atmosphere is very warm.  There was one other diner while we there, and sure enough, the Japanese speakers from our group were speaking with him and we ended our time at the restaurant with him taking a group photo of us.  We were also joined for dinner by Jaime, a young lady who was a member of the South Bay church but living in Japan for the past few months.  This 21 year old young woman has hopes of possibly staying in Japan permanently.  She was very happy to see her former pastor and good friend Shizuka. With her engaging personality and adventurous spirit, she should do fine in Japan.  Being fluent in Japanese doesn't hurt any.  While in Chino for ten days, we only had rain a few times.  The weather in Osaka and Kyoto is tough - temperatures in the high 90's and 100's with extremely high humidity.  It would be nice to have a break from the humidity.  Being in Chino, a rural area, the atmosphere is warm and friendly and there is a nice comfortable pace of life.  Being in a big city now, everything is fast-paced and impersonal and it is very crowded.  It would be great to take all the cultural sites from the city and to place them in Chino.  But of course, that would probably bring the problems of the city to Chino - not a good idea.  We will be setting out for another day filled with culture (a rarity for me), so I need to get ready.  God bless you all.  Love, Don

A group shot from the restaurant.