Church

So I’ve realized that I haven’t written a blog about church yet. So I have church from 10-1pm every Sunday which is really a very nice time, but there are some complications. Namely location and trains. My closest church building would be in Kochi city which is 2 hours from where I live. Then there are the trains. Since I live on Shikoku, the smallest and most rural of the 4 islands of Japan, the trains are few and far between. So I have to take the 7am train, having me get to Kochi by 9am, then wait an hour for church to start. Not all bad except that puts my alarm going off before 6am. And since I am not a morning person I of course hit the snooze button an million and a half times which most always results in me leaving my house late and then biking furiously to the train station and barely making the train. I’ve actually even had a guy run ahead of me and have to stall the train and then once I was just told to go through without paying because there wasn’t time and then pay when I got to Kochi. Not the best of me, I know. But I have for the past 2 Sundays discovered that I have plenty of time if I just shower the night before. Anyway, so then I get to church and once chutch is over, the next train isn’t for another 2 hours until 3pm, and then another 2 hours till I get home. I get home around 5:30pm usually. So the act of going to chutch takes about 11-12 hours of the day. Luckily it doesn’t cost as much to get there because I have a discount card called the Young Weekender’s Card which gets me 40% off the roundtrip price so I end up paying ￥1680 ($18) instead of ￥2820 ($30). It would of course be more for the express train which only takes an hour, but that gets to Kochi when church starts so that wouldn’t work.

Anyway, about the actual church going. The people are so nice. They tell me it gives them encouragement to see me come from so far away to church every Sunday, but I really think it is them that are the amazing ones, coming every Sunday when it is so different from the rest of Japan. There are so many Japanese who don’t know anyting about Christianity, it being such a foreign thing, and then not drinking tea, coffee, or alcohol is unheard of. In America there is so much cariety in preferences and life style that it may be a surprise to learn that about someone but you can get over it pretty quick because you are more used to differences fgrom all the different cultures that make America. But in Japan, they seem to be a lot more sheltered when it comes to cultural differences because there simply aren’t any (or hardly any) when it comes to this sort of thing. Everyone drinks tea all the time. I feel like I’m offered tea every time I sit down somewhere. Once I decline the tea, coffee always comes next. Once I decline the coffee it’s like they don’t know what to do with themselves. Every once in a while I will get offered a sports drink after that. Then there is the drinking. Drinking is a huge part of Japanese culture. Because of the very separate personal and private way of life, it is hard to get to know anyone. Their way around that I guess is after work drinking. For even the littlest occasion, they could set up a get together where everyone drinks. Like a drinking party. I have been told (more like lectured) many times by Marisa’s section head guy, while he was drunk, that it is the Japanese culture to drink and let the guard down so to speak to connect with eachother. So by not drinking, I’m not wanting to connect with the Japanese or my co-workers. So to live such a foreign way of life with so few others doing the same, and not being able to claim being from a foreign country, is the amazing thing I think.

Anyway, the people at church try to make everything easier on me since I come from so far away. They give me food, rides, English printouts, clothes, etc etc. they try their best to include me in the lessons, which I must admit, is sometimes too kind, seeing as I mostly don’t know what they are talking about so when they call on me and ask what I think everyone just stares at me while I probably look like a deer caught in the headlights, having no idea what to say. It’s rather stressful actually. And they ask me to give prayers and such as well. I was asked to give the opening prater in Sacrament Meeting the other week and I was so nervous that I forgot half of what I was going to say, stammered over the same word 4 times, and ended it rather abruptly after like 2 lines because of it all. Then, as if to confirm how bad it really was, I swear every member came up to me after and said it was beautiful and thanked me, lol. Anyway, since then, when they ask me to give a prayer, they always say that English is fine, lol. Sad isn’t it?