How many people did YOU shoot today?

by Nathan Waggoner

There are an estimated 35 million people in the Tokyo area, so shooting video can be a little tricky as we found today.  Getting equipment from point A to point B is the first challenge, but thankfully we are shooting with digital SLR's so we can travel pretty light.  The one necessary piece of equipment that is proving to be difficult to use is the tripod.  Finding a place where we can set one up without being in the way of everyone is a challenge.  Most people ignore the fact that we are shooting pictures and video, but they aren't happy if we are set up in the flow of traffic.  There are thousands of people in the streets and on the sidewalks, so we have learned to time our shots to the stoplights which give us short segments of clear walkways to set and shoot.

This morning we worked a little more on the planning aspect of our video work.  We think we have four video topics nailed down and we are developing a shot list to help us make sure we get the visuals we need to tell the stories.  We have been particularly drawn to the needs of the youth in Japan, so we are planning to focus a lot of our attention on getting footage of youth.  Today we were privileged to spend some time in Bible study with four students from Rokyo University which is within walking distance of our home base at the WGM center.  We met in a small room on the 5th floor of the student activities building on campus.  It was nice to get to meet a few college students and hear brief testimonies from them.  One of the young men in the study is a new freshmen this semester at the university who accepted Christ while being hosted by a Christian family in a study abroad program in rural PA.  How cool is that!  He recently returned to Tokyo after two years in the USA, and was glad to find a Christian fellowship he could join at the University.  I am so glad that our missionaries Holly and Kevin are here to help continue to disciple him and the other Christians in the group.  You can hear Trent's thoughts about the Bible study in the video clip below. We will be spending some more time at the University tomorrow to get some stock footage of random students in their beautiful courtyard.

After the Bible study, we traveled to the headquarters of Immanuel Gospel Church where we met several church leaders and set up times to interview them over the next two weeks.  While Kevin and Holly were representing WGM in some meetings, the three of us walked around the surrounding blocks getting more footage and enjoying the sights and sounds of Tokyo.

We are traveling by train and foot mostly here in Japan.  Both offer exercise since there is often no place to sit on the trains.

Trent and Kevin on our walk back to the WGM house after a full day.

We walked several miles today, so I think we should sleep well tonight.  We have have a full day of shooting tomorrow that includes the University, a Buddhist temple, and one of the busy shopping districts.  Thanks for your prayers!  We feel them even though we are 13 hours ahead of most of you!

 :-)

Our first Sunday in Japan

by Nathan Crum

Today our team had the privilege to attend the Nakameguro church in Tokyo. It was a beautiful church that is built into 4 story building with the sanctuary being on the third floor. The first floor has glass walls going around it on two sides so that the occasional worship meeting held there might be visible to passer bys who have no idea what Christians do in a church. The worship in the church was beautiful to listen to but with all the words being in Japanese characters it’s kind of hard to sing along. We were also witness to an event that hasn’t happened before in the 30 years the Zirkels have lived here and attended the church. At the end of the service the pastor was interrupted by a couple radical German ladies that were trying to preach impending judgment and death on the Japanese as a people at which point they were quickly, yet kindly, escorted out the door and informed that it’s illegal to purposefully interrupt a religious service in Japan.

After all the excitement in the church that morning we ate lunch and then made our way over to the Meiji Shinto shrine. It was a section of Tokyo almost like a park with broad gravel paths and enveloped by towering trees and spiraling branches. 

Outside of the gate to the shrine.

Here we were able to observe and understand a little of Japan’s religious past and influences on today’s culture and beliefs. Where in the USA many of our large events like weddings and child dedications are held in churches by religious and non-religious people; the Japanese would have similar events at Shinto or Buddhist shrines like the wedding we were fortunate enough to witness today. It was a wonderful day for experiencing Japan and getting footage for the videos being worked on. At the end of the day we sat with Holly and the Zirkels and had a great discussion about youth in the church and how there is a great need for people that can connect to those youth. Not only is there a need to draw them in but retaining a group that are committed to the church and growing spiritually. This task is will be increasingly hard with the ever widening disconnect between the very traditional adults and the ever uncertain and western influenced youth that are living here today.

