Masa's first impression

Culture shock!

After 13 hours of flying, and a couple of hours waiting for my transfer flight, I arrived in a country 6000 miles away from home. As I walked into the passport control under the “foreigner” section, I really did start to feel like a foreigner, although my blood, my appearance, my height is all very Japanese, it was a strange feeling. This will be my second time going to Japan, and this trip will be 3 times as longer as my previous one. I hope to try to learn as much as I can about “my” country, its countries, its values, and its people. This is also the first time I’ll be encountering the Japanese church members so I know it will be a eye opener in many ways.

Only on the third day did it really hit me that I really was in Japan. After arriving at the Tsukuba Carp centre, we spent the rest of the day introducing each other, and unpacking, getting comfortable with the place, and everything was going quite normal. At the end of the day when we gathered to “close the day”, that’s when I really felt welcomed by Japan CARP. The humble prayer room was filled with passionate voices, so loud that I could barely hear my whisper of a prayer. In awe I looked around, and was speechless, I was a little cynical but brushed those thoughts aside and just soaked up the moment, and did something I don’t usually do; Pray aloud, loud enough so I could hear myself.

Spending the next couple of days, living the CARP lifestyle, I have been able to learn many things. From little things while dining, the effort and dedication put in sports, how witnessing is a natural part of daily life, difference in attitudes and opinions towards certain issues.

It also has been a really interesting experience spending time with Il kook and Sophie, not knowing much about them at first I wondered what kind of 3 weeks it would be. But after spending quite a lot of time together talking, discussing and sharing about ourselves and all sorts of things on our minds, I think we’ve been able to slowly open up, and I’d say have a lot of good moments at difficult and unorganised times.

I think I’ll write something deeper, something with more detail eventually, but at the moment, I feel mentally exhausted even if we’re not constantly physically busy. So I guess I’ll take some proper time to reflect and write next time, but at least I’ve got the ball moving.