Pastor Gwajima told an incredible story of how he was paralyzed from the neck down for six years as a child. One day after the doctors told him he was going to die, he had a dream. In his dream, he was below a man on the cross whose blood flowed down on him. The man told him that by his stripes he was healed. When he woke up, his neck started to shake. His arms and legs began to work. He sat up and went to his parents door shouting. His dad and mom looked through the window at him and didn’t believe it was their son even though he told them, “I am your son Josephat!” Finally they went out and terrified, asked him what happened to him. He said over and over: a man on a cross, a man on a cross. “Who is this man on the cross?” the father asked. Josephat said, “I don’t know.” Josephat was one of twelve children and lived in a village with no church. No one in the family had ever been to church. But the youngest daughter said, “It is Jesus!” And she told the family that they had to believe in Jesus and be saved. Incredibly, she apparently led the family to Christ even though she had never been to church or heard the gospel! So the whole family knelt down and believed in Jesus. Afterwards, Josephat laid awake that night unable to sleep but ended up speaking in tongues nonstop for two days. Then he went to Bible school, became a pastor, raised people from the dead and now is leading a huge church and traveling the world doing revival meetings. What an incredible story!

It took a lot of Google Translating of their webpages to get through the signup form. The last field on the signup form requires a promo code, which I found somewhere online. Look for プロモーションコード in the last field which means Promotion Code. It looks like they prefill 12601231 now. Here’s the form translated into English for your convenience.

At some point you might also need the account management page.

It took a LOT of trial and error before I was able to finally connect via the BB Mobile Point hotspots which are available at McDonald’s across Japan. To save someone else from frustration, here’s how to do it.

First connect find a McDonald’s near you. You can use their online map to search for available hotspots. Here’s a link to a map of area of Hamamatsu where I’m living. Hotspots don’t load up right away on the map, you may have to click and drag the map.

Once, you’re at a McDonalds, connect to the mobilepoint wifi hotspot.

You have to connect via WEP and enter this code: 696177616b

There are also passwords for livedoor Wireless and the NRT-Airport.

Once you’ve connected to the hotspot, open up your browser. You’ll be taken to a login form that says “BB Mobile Point” at the top.

For your username enter: your-user-ID@wig

For your password, just enter whatever password you had set when you signed up.

Unfortunately, the BB Mobile Point hotspot at the McDonalds (i.e., the one near Zaza in downtown Hamamatsu) where I’m first trying this is very spotty and continually loses connection. I do not recommend the Wireless Gate wifi service. Save yourself the headache and stay home. Maybe the connection is better at other McDonalds. I hope so.

UPDATE: The MobilePoint connection at the McDonalds on the ground floor of the Hamamatsu eki is reasonably fast. It also doesn’t drop quite as often … only once in the last ten minutes! Also, I’m sitting at Tully’s (which is right by the McDonalds) so I’ve finally almost duplicated my Starbucks in the U.S. with free AT&T wifi work environment.

UPDATE 4/28/2010: MobilePoint speed test at the Hamamatsu eki McDonalds.

View Larger Map

Ninja (忍者) Museum

Our first stop was the Iga-Ryu Ninja Museum (伊賀流忍者博物館).

The tour guide showed us how ninja would install secret doors in their homes to hide from the enemy.

We made a friend at the museum, a recent law school graduate from Mexico City named, Manuel, who is currently studying Chinese in Beijing. Here’s Joanna, me and Manuel trying on the ninja chain mail vest.

After that we had beef-don for lunch at a nice restaurant.

After lunch we went to a cute dessert shop with a hilarious host, who claimed that his house was the last remaining ninja house.

As we were leaving, just after we stepped out into the street, the tea shop man rushed out with two fake pistols and shot them off right by Joanna’s head making a big sound. She screamed and laughed.

After our dessert, we headed back up the hill to visit the Iga Ueno Castle (伊賀上野城). The first level had a museum gallery of artifacts including a warrior helmet with ridiculous dragon-fly wings. We couldn’t resist each posing for a shot.

Onsen (温泉)

We said goodbye to our new friend Manuel and drove out to Suzuka in Mie Prefecture go to an onsen … my very first time to go to a Japanese onsen, much less any kind of spa. The Hana Shoubu Onsen (鈴鹿天然温泉花しょうぶ 三重のかけ流し天然温泉) dashed my preconceptions of what an onsen would be like. I had thought an onsen would be a really traditional Japanese building tucked away in the mountains. The Hana Shoubu Onsen, instead, was situated right in a ÆON Jusco mall in the middle of Suzuka City. The facility was completely modern. It’s lobby looked like the lobby of a nice hotel.

Even though it was so modern and well-appointed, our three hours there were surprisingly affordable. The weekday admission ticket to use the bath facilities was only 600 yen per adult. Including dinner for two at the onsen’s restaurant, we paid a total of 3,300 yen (about USD $36 according to WolframAlpha). What a deal!

The Japanese sure do know how to enjoy a hot bath. My favorite was the CO₂ bath. It was like taking a bath in hot 7-Up. After being in the water about a minute or so, your skin gets covered with carbon dioxide bubbles.

On Christmas night, I got to share my first message at a church. My father-in-law, Ben Fowler, pastor of Hamamatsu Sukuinushi Kyokai invited me to share at the Friday night Bible study which happened to fall on Christmas day. After much Bible study, I shared a message using Keynote with lots of slides of scripture about how we must get ready for Christ’s second coming because it will not be like his first.

Back in December, Yukio Okada invited me to speak at his church, J.MEAD Takaoka. Last night we got to lead the congregation in the worship song, “Above All” which in Portuguese is “Bem mais que tudo”. I listened to the Aline Barros recording on YouTube over and over and practically memorized the song in Portuguese!

