What surprised me was the willingness with which our chapel dantai university students, very few of them Christian, put on a nativity play every year. It's something that British students would scoff at as not worthy of their attention (not helped by its association with primary school, I suppose), but the students here take the story seriously and put a lot of work and attention into staging it. There is, as you say, an openness. Getting people over the "fear of the water," as it were, is the hurdle I face here. They don't want to be baptised partly because they want to share their families' grave plots and all the traditions around death that are observed here. It is perceived as un-Japanese to opt out.
So well written Tom; thank you for this great Christmas Present/reminder in this ocean of discouegement due to tons of rejections and ignorance toward life and death matter crucial things.
Merry Christmas with quenched out santa claus and with Lord Jesus in the very center!
Yes! Though I love and miss fruit cake...
What surprised me was the willingness with which our chapel dantai university students, very few of them Christian, put on a nativity play every year. It's something that British students would scoff at as not worthy of their attention (not helped by its association with primary school, I suppose), but the students here take the story seriously and put a lot of work and attention into staging it. There is, as you say, an openness. Getting people over the "fear of the water," as it were, is the hurdle I face here. They don't want to be baptised partly because they want to share their families' grave plots and all the traditions around death that are observed here. It is perceived as un-Japanese to opt out.
So well written Tom; thank you for this great Christmas Present/reminder in this ocean of discouegement due to tons of rejections and ignorance toward life and death matter crucial things.
Merry Christmas with quenched out santa claus and with Lord Jesus in the very center!