Who Knows You
Dear friends,
The last month has been characterized by a beautiful flurry of activity. We as a staff team conferenced for three consecutive days to help refocus and adapt our ministry. We separated our sixteen-person team into a Campus Team, Graduate Team, and Coffee Shop team. Campus Team, which I am part of, focuses primarily on work with current students; we seek to grow the students using the Bible and make it an active part of their lives. The Graduate Team operates with our 社会人 (Shakai-jin, post-graduate working members) seeking to create a community for both those who have professed faith as well as those who have not. The Coffee Shop team seeks to use a recently opened Coffee Shop as a place where postgraduates can find work, and as a physical space for believers to have community. During our conference, each team defined their individual objectives for the next three years, and brainstormed how they can best interlink to benefit our Tokyo ministry as a whole.
The conference gave rise to many brilliant ideas and questions. The biggest question for me was where I fit in the mix. Due to me being a part of this ministry before, many student relationships I have no longer fall within the campus jurisdiction. As I pondered this thought, a new question came to mind:
Are my past relationships as solid as I remember, and can I develop similar relationships with new students?
As I considered this question, the Lord brought me into situations with students that made the answer clear: Yes, my past relationships are genuine and solid, and yes, there are still deep relationships waiting to be built.
The former was answered the second day of our conference. After our meeting, a graduate invited me to a birthday celebration for a graduating senior. I thought that numerous seniors and upperclassmen were also attending, so I socially readied myself and tried to ease my fears of being an outsider. However, when I got there I found out it was actually an intimate dinner with just a few close friends. My initial fears quickly washed away as I felt the warmth of friendships long since established settle in. We talked about where life was leading the three of us, how life has been since we had last seen each other, and most vibrantly of all why I had come back. It was the first opportunity I have had to share the details of how God had shaped my life by bringing me to Tokyo. I was nervous and scared to press into this topic, fearing that the mention of God would widen the gap in our relationships. However, as the restaurant brought a "birthday french toast" at the end of the night, I could not have been proven more wrong. With the toast came a cup of coffee pictured here:
It reads: おかえり or "Welcome Home"
At first I was confused and I questioned why they had brought coffee. It was not until the graduate read the words to me, "おかえり" ("Okaeri", a customary greeting said whenever someone returns home) and I instinctively replied with the customary response, "ただいま" ("Tadaima", I am home) did it really hit me. I was home and accepted here.
The fear of the older crowd rejecting me removed, one fear remained. Yet it too was addressed during a weekend retreat to the snow with the freshmen and seniors of our ministry. For the first two days, I pursued freshmen and yearned for the relational experience I had with the seniors just the week prior. I prayed in the week leading up to the retreat that God would give me even just a few who would be willing to dig past the surface into the deep.
On our second night, we celebrated a birthday and had small group discussions centered around the topic of: “Who knows you?” We used a discussion sheet that centered on Paul’s relationships with others as the building point for the conversation. While discussing question two, I shared how I had a few people in my life who knew me very deeply. A freshman responded saying she did not really have anyone in her life who fit this category. However, as we continued to discuss into question five, she expressed this was something she wanted to change. I agreed with her longing to have relationships in this community, like I had back in America.
After the small group discussion, we broke into “pair talks,” one-on-one conversations with the intention of getting to know the other person. I happened to be paired with the same freshman I had mentioned earlier. Our conversation at first began with quick jokes, but quickly shifted into pursuing a friendship with the intention of being deep. The same warmth that pervaded my dinner with the seniors the week prior surged into our conversation. Any sense of awkwardness evaporated quickly, and we were able to pursue this topic deeply. We finally reached the topic of why I was here and ultimately bled into what I had given up to be here. However, before I could return the conversation and ask why she chose B.E.S.T. club, our conversation was sadly cut short by our curfew, hopefully to be continued at a later date.
I am encouraged and ready, fears now extinguished, to let these students know who I am. To get them to the level Paul describes in 2 Timothy 3:10-11; that they may know, “my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecutions, sufferings,” and in the presence of the latter most two hear me proclaim, “Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them.”
Home is where people know you and I am excited to make this place home.
Yours in Christ,
Dean Madera
