Hello everyone!
What a week (and a half)!
Short list of what happened:
•Two days of Tohoku Celebration of Hope
•New guy - from Northwestern (my school's rival!)
•Lots of friends leaving :(
•Different work all week
•Leading devotions
•Japanese toilets!
•Learning how to use power tools!!!!!


Okay, so I will address all of these things in order. I'm afraid that this is going to be a very long blog post. Again. Except maybe longer than normal.


First, two days of Tohoku Celebration of Hope. Last time, I blogged about Friday night, which was the inaugural night of the Celebration. There isn't that much to report about the two nights following, except that they were fairly similar, save a difference in songs and order of artists, and the passage changed a bit but the message was still a salvation message. After the last day, SP Tome helped strike (for those who don't know theatre terms, this means dismantle everything) and we stayed until about 10 pm. We all came home Sunday night very tired, and many of us took Monday off, so it wasn't quite as boring as normal. We also took a trip to downtown Tome-Towa (the city the SP base is in) and went to a secondhand store (Second Street), a hardware/home store (Homac), and the mall (Aeon Mall). In the mall we shopped around for a bit just exploring and then we all met at Mister Donut and got donuts there.


Second, new guy! On Monday before we went downtown, I came out of the sleeping area, went to get breakfast, and noticed a new guy sitting by himself reading a Japanese-English bilingual Bible - this version I've seen many times as my mom has one and our church has a few as well. I decided to sit on my own just in case he was in the middle of a bible study or something. All of a sudden he sat down across from me and asked me if I went to Bethel (my university). I said yes and he told me that he goes to Northwestern, which is my school's #1 rival. We laughed about that for awhile and ended up talking for almost an hour about a lot of different things. I showed him around the base and then we all went downtown. He's been working with our team all week, and is leaving tomorrow (Saturday) afternoon, and I will be sad to see him go. I already think of him as one of our team, and he definitely added a lot to it.


Third, lots of friends leaving :(. There was a team from Kansai, Japan who was here for a week, but one of their team members stayed behind. She's staying up north until the bases close on April 30th because she wants to help. However, because she doesn't have her own transportation to work sites, and ours are usually an hour or more away from the base, she has been moved to another base where the work sites are walking distance from the base. I was sad to see her go, even though we didn't communicate much (neither of us spoke each other's language very well). She was such an encouragement to me because she's sacrificing her time to volunteer, even though she could be working, making money, and living much more comfortably back in Kansai instead. Also, the guy from Northwestern is leaving tomorrow which is sad :/, but I talked about that before, so just go up a bit if you forget :)


Fourth, different work all week. This week, a couple of carpenter teams needed mud-out crews because the houses they are working in are also being lived in by the homeowners. They have to do each house one room at a time, doing demo, then mudding out, then bleaching, and then finally starting on the carpenter work - insulating, installing drywall and floors, etc. So, this entire week I've been working with the guy from Northwestern at one house with a carpenter team. It has been wonderful to work with some different people and to do some carpenter work. I've done so many new things this week, including cutting and installing insulation, bleaching room by room, and learning to be creative with problem-solving. 


Fifth, leading devotions! The house that I'm currently working at is a very wonderful home. The family's name is Abe. The mother is home a lot, but works in the middle part of the day, so she's usually the first and last person we see. She has a wonderful smile and is very sweet to us even though all we've been doing is demolishing her house room by room. Her son is 10 years old and "rides" horseback on an electronic machine, and is also the best golfer in the region in the 12 and under age group. He said he wants to be as good or better than Tiger Woods one day. I don't know very much about the father, and I've only seen him once or twice. Wayne, the leader of the carpenter team, has been doing devotions every morning with Mrs. Abe. This isn't a normal thing at every house, but I think it is wonderful practice if only to get the homeowner acquainted with the Bible at least a little bit. Yesterday, Wayne asked me to do devotions this morning. I was extremely apprehensive about it since I'm not so great at making speeches, but I said yes and prepared my devotion. I used John 14:27 - "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." I shared with her about how anxious I was about this trip to Japan, and how God gave me His peace, both then and in many other situations. The guy from Northwestern then prayed that the Abe family would know God's peace and would know the God we know.


Sixth, Japanese toilets! Me and a few of the guys are super excited about the toilets that are here in Japan. We've been looking them up online to see how much they are. We especially like the one that is in the Abe's house, and so we've been looking for that specifically. Guess what - we found it! It's about $1400 though, and that doesn't include shipping to the US, which would be at least another $400... I'm trying to decide if it's worth it... :P


Seventh, learning how to use power tools!!! Today, Wayne and the guys taught me how to use three power tools. Normally my friends would wonder if I was lying, but I have proof! Okay, not of the third one, but it was a jig saw... I was so proud of myself!

Alright, I think I'm done for now. Sorry for the suer long blog post today. Hopefully the next few won't be quite so long!

後でお会いしましょう！

See you later!

~Chloe