WHIRLWIND

Sunday night i returned from 3 days of performing with my traditional Japanese dance team Odori Samurai at Sapporo's Annual Yosakoi Festival in Hokkaido. the word that best describes the weekend: whirlwind.

i was really nervous about the weekend, if you read my last blog post. like, really nervous. but God totally blessed the time and it's one of the best experiences i've had in Japan all year. even though i didn't really get to share the full Gospel, i built a ton of new friendships and i'm so excited for next year. God also made sure that in every formation we performed in, there was someone who spoke English right next to me. so crazy. Friday morning woke up late and made a mad dash for the airport, arriving just in time (praise God!) second praise- before we'd even gotten on the plane one of the leaders asked me what my John 3:16 bracelet meant- so i pulled out my Japanese Bible and showed him and got to explain it! SO AWESOME! the flight was about 1 1/2 hours to Hokkaido (by the way, Japanese domestic flight security takes literally 1 minute...i love Japan.) we quickly went to our hotel and changed into our costumes. my two roommates' nicknames were Chyoya and Pusapusa (i have no idea what these names mean in Japanese). i thought they couldn't really speak English but turned out that they spoke better than i expected so one night i ended up being able to share a good deal of my testimony with Chyoya and share about how God's love is the only thing that truly satisfies us. it was really sweet. back to Friday. after we changed we went to our first performance location. we performed at 3 different locations on Friday. i had no idea how big this festival was, mostly because i can't read or understand Japanese enough to ever understand any explanation. but yeah. it was huge. it was quite a sight seeing Yosakoi teams all decked out in their costumes walking around Sapporo or through train stations.

quick Friday night side note-- Friday night after we got back to the hotel i get a text from Mike saying "There's a party going on in heaven right now because YUSUKE ACCEPTED CHRIST TONIGHT!" then i get a call from Yusuke himself who explains it all to me and he was SO excited! ahhhhhh it was amazing! such an awesome way to end the day! thank you so much for all of you who have been praying for him! God answers prayers! ahhhh! yay! ok back to the festival. Saturday morning woke up about 6 am and got ready for a long day of performing. our first performance was the competition main stage- here is a video that a former Samurai took (6 Samurai alums came to support us and take photos- it was so cool!) this is probably the best video we have of the performance because you can see everyone and get the whole effect. i'm on the left but you can't really see me to the end when we're running off stage- i kind of jump up and down and wave. just know i'm there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJ9L5J0jilw&sns=tw

we ended up performing in 5 different locations on Saturday and one of the performances was a parade so we performed 5 times in a row- we'd perform, run to the next spot, perform, run, perform, run, perform, run, perform run. it was some crazy cardio. and in the rain so we were definitely dancing through some puddles. it was still pretty sweet though. my friend Kari from USC is currently teaching English in Hokkaido so she came down to Sapporo to watch me! she also took a video of one of our parades- it's not the greatest quality but you can see me for part of it because i'm on the side closest to her camera.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gchxM8mDEnI

that night we were pretty beat- we stopped at a 7/11 for the next day's breakfast, then showered and went to bed. the next morning my roommates and i had to get ready super fast because we had to check out before we left for the festival. 7 of the Samurai had to leave Sunday night, the rest stayed til Monday to go sightseeing. hopefully next year i can stay for sightseeing because we really had no time during the festival. Sunday we performed in 3 different locations but the last one was a parade so once again we performed 5 times. it was such a weird feeling after it was over. it seemed like the weekend went by so quickly. the great thing was that i got to meet a ton of new people and really bond with them, share about Student Impact and my life as a Christian with several so when i come back to Japan in 3 months i will have already established these relationships and can pick up where i left off.

tomorrow all the STINTers go to debriefing in Nikoo, a few hours away from Tokyo. it's crazy to think our time is almost at an end. and that next Saturday i will be on a plane headed back to the States. i will be in LA until July 8, then Dallas til the end of September and would love to meet up with you during that time!

for now, here are some pictures from the weekend: enjoy!

my plane buddies- Michiyo (the guy) speaks English fairly well so praise God that he was next to me on the plane! Day 1 of performing! myself and Aibo (one of my best translators) in our costumes! eating miso ramen at a famous restaurant Friday night in between performances with some of my group (because there were 130 Samurai, they divided us into groups of 9-10 people) Odori Samurai's leader (or "sempai")- his nickname is Punk, which is very fitting. he's pretty crazy but awesome Odori Samurai's subleader Jun (nickname Mabo)- he was one of the first Samurai i met and speaks English really well so he's really helpful my hero of Samurai, Masami (nickname HighTech)- she is the best English speaker in Samurai and God placed her in my group which was AWESOME. she was beyond helpful during every practice and during Hokkaido my whole group (Group 9) on the last day of performing Samurai saying goodbye to those of us who had to leave early- i could only get about 1/2 of the Samurai in the picture (there were 130 of us after all) we had to ride the plane in our costumes because we didn't have time to change beforehand- i've never ridden a plane in such a crazy outfit before! it was pretty fun though

PRAYER REQUESTS:
- Yusuke's growth as a Christian
- our debriefing time this week
- i have a sinus infection and i feel like i have a fever and i just feel pretty miserable right now- please pray God heals me as i really don't have time to be sick considering i leave in 11 days....