Food, Fortitude and Finality

The top picture here is my plate from lunch today. The next two photos are of displays in restaurant windows of the food that is offered within. I'd encourage you to click on the pics and look at a close up of this stuff. Absolutely amazing. I hope you can see the egg on the pizza in the middle picture. It's almost like a "Where's Waldo" puzzle. Spend a few minutes and see if you can identify how many things dont belong together in these pics. This place is crazy!

OK, now for the lunch plate. I let peer pressure get the best of me and I followed along with the crowd. Off we went to a Japanese Buffet for lunch. I knew better. I mean, I really, really knew better. But I had to go. The way the place works is, the buffet costs a set price, something like 7 bucks. And it is all you can eat (which isn't all that much!) But the kicker of the whole deal is that you get 70 minutes to eat what you can. Then you have to pay more. Supper meals are an even better deal, then you get 90 minutes. For the record, I was done in about 3 minutes if you dont count the time I spent gagging. You cant believe how nasty this stuff was. And it has got flavors my mouth has never encountered. NEVER! I did manage to think I was getting water chestnuts or something similar. In the picture its on the right side of the plate, almost in the middle. I think it has some yellow looking peas in it. That was my first bite and it ruined my mouth for anything else. I dont know what they did to that stuff, but its wrong. I ended up eating a bit of the fried pork stuff and the tomatoes in the middle were really good. But that's it. I couldn't get the rest down.

Today was also the Official Meeting of the General Assembly. I mentioned earlier in the week that my committee was presenting a recommendation that I thought would be an almost historical moment in the life of the church. Well, it passed. Let me share that with you now:

REPORT 2 OF THE COMMITTEE ON MISSIONS, MINISTRY AND MILITARY CHAPLAINS
Recommendation 2: We recommend that the General Assembly re-affirm the 5-year priority focus on evangelism, directing staffs of the Board of Missions, Commission on the Ministry, Board of Christian Education, and the Publication Board, or their successor entities in collaboration with any other General Assembly agencies necessary, to develop an integrated plan to lead presbyteries and the several churches to engage in evangelism focused on bringing new persons to salvation in Jesus Christ.
The plan shall include, but not be limited to, the Publication Board informing its readers with articles and research on evangelism; the Board of Christian Education identifying or creating curriculum to teach the Gospel to non-believers and to train disciples to reach out to non-believers; the Commission on Ministry offering training to equip pastors and lay leaders in the area of evangelism; and, the Board of Missions engaging the whole church in reaching new persons for the cause of Christ.
Special care should be taken in the development of the plan to include strategies for urban, suburban, rural and international churches.
Work in progress plans shall be submitted to the fall 2008 meeting of the Ministry Council and executable plans shall be submitted to the winter 2009 meeting of the Ministry Council and be posted on the denominational web site. Progress reports of the plan shall be submitted to each of the General Assemblies through the year of 2012.
The intended essence of this recommendation is to call all of the identified agencies and resources of the CP Church to a 5-year emphasis on evangelism focused on bringing new persons to Christ.

Pretty cool huh? The point being:
a. Conversion Evangelism
b. The directing of Boards, Agencies and Personnel to actually work together, at times, to develop a plan that incorporates every facet of the church, and gets them working together toward the common goal of reaching people with the Good News of Jesus.

Not that big of a deal you say? Well maybe not. But it seems to me that getting all of everybody working in the same direction, for the same cause is a big thing in our church. Let alone the fact that this "project" is the very thing that Christ created the church to be in the first place. Only time will tell, but it is an exciting move in the right direction with built in accountability to make sure that the job gets done. Last years assembly approved a 5-year emphasis on evangelism. But all that was done was saying something to the effect that "Ya'll need to do evangelism." This recommendation actually creates an expectation that something WILL BE DONE. Yipee!

Now, for the final meal of the day. Our youth advisory delegate, Noah Quinton, mentioned that he saw a pretty neat restaurant that was authentic Japanese food. I'm telling you, I THOUGHT I learned my lesson. But I decided to give it one last chance. Thank God I did! If I had to spend the rest of my life in Japan, I at least would not starve. Tonights meal was incredible. It went like this:
We walked in the restaurant and were greeted by a hostess. She spoke no English. No problem. We deduced that we were to remove our shoes and place them in a locker. Noah, however, wears a size 15, so he had to use 2 lockers. One for each shoe. Then we were escorted to a table by the window that appeared to require us to sit on the floor. It was actually a seating platform with a sunken floor, so we really weren't on the floor. Out the window you could see for probably 20 miles. Solid skyscraper type buildings the whole distance. This city just amazes me. Next, we were brought a bunch of bowls. One had Japanese veggies, one had some sauce, one had tofu with these miniature dead raw fish that looked like little white worms. We were then brought a plate of raw meat, a bowl of rice and bowl of egg-drop soup. In the center of our table was a recessed hibachi grill. You cooked your meat on the grill and then ate all the other stuff with it. It was awesome. Probably one of the best meals of my life. I made the statement that it was a shame I was eating this meal with 2 other guys, because this would be the ultimate date meal. It would be worth bringing my wife back here just to eat at this place once and then go home. I can't explain how awesome it was. At any rate, we all ate everything but the tofu and dead baby fishes. That was just wrong. I refuse to eat anything that still has its eyeballs staring back at me. The meal was finished with a stone cup of fishy tasting water and then a nice bowl of ice cream. I forgot my camera, so I intend on going back again tomorrow for another meal and I'll try and get some good pictures.

All in all, today was good. We used the train system without a guide. We endured a long day of Assembly business. And I finally found authentic food worth eating. Good times. Though I am missing my home, my family, my church and all things familiar. Ahh, but my time in Japan is running out. 2 more full days and then the long, long, long journey home provided our travel agent has gotten our flights properly arranged.


He Has Made Me Glad!
jeff