Day 5

Last night I stayed at the Global Mission Center, which is just a few blocks away from the church I am working at this week.  The rooms are more traditional Japanese style, with tatami floors (made of rice straw typically), futon beds (not a folding couch like in America, it's basically a really thin mattress on the floor).  And paper sliding doors.  This morning I met with Pastor Tanno and we looked at the construction site for the new kindergarten center that they are making (the sign picture shows the entrance but I didn't take any of the actual construction).  After that we headed to the church where they currently hold the kindergarten program and I played with the kindergarten kids until they had to eat lunch.  Their kind kindergarten program is an actual school and currently is open to children ages 3-5, but they are going to expand to 0-5 once they have the new building.  The government paid for 60% of their building project because Japan wants to build more kindergarten schools.  The program is well-attended because a Christian education is very valued among the Japanese even though few of them are actually Christian because they appreciate Christian values.  This allows them to outreach better because Japanese adults are typically not very receptive to the gospel, but they can easily share with the children and help raise a new generation more open to the gospel.  Afterwards Pastor Tanno took me to see a Christian grave site up on the mountain that is shared by all of the churches in the city (about 25 from different denominations).  Then further up the mountain he showed me a great view of the entire city.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3dKJWmYLfjGLThDdGFXQXE1bFk