KGK Spring Camp

This spring the theme was - roughly translated - "I want to know what God expects of me". And our speaker, Pastor Yoshida, talked about dealing with sin (and unforgiveness) in our lives and reflecting God's glory in EVERYTHING we do.

Pastor Yoshida

His message kind of doubled with something I read before bed in Edith Schaeffer's "The Tapestry":

"...how many people living in Germany at the time Bach was composing heard the sheer wonder of that gorgeous music with their ears, or felt it flow through their whole beings? Only those of Leipzig's St. Thomas Lutheran Church, which had a new composition of his every Sunday of the year as an expected part of their worship service, and very few others. ... Many of us would like to be able to slip back through the years and sit in a pew in that Lutheran Church to listen to Bach play week after week. Would we have really been conscious of what was taking place in that service? How astonished Bach himself would have been to know how widely appreciated his music would be one day. ... Faithfully he continued what he was doing, believing that God was sufficient audience."

My group

I'm not all that keen on small group Bible Studies. But some good stuff happened in my group - despite sidetracks and yoga stretches - confessions and soulsearching...

Graduates

There were a lot of graduates this year - so many that we were able to devote a whole evening their testimonies. Of course, some of them are coming back next year as graduates students! It was encouraging to hear - and sometimes see as I first met some of them 4 years ago - the changes God has worked in their lives.

Joshua and Yoshimi with their daughter

The good things didn't end at the camp. We stopped halfway home to drop one of the girls off to stay with the couple pictured above. (For interest sake, Joshua remembers Daughter #1 from KGK/ICF in Tokyo! Now he's a pastor in Morioka.)

But Joshua and Yoshimi weren't the only people we met at Morioka Jusco. As I waited for my hamburger suddenly, Jun, one of the boys from my small group a few years ago was standing in front of me. I had been thinking about him in the morning - a bit worried - and there he was! We spent half an hour talking over supper before he had to leave - he was on his way to a new school in Tokyo.