The woman sitting at the table next to mine looked up when she heard me speak in Japanese. I knew I had a ten second window of time max to begin a conversation with her. If I didn’t say something right away, she would bury her face in her magazine again and I would lose the opportunity. What to say? Noticing she had ordered the same thing I had, I tried “This tea & toast set is really good on a cold morning, isn’t it?” What a lame comment, but…that’s all it took!

Half an hour later, after telling me a bit about her life and reminiscing about some childhood memories - including six years of attending Sunday School and being a sheep in the Christmas pageant - we finished up our tea and headed out. “Ooohh, Christmas!!” she said somewhat wistfully. “I haven’t thought about Christmas for a LONG time. It’s so nostalgic.” I handed her my blog card and encouraged her to come to a Christmas Eve candlelight service.

Dean was sitting on a bench downtown working and praying for opportunities, when a young girl sat down next to him to wait for her friend. Once again, the creativity of our conversation starters seems a bit lacking, but…”It sure is getting cold out here” seemed to be all that was necessary. Often people who talk to us like English, and this girl was no exception. She dreamed of going on a working holiday, but didn’t have the money…REALLY wanted to go to Hawaii…wished her English was better… Since the topic posted on “thatrinda’s blog” at the time just happened to be the testimony of a Hawaiian pastor friend, Dean showed it to her and gave her my card. A few minutes later her friend showed up, anxious to get going. After making a point of shaking hands with Dean, she disappeared into the crowds.

I hopped the train into the city and glanced around for an empty seat. There was only one! I plopped myself down next to a guy with pink and orange streaked hair, chains, and rather creepy looking accessories dangling from his cell phone. I tried to catch his eye and smile as I sat down, but there was no acknowledgement of it on his part. His face remained completely expressionless and his eyes remained glued to his cell phone. For the next ten minutes I tried to think of something to say to him. “How can he be reached, Lord?” I thought… He and thousands of other empty faces that ride the train every day.

As we move into the beginning stages of a church plant focused on downtown Sendai, many of our days include stories like these. We recently heard that, when starting a new ministry, at least half our time should be spent out trying to meet new people. We’ve become very intentional about that. Whenever possible we ride the train or subway instead of driving. We carry our laptops around and work at coffee shops instead of inside our house.

I’m writing this at a favorite burger chain. Two of the girls working here are students who love to practice their English. A few minutes ago one of them broke my heart by telling me she had just lined up a new job after graduation – at one of Sendai’s largest shrines. She will wear a traditional Shinto robe and be responsible for cleaning religious articles and helping English-speaking tourists.

Please pray that God will give us many opportunities for meeting people with open hearts. In December we passed out hundreds of Christmas CDs, blog cards, and cool advertisements for a contemporary style Christmas story viewable by cell phone. It’s sponsored by a group called “Let’s Love Japan”. We DO love Japan. And we thank you so much for supporting our work here.

Linda