Tonight @ Global Cafe`!

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Last day in Japan

by Trent Herzog

Thursday

We had lunch with pastor Paul Ueki at a Chinese restaurant where I ate lots of exotic food, which included shark fin soup, sliced jellyfish, and peiking duck (duck skin tacos). I’m trying to eat a lot so I can make up for the weight I lost at Asbury and gain weight, because I want to get bigger, so I think I surprised Mr. Waggoner and Crum by eating more than them, despite being smaller than them. The pastor paid for the meal, which was very generous. 

Then the pastor gave us a tour of the city where he was born, which included walking along Tokyo Bay. We saw three buildings that were called king, queen and jack, because they were the first three big buildings in Yokohama. Mr. Waggoner took some pictures of Crum and me against backdrops like a ferris wheel.  

We went back to the Zirkles house, and Mr. Waggoner, Crum and Holly did some shopping at Don Quixote, while Mr. Zirkle and I checked out the martial arts dojo above the store, because Mr. Zirkle remembered that I wanted to see some martial arts in Japan. The dojo was small, but I saw some children practicing jiu jutsu, which is one of my favorite Japanese martial arts. During dinner at the Zirkles’ house, the Zirkles gave Mr. Waggoner, Crum and I all pens for a present. That night, we signed the Zirkles’ guest book and tried some soybean flavored Kit Kats and “dry” Pepsi that Holly had bought at the store.

I have been over whelmed by the Zirkles’ generosity during this trip. There have been so many good people on this trip like the Zirkles, Holly, pastor Paul Ueki and the Bible study at Rikkyo college. There might be only 1% Christianity in Japan right now, but with good, genuine people such as these, I definitely think there is hope for Japan. ^_^

We are posting this as we run out the door to the airport, so we won't have time for captions, but still thought you may enjoy some pictures from the day.

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Back to school

by Nathan Waggoner

Today was a pretty laid back day in some ways.  We traveled to the Christian Academy of Japan (CAJ) where Becky Zirkle works in the library.  We wanted to get a little footage of Becky in her ministry there at CAJ.  Since the end of the year is nearly over, Becky is busy cataloguing the textbooks and we helped her move some of them around the school.  We also filmed some students in the courtyard for some more youth footage.

Nathan Crum uses the steady cam to shoot a little behind the scenes today.  We have been filming a fair amount of behind the scenes footage and hopefully will be able to edit a video of our time here as well.

After driving back to our home base, we ate an amazing dinner!  It was a typical Japanese dinner consisting of rice and shredded cabbage with breaded and deep fried chicken or pork as the main dish with  Miso soup and fruit as sides.  After dinner Nathan Crum tried making some sushi using some leftover rice and a seaweed wrap.  It was impressive!  I think I know what we will be doing for Global Café snacks when we share this fall.

Tomorrow we will be traveling by train south of the city to Yokohama.  It will be sort of a tourist day as we see a new part of Japan.  We don’t have any particular footage we are trying to get, but you can be sure we will be taking our cameras anyway.

It is hard to believe that tomorrow will be out last day here in Japan.  We have been blessed to see lots of amazing things and meet some really great people.  Pray with us that we will be able to share a little of what we have learned through the videos we will be producing.  The Zirkles who have hosted us will be coming back to the states this summer for their homeland ministry assignment and they will be using our videos as they share with churches and small groups throughout the USA.  There is a young family named the Motts that will also be using the videos as will Brandon Kuba as they are also raising their support to get to Japan.  If you are interested in having any of them share with your church or small group, e-mail me at Nathan@asburywgm.org and I can put you in touch with them.

Thanks for your continued prayers! 

Last day of interviews

by Nathan Crum

Today has also been a good day for interviews. We talked to three leaders in the Japanese church that also has plenty of experience in other cultures. There were still a few questions that were left unanswered before today but after we were able to hone our questions and talk to these pastors with a fresh perspective we got almost everything we needed.

