Home Again, Home Again...

I'm back from Okinawa, mind filled with memories of clear, jade-green sea, slender palm trees and sugar cane stalks... I brought home lots of pictures, a suntan (still burned on my arms) and some pineapple chocolate that most people probably won't like.

Okinawa was so beautiful, so warm, so lazy that it was hard to come back to Sapporo. I spent a free day roaming the beach, two rainy days in meetings with our team, and was greeted Saturday by grey, pouring rain on the descent into Sapporo.

Welcome home!

Yesterday morning (after an awesome phone call from my aunt Lois!) I crawled out of bed for church at the Walkers' house, stopped at English worship on the other side of town (was informed that three new BRAZILIANS came by later, none of them yet Christians!!), and then met an old man from my new seniors' English class for steaming hot ramen (Chinese noodle soup, famous in Sapporo).

More rain today... Ran around this morning trying to get ready - taking out putrid trash, washing dishes, unpacking, washing clothes, talking to Mike while brushing my teeth. Off to Japanese class. Bus didn't come. Walked down the street to call my Japanese teacher. Saw the bus coming. Hung up. Tried to open phone booth door. Door won't open. Open! Open! Door remains closed. Bus pulls away from the bus stop. A sigh of exasperation. Phone booth door opens. Bus stop is empty.

I walked back to the bus stop in light rain, fuming, trying to decide whether or not to take a taxi. I was still debating when a pretty Japanese woman comes up and starts speaking to me in rapid, excited English.

"It's you!" she was saying, holding an umbrella and a music case. "I can't believe you're here! Now you can meet my husband! He speaks English because he went to England."

I look from one face to the other, trying desperately to place one of them and drawing a complete blank.

???... I'm speaking English, smiling politely, but have no idea who they are.

The music case... a violin case... Suddenly I remember in a flash - meeting, only once, the violin teacher of one of our missionaries' children. She had given me a ride home, spoke little, sat up straight.

This time, though, Naoko was happy and talkative. We got on the next bus together and talked all the way to the terminal - they were going to an evening performance; I was going to Japanese class and then to teach English at the Katsuis' house.

"You should come to our house sometime," they said before I got off. "We have spare violins you could borrow to practice."

"Do you teach lessons to people my age?" I asked her in surprise.

"Of course!" she said. "Any time."

An answer to a long-forgotten prayer. I am amazed... I walked past blooming lilacs and salmon azaleas to my Japanese teacher's house, practiced writing Japanese characters, and jumped on a nearby subway.

At the Katsuis' I taught simple sentences: "This is a fish." "What is this?" "This is a shell," using ocean words since I just got back from Okinawa. (Tochi didn't like the pineapple chocolate).

At dinner I ate wonderful tonkatsu (fried pork) with delicious vegetables and hot rice.

I also tasted shiokara, which officially the MOST DISGUSTING thing I have ever put in my mouth. Definition: Squid intestines. [Kids, don't try this at home. Don't try this ANYWHERE].

Two subways later I crawled into the bus terminal, waiting for the last leg of my trip home, tired and ready to sleep. As I came up the stairs, who should I see in the bus line but a Japanese couple, each with a violin case.

Naoko and her husband! They were shocked, speechless even. We were all going home - to the same bus stop.

I walked home in the rain, hung up my coat, and came out to check my email before heading to bed.

It's 10:39 now, my throat is sore, and my hair is damp from rain. The corrugated shop roof across the street shines in the streetlights, and the horizon glows pink from faraway city lights. The little lamp is on in my room, making the walls a wonderful, inviting yellow - waiting for me to come and drink in a few Bible verses before sleeping and then waking to head to English Bible class in a nearby university tomorrow morning.

(I just remembered there are no sheets on my bed... ??)

But before I go, I wanted to write and say thank you for your prayers, for being here, for going on this journey with me. Every letter, email, package, phone call, or silent prayer blends its color into the beautiful mosaic that is NOW, that is here, that is my life - my life in Japan and my life in one long, winding piece.

I came to Japan to change lives - or so I said - but in truth, I am the one being changed. Changed by Japan, changed by pain and adventure and truth, changed by you, changed by the One who died to bring not partial but TOTAL freedom, deliverance, and LIFE ABUNDANT.

Oh, Life - the only Life there is - make me LIVE!

The evening smells of rain.

Until tomorrow...