fishes and bread

This week I experienced grace.  Again.  It's a hard thing to explain to someone what it feels like to feel full of power and potential and to be the strongest you've ever been in your life, but simultaneously feel helpless, weak, so humbled that everything in your life, down to the very crumbs from the piece of toast you eat for breakfast is a blessing, and a gift and not something for you to claim as your own.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I've never been good with money.  When I have money I only want to give it away, and when I don't have it, I'm happy enough not to bother getting any.  I don't mind living paycheck to paycheck, it's never been a stressful environment for me.  However, the past few weeks, maybe the past month, and probably continuing for the next month, I have been living on a budget of less than paycheck to paycheck.  I am living from day to day.  Some days I wake up and have literally no idea how I will buy food or how to afford transportation to work for that day.  I work a lot of hours at night and on weekends, but my paychecks are once a month and come at the end of the month after the month I'm getting paid for, so on Feb 25, I got paid for January's work, on  March 25, I'll get paid for February.  Because of the current conversion rate for dollars to yen and because of unavoidable one time fees that came up during my first few weeks here I was out of the money that I had raised to come in a much shorter time than I originally anticipated.

Every day I laugh at myself as a slew of you're so poor jokes go across my mind.  I'm so poor, no one had to tell me that in Japan people are expected to eat every grain of rice, I have never left a grain of rice uneaten.  I'm so poor that even in the snow and rain on days where the temperature hovers around 0 degrees Celcius, I ride my room mate's bike or walk the 4 km each way to work.  I'm so poor that I dropped an egg on the ground and scooped it back up with a spoon and cooked it for breakfast because it was the only food I had left.  Okay, so those aren't very good jokes, but they make me laugh.

And I think that's the point of today's blog.  Well, that and the other thing I'm going to get to in a little bit.  The first point, though, being that even though I'm in a less than desirous situation, or at least what would seem one to most people, I can't help but have joy outside of anything I've ever known.  I've been here for two months almost.  Two months and I can't help but smile every time I see people on the street, I walk home in the literally blistering cold (you should see my hands - disgusting) and by the time I get home my lips are chapped and my cheeks are sore because I was grinning for the last 40 minutes.  Even though I don't know how I'll eat next week, I'm so happy because I know that I will eat next week.  I'm so happy because I am constantly watching as God works in my life.  It's stunning, really.

And there it was, did you see it?  The other point of today's blog.

Even though I can't always pay for food, God has fed me.  Last time I wrote about the church up the street.  I wrote about traveling with them to feed the homeless.  What I didn't read about was how they fed me, also.  The day I met the people from that church was also the day that I completely ran out of money and food.  I had nothing left to eat and no promise of money coming in for quite a while.  I only had a little bit of money left on my train pass, but I decided to go with them anyway.  The day I went was a bad day.  It was cold, it was rainy, and there weren't many homeless people that were willing to go the park on a day like that and sit through a message, even if there was the promise of food.  So at the end of the day there was a lot of extra food that was going to get thrown away.  Like I said before, I couldn't communicate with anyone, so even if I wanted to, I couldn't have asked for them to give me any food.  But the woman I met from the church kept giving me the extra food to take home with me, and I couldn't say no (mostly because I don't know how to still). 

I know that this story, that this entry seems strange, maybe it seems irresponsible.  I realize what my life looks like to a lot of people.  The point isn't how crazy stupid I am, though.  The point is how crazy awesome God is.  Each day I witness his mercy both in how he provides for me, and through his love for someone as broken as I am.  Every day he is teaching me how to love by showing me his incredible love.  He's giving me strength through the knowledge of his power.  I'm being taught to serve by realizing how little I deserve the things he gives me and experiencing how much he loves those around me.  I'm being molded, I can feel it.  Some days it hurts, those days I have to suck up my pride and accept the 2000yen offered to me by the pastor of a church across town because otherwise I wouldn't be able to get back home or eat dinner, or every day I have to decline going to dinner on my break at work because I can't afford to eat fast food.  Those are the days that I also feel the presence of the Lord the strongest, so I can't help but smile.

It's a hard thing to explain to someone what it feels like to be helpless, weak, so humbled that everything in your life is a blessing, and a gift and not something for you to claim as your own but simultaneously feel full of power and potential and to be the strongest you've ever been in your life.

