What does it look like to answer God’s call to ‘go’ as a Christian in Japan and as a student in TCU? Summer mission trips in TCU are a tradition designed to help us live out our faith, go into communities throughout Japan, reach out, impart lives, create bonds, hear the voice of God more clearly and also establish the understanding of Christian ministry outside the classroom. This year’s, kakiden teams split up and went into far-reaching areas in Japan including the prefectures namely Nagoya, Shizuoka, Fukushima, Saitama, Hiroshima, Toyama to mention just a few. International students also gladly partook in this tradition despite the obvious challenge of language and maybe little knowledge of the various Japanese traditions which are more commonly practised outside Tokyo or Chiba, the communities that we now know well. In any case, it all proved to be a healthy challenge since we were compelled to put into very good use all the Japanese language skills that we have been sponging and also, life was made easier as our bi-lingual Japanese teammates acted as translators for us. These are some of the experiences shared by the international students:
Aika Heavenly Takeshi: My best experience Kakiden was when we visited the church member’s house and we shared our life in Chiba and we got to know about their lives in Fukushima. Our church name is 勿来キリスト福音教会
(Nakosu Fukuin Christ church). And also holding an event for the Church kids was a good experience. We all played with them, listened to Bible stories, fun events, and sang worship together. Kadamgailiu Panmei: It was an amazing experience to share some moments with the earthquake affected people and visit the spots where those events took place
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Lauren: We went to Numazu Minatomachi Church in Shizuoka Ken. It was an altogether wonderful experience, from serving in the church, children ministry, sharing about my home culture knowing more of my team members. Sharing testimonies on national radio to reach out to a greater audience I think was the highlight of the trip.
Shira Walker: I went to Megumi Baptist Church in Toyama. It was a wonderful time together with a local church. One thing we did was have a kids outreach event and put on a puppet show about the gospel.
Radhika Rokka: This picture was about the day when the kakiden members volunteered cleaning all around the church with the church members. It was a very good experience to work with church members and to help them. Anne Taylor: I enjoyed our homestay at a church member’s house. We got to hear their testimonies and enjoy playing with the kids.
We also had an open church event. It was fun to sing and dance to praise songs with the kids. our church was Midori Fukuin church in Nagoya.
