The past week or so has been far from normal. As I said in my previous re-cap (well over a week ago now), I had a friend visiting me all the way from Japan. I had some ministry to do on the weekend, but during the week took some time off to spend with Kenji and show him around. It was a really nice change of pace.
Kenji’s come and gone now, and here’s what went down:
- Kenji arrived late Thursday night in Moncton, where we crashed at a friend’s place for the night.
- Friday morning we drove to Black’s Harbour and took the boat to Grand Manan, where we hung out with friends and got ready for Sunday. The church we were visiting was Central Wesleyan, one of my supporting churches.
- Sunday was ministry day, of course. But with Kenji here, we changed things up a bit. I ended up leading worship for the service, Kenji gave a short testimony (in English, for the first time) and I did the short version of my missions talk. I felt like God blessed our ministry, and I really enjoyed re-connecting with the church.
- Sunday afternoon there was some sight-seeing, and Sunday night we chilled out with our hosts. It was a really fun weekend. Grand Manan is a beautiful place with a culture all its own and a lot of friendly locals. I was glad Kenji got to experience the island.
- Monday we traveled to Saint John, met up with a friend for lunch, saw some of the city, and continued on to my home in New Maryland (a suburb of Fredericton, for those who don’t know).
- Tuesday we visited the Sabian cymbal factory, which was really cool. I’m a musician (of sorts) but Kenji actually plays drums, so I think he appreciated it on a deeper level than I did. The rest of that day and Wednesday we just hung around Fredericton, saw some local sights, and chilled out at home.
- Thursday we went to Sussex, where we had the opportunity to sing a song in chapel in Japanese and English, because it happened to be missions week at Bethany Bible College. We mingled with some students after, then did some hiking with my favorite professor and had dinner with his family.
- That night we headed back to Moncton, and Kenji flew out of Canada ridiculously early on Friday morning.
- Friday and Saturday were kind of “recovery” days for me after all the traveling and such. Yesterday I hit the road again, though, and went to Amherst, NS, to re-connect with Amherst Wesleyan Church. I had a great time there, too.
It was great having a friend visit from Japan — a first for me. I enjoyed getting to share my roots with Kenji; seeing him take photos and act surprised about what I consider normal (the same thing I’ve done so often in Japan); catching up on what’s going on in my Japanese church and with our mutual friends; talking about life, faith, church and culture; speaking Japanese, English and “Japanglish”… It was a good week.
And that’s a wrap.