Jon's "Debut" - at Jidokan Christmas Party

I had the great opportunity to join in as a "special guest" at our local Kyu-Karuizawa Jidokan Christmas party. It actually didn't seem much like a Christmas party, with main event being a strange masked magician (Olivia was scared!) It was up to me to bring a bit of light - Jesus' Light - into a rather dark party.

I had been practicing what I wanted to say for days, and I think it went pretty well. Before we sang Jingle Bells "Jinguru Beru", I tried to open with a little interaction with the 60+ kids in the room. A slightly scary prospect, since I couldn't predict what they would say!!!

After playing a few songs (in English and Japanese) we ended with Silent Night - probably the most well known Christmas song in Japan. I asked if anyone knew what the song was about. I shared that it was about the first Christmas, and the birth ~2000 years ago of Jesus Christ. (A fact most do not know.) I said that Jesus also has another name - Emmanuel - which the wonderful meaning "The True God is with us". (I wanted to distinguish the term "God" from the normal usage in Shinto context.)

This may not seem like much, but I was very pleased to have the time and vocab (!) to say it. This is evangelism in Japan - laying single bricks at a time, building a foundation of understanding upon which the Gospel can stand. There are so many critical concepts in Christianity we take for granted in America, that Japanese have no idea about.
Here with are with Hasegawa-san, one of the Jodoukan leaders, dressed in a only moderately convincing Santa suit. :) The cute little blond girl is our new neighbor, Meg. Her parents, Kevin & Rebecca Dingle, are MTW teammates studying at our same language school.

Here is a picture of the girls at another party at Megumi Chalet (a Christian conference center nearby). Olivia and Meg have become good friends, although they don't always see "eye to eye" :)