Taga Church

Yesterday morning I went to the Taga church. It was so wonderful to finally get to meet all of the people I had heard so much about from my friends. And they had been expecting me there! A couple of my friends had forewarned them that I would be coming to Japan soon. I went to a bilingual class that Judith teaches which is going through the book of Mark. Judith teaches in Japanese, then someone translates. It was a very good class. For the sermon, Mr. Seito gave us all a copy of the sermon translated into English-- he went to Oklahoma Christian University, too! As did the minister, Sugao. And there is a man there who went to OC, majored in TEFL and Vocational ministry, and was involved in the international ministry at MRCC-- basically my twin! :) His name is Jun and he is really neat. I was introduced to the church at the end of the serve, and once again asked to say a few words (I told you it was a popular thing to do in Japan!). I told them that I was very honored to be worshipping with them after hearing so many wonderful things about the congregation. I even found out that they had had me and my move to Japan on their prayer list for several weeks. That means so much!
After church a group of us went to eat, and I had a plate of spaghetti that could have fed 4 people. Of course I couldn't eat it all, but it was good. Just a lot. Then I took a train to Mito and found my way to the church building for EBC. One of the teachers was going to be late, so I filled in for her until she got there then sat in the rest of the class. It was good but challenging, because of the four students there were 3 very different levels of language ability. Thankfully another teacher stepped in who spoke Japanese, so she was able to clarify things for us. The worship service was a wonderful singing service. It's always good practice in reading hiragana to sing the songs in English then Japanese. A couple of us talked about perhaps traveling somewhere this weekend-- I will keep you updated on that.
Today I checked out prices for tickets home this Christmas, and they're really not as high as I would have imagined. I can get home and back to Japan for almost half as much as it cost me to get here on a one way ticket. I haven't decided yet where I want to fly into-- OKC, Little Rock, DFW, or maybe even T-town. I didn't check the prices for Txk. Hmm... I should have. I also finished up preparations on my little "get to know Ann" activity that I will 19 times over in the next week and a half. 19 times for 19 classes. 30+ students per class. Whew. :)
Alina made dinner tonight for us ALTs, and we sat around and talked for hours. It was great to get to know all of them better. The more I get to know them, the more I like them and think we are going to work together very well.