Challenging Day

Today was a pretty special day. We are now in the middle of summer vacation. I had only one class tonight, so I had the rest of the day off. I went to Grace (a church school/church building) at lunch. Afterward, John (a visitor from England that taught English in Osaka for a year with the JET program) and I went downtown. It was so nice to talk to him about Japan and Japanese people and such. I just met him on Wednesday, but I feel very comfortable talking to him. Well, not exactly comfortable- he makes me want to be... better. I really want to be more courageous. I want to speak Japanese. I want to speak to foreigners. I want to reach out to the people at SPREAD- the young-adult group at church. Afterward, I went to talk with with Abu and Cellou- my two African merchant friends in town. I talked to Abu about a bunch of things. He actually asked me a couple of English questions, and then, as always he switched the conversation to religion. He said that when a Muslim dies, the other Muslims pray for forgiving him. I must read up on Islam. I wonder what happens when a woman dies. He said that it is important that you forgive a man when he dies, so that his list of bad things that he did during his life is less. On judgement day, if his list of good is more than his list of bad, he goes to Heaven; Hell, if it is the other way around. Talk about earning your salvation, seriously! My conversation with Cellou was actually done mostly in Japanese. He was explaining -なる. Then class and SPREAD. Mitsunori came tonight. I want to be able to talk to him. Then the kid with the glasses actually talked to me. I dont even know his name. I am kinda a jerk that way. I am sad to say that I really dont know what he said. Something about his dad, scary, his little brother, Tomo, and either strict or uncontrolable circumstances. I dont know if he was talking about his father doesnt approve of him coming to church and doesnt like Tomo, the youth minister, or if he was talking about something else. That is kinda what I thought. Maybe one day I will actually understand people when they talk to me. That would be great. Anyway, he seemed to feel like we had a bond after that. That made me happy. I think that Ikuo-san (maybe thats his name) said that he really didnt feel like people understand him. That makes me sad. I dont think that I can love him through language, but I can love him in prayer. I was startled tonight by the lack of women at the meeting. I left soon after it ended and went to the video store. Just a normal day in the life of me, being challenged at every breath.