From homeless to work. I love this day.

I just realized how long it's been since I put an actual update on here.  For that, I apologize.  I have like 4 drafts that I never published for various reasons, but I'm going to do my best to put this one up, no matter how short it is.

Let me start with a brief analysis of what my day to day looks like, just for the curious.

I started working on January 18th as a full time private instructor for English.  I love this job because I have the opportunity to meet so many people, and while the focus of our time is on studying English, the format of the lesson allows me to get to know people and for them to get to know me.  I've worked every day, with the exception of an unexpected day off last Friday, since the 18th.  I know it sounds strange, but I actually enjoy working every day.  Because I'm working so much, though, I've been able to meet around 100 new people in the last few weeks, just through work, and while I'm not able to explicitly express my faith (through strict company rules) almost every new client I have asks the same question: "why do you came to Japan?" or some other variation of mixed up grammar. 

I think that this blog entry will be on that question.  Why did I come to Japan?

Recently, I was talking to one of my best friends, who's heart has also been incredibly moved for Japan, and we talked briefly on the subjects of love and joy.  The conversation actually went like this:

Robert: From homeless (we'll get to that later) to work.  I love today.
Robert: Who am I kidding, I love EVERY day.
Friend: You're so Genki* all the time!
Robert: How could I not be!? I feel the favor of the Lord, I feel like I'm walking in his will.
Robert: Do you know what kind of joy that produces?
Friend: Yes.

*Genki is a Japanese word often used to mean energetic or enthusiastic

It's been a strange month (I've been in Japan for 1 month and 3 days now), but I can't shake this joy.  Every day on my walk home from work (at like 11 pm) I look around the streets I live on and I can't help but smile.  I feel so blessed that God has brought me here, and I have faith (read: hope) that he's already using me in ways I'll never understand.

So, the first answer to the question "why did I come to Japan?" is, simply put, to walk in God's will, and by doing so, to walk in joy.  I'm not talking about a small measure of joy here, either, i mean, crazy awesome, peace-bringing, not even earthquakes shake me, joy.  I mean, the kind that people not only notice, but notice enough to have to comment on.

I have more to say on this, but it's getting too late to post more about it right now.  Because I promised earlier, though, I'll quickly mention what I meant when I said, "from homeless to work".

There's a church that meets down the street from my house.  The only church in like 3 square kilometers is a one minute walk from my house.  God does amazing things.  Anyway, I NEVER see people at this church, probably because I walk past at like 11 pm at night, but last night there just happened to be some lights on and I noticed some people inside, so, like a creepy foreigner I searched for the door so I could knock, but all the doors looked like windows, so I had to just stand outside the window where I saw people moving inside and while I was trying to figure out if i should knock on the window or just go home they noticed me standing there, all creepy like.  So, caught off guard a little I sort of waved my hands frantically as if it silently say, "I'm not creepy! I swear!" Somehow, I guess it worked, because after a few seconds I saw this little woman walk away from the window, and a few seconds after that I heard one of the door/windows opening.  I went over to the door and the first thing I asked was, "do you speak English?".  They did not, and the first thing they asked me was "Kurisutan desu?" which means "Are you a Christian?"  Somehow, with my shady Japanese and their less than elementary English (and I believe much assistance from the Holy Spirit) I found out that the church was started by Korean missionaries and that the next day at 12 20 they would be going to a nearby neighborhood to feed the homeless.  So, today at 12:20 I walked the one minute walk over to the church and we went to Ueno to feed the homeless before I had to go to work.

I sang a song last week that I haven't thought about since I lived in Memphis and went to Raleigh Christian Church, later named New Hope Christian Church.  The song was Step by Step and I had completely forgotten about it, so while I was singing it at church I got so caught up with reminiscing about the days I used to sing that song that I didn't really pay attention to the words, but now I can't get them out of my head.

I will seek you in the morning, and I will learn to walk in your ways.  And step by step you'll lead me and I will follow you all of my days.

I'm walking one step at a time right now, so while I can't totally answer the question of why I came to Japan I can say in confidence that this is where I'm supposed to be, and I'm so excited to see what the next step will be.

I feel the blessing of the Lord, and recently I've been reminded of the power of prayer, so thank you for your prayers to this point.  I have been blessed.  Thank you.