Arrival and the 1st week

After a long plane ride, we finally arrived in Tokyo. At first, the plane was quarantined to make sure that none of us were very sick. Luckily, no one was, so we were only quarantined for a couple of minutes. Once in the airport, we were given papers showing that we did not have significant illnesses. We then went through customs and then onto the train. We were on a very nice train with comfortable seats. So comfortable, that several of us started to fall asleep. But we kept each other awake with games and stories of the plane ride.

After that train, we had a couple shorted train rides before we arrived in Koenji and received our room keys and some well deserved rest.

Some time later, we all went out to Mos Burger, a Japanese burger place, as a team. It was a lot of fun to try new, yet familiar food. The following day, we went to Mitaka at the Student Impact center, which is Campus Crusade here in Japan. We got to meet the team here in Japan as well as find out about the amazing resources available at the Mikata center, such as Japanese New Testaments. We were also given a crash course in how to evangelize to Japanese students.

Right after the meeting, we went to Shibuya for a scavenger hunt. We were broken up into small teams and aksed to find some items and locations in Shibuya, including the statue of Hackiho, the most loyal dog in Shibuya and a puricura booth, a picture booth that is really popular in Japan. We were also challenged to try as many new foods as we possibly could.

Although there was no winner to the hunt, we all had an amazing time discovered a new place.

Briefing

This is a photo montage of the photos taken during briefing. We arrived at got to know each other on Tuesday at Vanguard University of Southern California. Once we all arrived, the 15 of us got lunch and shared stories and experiences. We had several meeting a day during this time. We had an overall meeting, where the East Asia Team, the Tokyo team, and the other project, which location escapes me right now, all got together in worship. We also had team meetings where the individual project teams would get together and learn about the location we would be staying in as well as learning more about each other. During this time, we discovered that the overall project was $19,000 short of funds. So, we spent most of our free time calling up anyone we knew for donations. As a side note, if you donated to any of the people on this project. Thank you so much, it is because of you that every single one of us that came go briefing is now here in Tokyo. I am sure I speak for the team when I say that words cannot describe our thanks.

However, the stress of gathering funds did not distract us from a fun game of volleyball with out team.

During briefing, we all saw God moving in amazing ways in all the money we needed being gathered and other crises being averted, such as lost passports being found on time.

After several fun days of bonding, learning, and fun. We set off to the airport, and to Tokyo

Links for All my friends!

Hello, welcome to the team blog for Tokyo PSWA Summer Project 2009. Many names will be mentioned in the process of this blog. So, if you want to be connected to ALL the team member's blogs, or just want to know who the mentioned person is, we have provided links to all there blogs right here.

http://emilyelizabethniemond.blogspot.com/
Emily Niemond

http://summerprojectintokyo.blogspot.com/
Andrew Guirguis

http://www.kimiyo-brown.blogspot.com
Kimi Brown

http://summer-in-tokyo.blogspot.com/
Kyle Patrick Eli Pash

http://genintokyo09.blogspot.com
Gen Nakamura

http://jmitchelltokyoa.blogspot.com/
Jack Mitchell

http://tracilawrimore.wordpress.com/
Traci Lawrimore

http://tokyosummerproject2009.blogspot.com/
Jeremy Barnekow

http://jess-in-tokyo.blogspot.com/
Jess Jury

http://tokyostudies.blogspot.com
Kylan Schroeder

http://summerproject2009konnichiwa.blogspot.com/
Josh Jimenez

http://mattstokyosp.blogspot.com/
Matt Pfaff

http://amyintokyo.blogspot.com/
Amy Ledin

http://timintokyo.blogspot.com/
Tim Daugherty

More will be posted once I figure out what they are