Nathan Crum enjoys a new Fanta flavor - Melon

This picture is from day one at about 5AM as we waited for our flight from Lexington.

I love the upload speed here in Japan!  12 MB/sec!  At that rate, we will try to post a daily video here from now on.  The video below is of Nathan Crum in the train on the way to the Zirkles house in Tokyo.  We were mainly testing camera settings, but I thought that you may enjoy seeing what we saw out the train window just outside of Tokyo when we first arrived in Japan.

Travel day

by Trent Herzog

Second day of our team’s trip, Friday and Saturday

We traveled for fifteen hours but also lost a day because of the time zones.  We took two planes, one to Houston Texas and the second one to Japan. We woke up at 3:30 in the morning, so this is the third day that I’ve gotten very little sleep. My whole schedule is kind of messed up right now with the odd hours.

After we took the two planes and arrived in Japan, we had Mr. Zirkel pick us up. We then took a couple trains and had Mr. Zirkel lead us to his home. We had dinner with Mr. Zirkel, his wife and Holly, who is a student that’s learning the Japanese language at a university and Tokyo and is staying with us in the Zirkel"s home. Since the Zirkel are a host family, they might have several groups with different objectives staying in their house at the same time.

Some interesting stuff happened today. On the first plane, I sat next to a girl who was a student at the University of Kentucky and was taking a trip to Ecuador. We talked for a little bit, but I was so tired that I fell asleep on the girl’s shoulder on accident, but Mr. Waggoner grabbed my head and pulled me off of her.

Some other screwy stuff happened with me. I was the only one to open a window when everybody was trying to sleep, because it wasn’t dark out, but it was supposed to be night. I also bought a couple weasel balls from a store at Houston’s airport, one for Calico, my cat, to play with and one for my family and I to keep intact in case Calico destroys hers.

When we arrived at Japan, I discovered a couple interesting things about their culture. First, they had several anime advertisements and references. I saw the symbol for One Piece on a guy’s backpack in Tokyo’s airport. There was an advertisement for Gantz in the train we rode on. Also, there were a couple posters for Yugioh 5Ds on the walls of buildings that I saw when we rode on the train.

We almost lost Crum when we got on the second train. The door closed before he could get on, and we left him behind. However, Mr. Zirkel , who is the guy we’re staying with, went back and got him. Crum fortunately had the presence of mind to stay where he was instead of trying to look for us, which would have made matters worse. Because of our incident with Crum, Mr. Zirkel developed a plan in case one of us gets left behind while trying to get on the train or subway again. Either the person left behind will stay where they are or they will go to the next train stop, because Mr. Zirkel knows where that is.

Mr. Zurcel’s idea with the trains and subways could be really useful in the future…

We had dinner with Mr. Zirkel, his wife and Holly, who is a new missionary staying with the Zirkel's.  After dinner we got ready for bed.  I think we should be able to sleep.

Safely in Japan!

Just a quick note to let family and friends know that we are now safely in Japan at the WGM guesthouse.  The flight was long, but the plane was new and had lots of nice features like outlets at each seat and movies on demand throughout the flight.

We are about to sit down for supper, but hopefully I will be able to post a few pictures and more details about our travel and accommodations.

Nathan Waggoner for the team

Haiti Slideshow

Click here to view a slideshow of images from the Haiti trip!

Haiti house panoramic

Thanks to Michael Haddock for taking and combining this panoramic of the house we worked on over spring break! We have uploaded fairly large versions of them, so feel free to click to expand them to see more detail. Hopefully soon we will have a slideshow up from the trip as well.

Thanks for all your prayers!  Sharing with Global Cafe last night was great!  Looking forward to next spring break!

Haiti Team Report this Sunday

Come hear a live report from our team to Haiti!  Sunday, 6PM at Global Cafe`!