After some of the interviews today Trent and I decided to take on Tokyo’s newest challenge…the MegaMac! McDonalds new quadruple patty burger which we have only seen here in Japan. We managed to consume it easily along with fries. They also gave us a free can shaped glass Coca-Cola cup for super sizing the meal. 

From the first ad we saw on the train, we knew we had to try the Mega Mac

We were also able to go celebrate Nathan Waggoner’s birthday today by eating out at a nice restaurant in the Sunshine City mall and dessert at Coldstone creamery before ending the day logging and resting.

Shot on a timer from a neighboring table at tonight's dinner.

Nathan's balancing fork trick

They sing a ice cream mixing song here in Japan as they prepare your Cold Stone treat.

Nathan chose "Chocolate Devotion" for his birthday dessert.  Instead of any coffee flavors, they had green tea flavors of ice cream.  None of us were brave enough to try it.

 Now Nathan Waggoner and I are sitting in our matching authentic Japanese outfits (with pants) and watching Leverage with Trent and Holly. Just a few days left here in Japan and a few places left to visit and film before we head home and finish up the project. So we will leave you with some fun humorous images for today.

Holly took this action shot.

For how clean everything in Tokyo is, we were surprised to see this sign in the elevator of an office building today.

Trent standing in to test the light for an interview that was about to happen.

The Zirkles had a special plate for Nathan to use today on his birthday.

 The next viral YouTube video.  Youth all over Japan will soon be doing this.

Rainy Monday

by Trent Herzog

Monday

I transcribed most of three videos in the morning. Then we went to Rikkyo college and had another meeting with the Rikkyo Bible study group. We interviewed some more people in the Bible study group and filmed everybody sitting at the table where the group has their meetings. We also had a Japanese, sugary snack that we had in the park on Saturday. We talked to the people in the group just to get acquainted and read some verses in the Bible, but we only stayed for two hours and then went back home. We didn’t do much outside today. This afternoon I finished transcribing the three videos that were in English and found out from Mr. Zirkle that he transcribed the videos that were in Japanese himself, which saves me a lot of work. This evening we watched two more episodes of Leverage. This day was somewhat uneventful. We only did one thing outside today, which was visiting the Bible study group again. I can’t believe we only have three more days left before we return home. I wish we could spend two more weeks in Japan, because I love it here and the Zirkles are great. Japan is everything I thought it would be. ^_^

Worshiping in Tokyo

by Nathan Waggoner

Even without a common language, worshiping with brothers and sisters in Christ is always uplifting.  Today was no different.  We attended the Immanuel Fukagaea Church this morning and joined them in worship.  After the service we ate a delicious meal of Japanese Curry while sitting on the floor at low tables in typical Japanese fashion.  The church provides an inexpensive meal each week after church and most of the church family stays to eat a fellowship.  Once a month the church puts on an afternoon concert, so after lunch we enjoyed some classical and sacred music performed by the youth and college-age students at the church. According to the pastor’s wife, about 2/3 of the people who came to the concert were non-Christian.  It is rare for a non-believer to feel comfortable coming into a church building, so these concerts are a way to introduce new people to the church.  The music was beautiful, but after a good meal and while sitting in a warm room, the “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies” felt a lot like a lullaby.  The only think that kept me awake was filming Nathan Crum struggling to stay awake himself. 

After the concert, we had the chance to interview lots of people in the church.  We did six individual interviews and then had a panel style interview with about a dozen youth.  According to Kevin Zirkle we got a lot of good stuff, but we have to trust him since all of the interviews were in Japanese today. 

We did several of our interviews up on a little balcony above the sanctuary.  We have gotten pretty good at being creative in tight places.

Trent is showing where to attach the mic.

We try to use available light whenever possible, but sometimes we had to get out the video light to add depth to the subject.

Shooting a panel 'interview' was a little tricky, but hopefully we have something usable.

Tomorrow we will be working hard at translating some of the interviews we have shot.  As they are translated into English, Trent will be transcribing them.  Nathan Crum and I will be working on scripting and making sure we have all of the shots we need.  We will be using this information to plan out Wednesday and Thursday’s schedules.

Pray that tomorrow is productive!