Seasons greetings, readers! December is here, and boy is it ever cold! Pretty much has been near freezing for the past few weeks, with some snow fall here and there. Not cold enough to stay, but I can stay that a white Christmas may not be far off! Admittedly, this post is a quick one, considering most of the month has been in preparation for Christmas itself, but I have a few things of note to share with you. So here's a little something me and Janet, one of my YWAM Sendai teammates, are cooking up:
Yep! We're making gift bags to hand out! Forty gift bags in total! And yes: that is indeed a manga (comic) book about the Gospel, created by Japanese Christian artists! We plan on handing these out at Kokubuncho (the red-light district), wishing all the nightgoers a Merry Christmas and that there's a true reason for the season! Included in each bag are: two ministry tracks, a card with a link to a evangelism website, a pocket warmer, and some candy. Please pray that this gifts will open the hearts of the locals, and bring them that much closer to accepting Jesus as their savior!
Also, on the 20th, Janet is opening her house to her neighbors for a Christmas party! There's gonna be food, music, and (hopefully) a Christmas movie! Speaking of which, I've been trying to find either "A Charlie Brown Christmas" or "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" (the old, animated BEST one) in Japanese, but having no luck. If any of you know of a short but meaningful Christmas movie (preferably translated into Japanese), please let me know and pray that this party will grow friendship with the local neighbors!
And now for your amusement (and my embarrassment): my first (and potentially last) attempt at ordering a pizza in Japan! So, a few days ago, I was craving the delicious comforts of a hot cheese pizza, which is harder to find in Japan than one may think. I thought a local pizza joint, thirty minutes away on foot, would be satisfying, but little did I know I was about to be served up a (not really) hot dish of awkwardness and horror beyond comprehension...
Using a combination of broken Japanese, hand gestures, and pointing at the menu directly, I was able to order a large cheese pizza from the slightly flabbergasted clerk, who admittedly was very patient with my incoherent attempts at communication. After a surprisingly quick 15 minutes, my precious food was ready to go. However, it was about 38 degrees outside, and having to walk home, the once hot pizza cooled down significantly by the time I reached my apartment. But no problem! Cold pizza is still tasty, right? However, the moment I opened the box, hungry and excited to have some genuine pizza pie, I was greeted by something...evil. Feast your eyes (pun fully intended) on this:
I assure you, this is not photoshoped. This is real. Corn. On pizza. What matter of nefarious monstrosity had I ordered? Apparently, when I pointed to the pizza I wanted, which I thought was a scrumptious 4-cheese, it was, in fact, corn. And yes. I did try it. And no. It was not good. At all. The texture was corn. The taste was corn. No real cheese. No tomato sauce. No seasoning. Corn. Only corn. And then... Nothing!
The only editable thing about this culinary disaster were the crusts themselves, which I dipped into tomato sauce in some attempt to salvage this nightmarish abomination. Needless to say, I suppose some people's pizza topping choices can be a tad unusual, but corn?! Seriously?! I can't say I would ever eat a pizza from that shop again, but it does make for a funny story (four days later). I think from now on, I'll stick with the local foods when eating out anywhere.
Only a few more weeks til I visit Tokyo! Thank you all so much for your prayers and support throughout this entire year! Merry Christmas to you all and God bless you all!
Love this blog. Corn is also very popular pizza topping in Spain where I was a short-term missionary in my early twenties. They add tuna. Corn and tuna and cheese...it's something to get used to. But just corn---no.