Earthquakes, Walking and Church

We had heard that Japan has hundreds of earthquakes of various sizes every year, so I have been praying to not be in one. On Friday I was on the couch in the living room when it started to move. Twice it slid a little on the floor – not a lot, just a little. Roger in the kitchen didn’t notice it. The next day I was on the same couch (think I’ll stay off of it!!), when it not only rocked, the lights started to swing. I was sitting with a Japanese woman who registered concern. Later I found out that it was a 3 on their scale – not too far away registered a 5. When I asked what the scale was – from 1 to ?, I was told they don’t put an upper limit on them!! Hopefully we’ve had our quota!! (Again, Roger was under the building in the carport and didn’t notice it.)

We walked to church again today. Walking is hard – the sidewalks are busy, you have to maneuver. But even worse are the bikes. They don’t give notice and pass close beside you. It’s always a surprise/shock when they go by – if you happened to move the wrong way, they’d get you!! Evidently they are supposed to stay on the roads – there are even bike lanes marked, but they prefer the sidewalk – which is easy to understand when you see the traffic and narrow roads.

Walking is also difficult because of the (slight) unevenness of the sidewalks, store floors, and everywhere else we go. Coming up the steps to our apartment, we have to step over a brick wall several inches high. Then we step over the threshold into a small space for changing shoes. The floor steps up at that point again. Our bathroom floor is also somewhat elevated. A missionary lady told me she broke her toe on it! It’s embarrassing to stumble in a store because the floor “adjusted”!! And you don’t want to fall on the sidewalk – it’s too close to the road. There are no shoulders.

The weather has warmed up considerably so that we wish we had our summer clothes along! Supposedly this is exceptionally hot for this time of year, so we hope it will cool down again. In the meantime, we do have air conditioning.

On the positive side, we love going to the church. At 9:30 we “help” with an English class. Several of the attendees are “seekers” and several are believers. At 11 we go to the basement of the building for our English service. Our pianist is exceptional and we sing the beloved hymns, as well as some choruses. This church has consistently provided translators for my little Bible club in the park, but the last 2 weeks we haven’t been able to draw the kids away from the water and water balloons. I can’t say I blame them! We did hand out New Testaments which I had marked with their memory verses and Bible stories. By putting their names in the front, we hope they will take possession and read them! There were some teenage boys and one dad who also accepted a copy.