We were welcomed so warmly by the church members and the pastor. We felt so blessed. I love the J.MEAD church in Takaoka. They love the Lord and are exuberant in praise and powerful in prayer.

The interesting thing about getting to know Yukio and other Japanese Brazilians is that it dawned on me that my last two pastors have the same ethnic mix as they do, being that they are both part Japanese and part Portuguese: John Vierra and Wayne Cordeiro. What a coincidence! Being at Yukio’s church made me so happy to see how God has blessed Japan by bringing such strong believers from Brazil to Japan. And I also got to eat super ono Portuguese Bean Soup (Sopa de Feijao) last night after the service! So even though we missed out on the Punahou Carnival this year, at least I got to eat authentic Portuguese bean soup!

Also, my always-joyful sister-in-law, Joanna, is organizing a two day relationship seminar on March 26-27, 2010 for Christian singles in Hamamatsu that Elisabeth and I get to team teach. It will be called OnePlusOne where the idea is 1+1 equals two people connected by the cross. Check out the flyer Joanna made: OnePlusOne Flyer We’ve never done anything like this before. So please pray for us!

新年快樂！恭喜發財！Happy New Year!!! あけましておめでとうございます.

We’ve been thinking of all the great things that happened in 2009 and are so grateful to KNOW YOU!  Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Year’s celebration.  We welcomed the New Year in with the winter’s first snow flurries here in Hamamatsu, Japan!  The climate in this area of Japan is too mild for snow to stick but it was fun to see the flurries and feel all wintery.  ;)

How have you guys been???  We love hearing from you on Facebook and getting your emails/snail-mail cards.  Hope this letter finds you “genki” (healthy and happy!)

We’re nearing our 2 month mark here and have been blessed with a lot of new activities and fun experiences.  I think the last time we wrote, it was before Thanksgiving!  So here’s the shortened overview of the Leung’s life in Japan since then…we’ll write more details  in our blog and include pictures.

Near the end of November, our friends Matt and Elaine White from Shanghai, came for a week-long visit and we had a blast with them.  Got to do some touristy things (like mikan picking … that is, mandarin oranges that were so yummy straight off the tree!) that we would otherwise have not done on our own AND had some good times of prayer and worship with them.  In the early part of December, we celebrated Noah’s first b’day and Truman’s 38^th.  Noah had his first bite of ice cream and Truman had a temakisushi party…wrap your own rice-roll…?   ;)   Then, the Christmas season was upon us and we started preparing for parties and a special church service.  Truman played/sang in a trio and I (Elisabeth) danced a sign dance with a group of women.  Noah just played cute.

In Japan, Christmas isn’t recognized as a holiday so it felt a little different for us…we REALLY wanted to smell the scent of pine but couldn’t find a single real tree in the city!  We’ll never forget our Christmas in Japan though…we got to visit a local jail with a church friend and although the guard wouldn’t let us sing a Christmas carol, we could “say” the words and he let us pray.

Truman finally had the chance to update the Ascribe Data website…its first update in about 4 years!

Tomorrow, the three of us will fly out to Taiwan to visit our friends in Taipei.  We’ll stay 10 days and spend our time meeting with Steven and Joyce Hsiao who will be starting a new church in the city.  Please pray that God will lead us and give us wisdom about joining their team and taking our next step in this “missionary journey”.   We’re so happy to be here in Japan and excited about what God will do in 2010!

Thank you for praying for us and being party of our extended “ohana” (family).  We love and miss you all!

“Kotoshi mo yoroshiku onegaishimasu”  for you who understand Japanese…

God bless you and your family with all the richness of His love and grace!

愛你們, Love,
TEN in 2010!

p.s. TEN = Truman, Elisabeth, and Noah

The charity concert raised $3,000 for Food for the Hungry to feed hungry children. The artists who sang at the concert were Chu Kosaka and his adult daughter Ami Asiah. The concert was also evangelistic. Chu Kosaka told his testimony of how his daughter, when she was two years old, pulled down a hot pot from the stove and his daughter was burned all over her body. During that terrible trial, Chu couldn’t even sing. It was then that he began to find hope in Christ.

Please pray for the people who don’t believe in Jesus who attended the concert that they will themselves desire to know Christ. Probably about half of the attendees were not Christians. Aunt Berni says that most times these people that will come to concerts will never also show up to church.

Here is a YouTube video featuring Mr. Kosaka.

BTW, this church has an incredible number of screens for their video team: eleven! You can watch Sunday morning services live on via the web.

Yesterday, Noah reached several milestones: he refuses to eat baby food any longer, he learned to clap and he now knows how to safely back down from being up on a couch.

Today (Monday) was a national holiday in Japan: Labor Thanksgiving Day. Elisabeth’s dad drove us out to Kakegawa where the Fowler family first lived when they moved to Japan thirty-one years ago. We saw where Elisabeth lived from age two to six. We tried to find her kindergarten school, but so many rice fields had been turned into homes and apartment buildings that we couldn’t find it.

We got to visit the Kakegawa International Christian School, which is run by Paul & Cheryl Bostrom, Elisabeth’s cousins. They have thirteen children!

Interestingly, Kakegawa is the site of the main Yahama piano plant.

Today I learned how to use iMovie and am have a blast playing with it. Now, if only iMovie would quit crashing constantly!

New Japanese word of the day: Tomodachi (友達; ともだち; or トモダチ) means friend.

Interesting factoids about Japan:

• they record birthdays according to the year of the Japanese emperor who was reigning at the time of birth. Other dates are recorded with the emperor date as well.
  
• they still use bank books. When you go to an ATM machine, you insert your bank book into it. The ATM will print a line for each transaction in your bank book and when you’re done it spits it back out. No monthly statements are mailed because all records are in your bank book. Transactions are recorded in the emperor year.