Brian's blog

Hi, all! Sorry for the long absence. I've been really busy getting things ready for my move out to NJ in about a week.

I have good news, though...and presents. :-)

I've been working to try to get Bilingual Bibles that (1) are a modern translation in both English and Japanese, (2) offer furigana over the Japanese kanji, (3) that are both OT and NT. I've found a Bible that fits all these requirements. You can check it out on Amazon here.

Now, it's fairly expensive, so I've been trying to raise the money through my home church and the two churches I've been preaching for over the past year. I've so far managed to raise enough money for 3 of these Bibles. I figure I should only need 5--one for each apartment--so it's a good start.

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to contact Dean to see the best way to get the Bibles over to you all. Hopefully I'll hear from him soon, but in case I don't, I would still like to get these Bibles out to you all as soon as possible. The first Bible will be going to my old apartment, next to Eiko Church in Akita. That leaves 2 Bibles that are up for grabs. So, if you think you would really like to have one of these Bibles to use, leave a comment here, and contact me with your mailing address and I'll see what I can do.

I guess I should post the sermon for everyone, huh? Well, I won't post it here, but I'll leave a link to where you can find it: http://bdwhite.com/sermons

The one you're looking for is "A Missionary Encounter with the Gospel (or Three Missions Stories)". You can read it online or download the PDF. This sermon is kind of the culmination of some of my thoughts on missions since returning from Japan. My thoughts are still not complete by any means, but it's good to have opportunities like this to write things down and see how the Spirit has been working on you.

Here's a blurb I wrote for the church website about the sermon I will be giving next Sunday. I thought I would post it here, because it is a story from my time in Japan. There are some related posts over at my blog (http://felixruina.com/daily):

Sometimes the practice of being a missionary is different from the image that we've built up in our minds.

Early on during my time in Japan, I was invited by one of the members of the church to take a driving tour through some of the nearby mountain trails. Sato-san, the man who invited me, spoke basically no English, and my Japanese was...minimal at best at that time. So, I wasn't too surprised when Sato-san picked me up with another young man in the car. The young man (probably in his mid-30s) spoke a little English—broken and staggering, but between my broken and staggering Japanese and his broken and staggering English, we were able to understand each other.

As the tour started, the young man mostly served as a translator between Sato-san and me. “He say this mountain...biggest mountain in Tohoku.” “Ah, I see. Very interesting,” I would respond, and he would dutifully translate back to Sato-san, “ああ、おもしろいです。”

Pretty soon, though, Sato-san began saying things that my translator companion had difficulty interpreting. Clearly Sato-san was using words that were not generally taught in high school English class. After some stumbling and jumbling, I figured out that Sato-san was trying to tell me the story of his faith journey—about how he became a Christian. It was interesting to hear, but I wondered a bit why he was telling this story to me...especially since I had already heard his story at the church. Read more »

This week's Sensei-Link Monday unfortunately is not any new content. Instead, I've been working on some new functionality for the site. Mostly, they are improvements you won't be able to see. However, one thing you can see is the new "Blogs" tab up at the top. Eventually, this will be the place to go to check out individual teacher's blogs.

Now, if you've registered for an account (and you're a teacher) you already have a blog. You can reach it simply by going to the address: http://sensei-link.org/{your user name}. Pretty simple, right? The idea for these blogs is for teachers to have a website they can give out to friends, family, churches, supporters so that they can check out all the things that you're doing during your time in Japan. Now, most of you probably already have personal blogs elsewhere, but the idea here is that you have a semi-official blog that you can feel free to give out to people who you might not necessarily want reading your personal blog. On top of that, it's a great way to share information with fellow teachers, present and future!

Next week I promise a proper Sensei-Link Monday entry. :-)

Alright! I'm early this week. Or am I right on time, considering it's actually Monday in Japan right now?

Either way, here's your new Sensei-Link Monday entry: Speed Run, a new game, which is actually three different games in one! Check it out below, or in the forums under "Teaching Aids" --> "Games".

Let me know what you think!

Well, as you may have noticed, Monday has come and gone with no new content. I'm working on a Bible Study to post, but it's not quite done yet. So, to make up for it, next Monday will be a Double Sensei-Link Monday, with two new posts for the price of one!

If anyone has any suggestions for content they would like to see more of (i.e. games, Bible Studies, Japan tips, etc...), just drop a comment or contact me, and I'll be happy to oblige! :)

Since I'm a little late, here is a dual-entry for Sensei-Link Monday!

First of all, I wanted to let everyone know about a Japanese language podcast I've been listening to recently that is really very well done. If you're in Japan right now, and you want to work a little on your Japanese, or if you're back from Japan and don't want to lose all the Japanese you learned, this is a great show to listen to. It's called Japanese Pod 101 (here's the link). It's completely free (they have paid services, but the podcasts themselves are free), and each week they offer several new podcasts of different levels. Right now I listen to the Newbie, Beginner, and Lower Intermediate podcasts. But, if you're super-awesome they also have Upper Intermediate, Advanced, and audio blogs to test your listening skills.

Now, for the second part of this entry, I thought I would give you all a preview of of the Kanto festival coming up in Akita in August. It's a really fun festival, so you should try to make it if you can!

Partly I wanted to do this entry to show everyone that you can do fun things like put pictures in your posts. All you need to do to add a picture to your blog entry or forum post is get an account with an online photo-sharing application like Flickr or Google's Picasaweb. For these photos, I used Flickr. Read more »

Well, it's Monday. And...as promised...here's my week's content!

So, this week, I'm starting a forum thread on festivals. I've added it to the "Akita" forum, because that's the area I know. It would be great if those of you in the other areas could start your own festival threads to let others know about the fun activities in your part of Japan.

Check it out below. :)