(Christmas in Japan) On the 9th Day of Christmas...

Merry Christmas from Tokyo Lutheran Church

Happy 9th Day of Christmas!  Even though the Christmas lights and trees have been replaced with  sheep (2015 is the year of the sheep) it's still Christmas at church.

We had a beautiful Christmas Eve service.  Our new English Choir stood outside the church and sang hymns before the service.  It was fun to see people pause as they walked by and look at us.  Some even stopped to read the sign!  Our small choir even sang during the service.  We wore lights around our necks so we could see our music. Some visitors joined our choir since we were singing traditional hymns.

This year we had a record number of visitors to our service.  Somehow the word got out.  We had 88 people commune and probably another 10 or so that received blessings.  It was a amazing.  Two years ago we only had about 30 people, a rusty praise band, and someone's hair caught on fire.  We are growing.

Christmas Day is not a holiday in Japan.  Many of our regulars at church also go to their home country to be with loved ones.  We have started a new tradition for the evening of Christmas Day: the Roth Christmas Party.

Making Hot German Wine Drink

Since many people can't be with family and friends or their family and friends aren't Christian, we have them over to our apartment for appetizers and drinks.  Everyone brings something and it's a lot of fun.  This year we had an American-Japanese-Chinese-German party.  The highlight was definitely some hot German wine (Gluehwein?).
For New Year's Eve we celebrated by having the J3 Missionaries over for dinner.  Some of them went to join the millions of Japanese people at the temples to welcome in the New Year.  We stayed home and played games.  We also watched TV.  At midnight the temples and shrines open and everyone goes in to pray so that they have good luck this year.  On TV they showed many of the beautiful temples in Japan.  We were all commenting "I want to go there!" after each one.

It's very different than New Year's in the US.  It's a very quiet serious event...not an excuse to get drunk.  I found it very interesting that in a country of atheists the biggest event of the year is going to the temple to pray for good luck.  I couldn't imagine spending New Year's in the US watching the media show different churches.  Most people go to the temple out of tradition, but I also think it really shows that people here are looking for something more...and in a culture of rules and tradition will they find what they are looking for in a religion with a God that breaks all boundaries and frees us from ourselves?

Merry Christmas from the Roths!!