Well, after New Years Day we had two more New Year's parties. One on the 2nd of January at the Sakamotos house in Kobe. Then another one the following day at our friends' house in Nagaokakyo. However after all of the partying it was back to reality as we attended Church on the 4th of January.
If you've been following along this BLOG for a while you may have read that we were prevented from doing some of the English classes and ministries we had hoped. This all had to do with the leader of the church we were attending in Nagaokakyo.
When we visited in September he had told us we could do certain things, when we moved to Japan in November he kept asking us to wait, because he said it he wasn't sure if it was "God's will". The rest of the church clearly saw us as answer to their prayers, because the church attendance had been dropping since the last missionaries left and the English Classes and Bilingual Bible Studies had ceased. However this leader had a very indifferent attitude towards the health of the church and allowing us to serve. In fact their were so many people in Nagaokakyo open to the Gospel, only to be put off because his indifferent attitude when they visited the church. So, in the end us and the other members could not stand it any longer after raising it many times with him over the last two months. The members meeting after church on 4th of January 2009 was the last straw for most of us and a number of us decided to leave and set up a new church. A church were people can truly be free to serve and worship God. A church that does away with tradition and hierarchy, getting back to the real authority, that is God's word (the Bible). We named this church “Shining Lights Church, Nagaokakyo”. We believe that what is happening here is almost like the Protestant Reformation, because the church in Japan (on the most part) is tied down by many traditions and not being effective at reaching people.
Actually I would say that many Japanese are open to the Gospel, it's just that churches here are indifferent to the people. So many Japanese people are burdened with tradition, they are searching for they truth, they are searching for freedom. It saddens me so much that so many churches are just weighing down people with more burdens.
Now about this photo, I was sitting on the platform waiting for a train to Osaka and she was standing on the opposite platform waiting for a train heading towards Kyoto.