Spirituality @ Osaka

Day 7 : Sunday, 18 July 2010

by Alan Yeo

 

The Japanese do it differently in Osaka. Instead of keeping to the left while travelling on the escalator in Tokyo, you keep right in Osaka. Also, you can easily find rubbish bins in Osaka whereas we had to carry our trash from Yokohama all the way to Ochanomizu Station in Tokyo before we are able to dispose of it. We were told that the Japanese in Osaka are louder – they talk and laugh out loud. They are more open and do not stick to cultural norms. We were surprised that the people are more casual and relax in their dressing and we saw more smiles and happy faces.

 

 

Upon arrival in Osaka from Tokyo, one of our intended destinations was J-house, a church that Pastor Dale had visited during his vacation in Osaka. What a pleasant experience it was when we were given a warm and resounding reception by a group of youths. They would clap and make lots of noise to welcome us. Later, we learnt that they were a group of Americans, mainly Korean students, who were on a mission trip to Japan and were putting up at J-house. It was such a wonderful experience to worship at J-house in their “Big Wave” meeting, a bilingual youth service. Katsuya who graduated from Fuller Theological Seminary pastors “J-house” or “Jesus House.”

 

One can feel the passion and the energy of the youth through their worship. The youths also put up a special “body worship” performance expressing worship through dance interpretation of a worship song plus a short skit to illustrate the message. Pastor Katsuya was very animated in his sharing and interactive with the audience, encouraging the people not to worry but to be thankful. He concluded his message with an illustration of a “thankful” frog that fell into a well of milk and swam till the milk solidified into a cheese and was able to jump out of the predicament he was in.

 

Pastor Katsuya was also very welcoming towards the Peacemakers and invited Pastor Dale to give a little introduction of the team. Following the message, we broke into discussion groups to reflect and share what we had learnt from the sermon and it was also a good time to break the ice and get to know new friends. It was past 11pm when we left J-House.

 

Today we visited International Osaka Church that was situated in our neighbourhood. It has a good mix of Japanese families and also foreigners from different parts of the world. The service was shorter than usual but Pastor Dan Ellrick shared a message that spoke to our hearts concerning the ten lepers who came to Jesus for healing and were told to go show themselves to the priests. Often, we want to see a miracle first before trusting God but God wants our obedience first. It was not easy for the ten lepers to show themselves to the priests, as the priests were the ones who judged and pronounced them as unclean in the first place. However, when they obeyed, they were cleansed. We were also reminded the need to recognise that all that we have comes from God and like the Samaritan leper, we too must give thanks to God.

 

After the service, we were in for a treat - a live concert performance by a Swedish Band “Big Street.” “A sweet and smooth mix of acoustic pop, mellow jazz, and deep soul, blended with vocals speaking of peace, love and truth.” They were really talented and we thoroughly enjoyed the performance despite the poor acoustics.

 

At the end of the service, we met a Taiwanese church member who was married to a Japanese who was very open to share with us her initial encounters with the Japanese. We may see the Japanese as very polite and they would smile at you but it is difficult to discern what is actually in their hearts and they do not respond well to stress especially when they meet foreigners.

 

As we wandered about the streets of Namba and Shinsaibashi in the afternoon, we were surprised to see groups of young university students dressed in the same outfits, chanting and declaring their faith at the main junction of the road. We had the opportunity to engage one of the students in conversation. He was a Japanese who spoke very good Mandarin as he majors in it and was also an exchange student in Taiwan for two years. He explained to us about his faith and we listened and tried to understand about his beliefs. At the end of the session, we gave him a New Testament with Japanese/English translations as a gift.  As we shopped along the streets, we also came across another religious group moving about the city and making their faith known.

 

Although we may not speak Japanese and there are differences but I do think that there are lots of similarities in life that we have with the Japanese too. At J-House, during the discussions on the topic of worries, it was interesting to note that no matter what nationality we are, all of us shared the worries of being concern of what others think of us and I think deep down everyone is looking for the answers and meaning to life.