There’s no such thing as a coincidence.

I may not have been on this planet a significant amount of time, but this much already I’ve figured out for myself.

When I look back and see how all the events of my life are so perfectly ordered, how everything leads together, it’s obvious that these things happened not by chance, but by purpose.

When I lived in Japan before, one of my closest friends happened to be there at the same time. Joshua and I have had a knack over the years for pulling off ridiculous coincidences in our lives that should not be even remotely possible. In no way is that more obvious than when it comes to us and Japan.

Originally when we were both thinking about going to Japan (me as a student, Joshua as a missionary) we weren’t even looking at the same timetable, let alone the same area. Somehow though it worked out that we were not only in the same city (ah Tokyo, Tokyo, how I see you glittering yet in the horizon) but within a few miles of each other (Joshua’s office being in the same place as my school). While that was a tremendously fun and engaging time, eventually Joshua had to relocate to the northering prefecture of Saitama where he began working with a church. It wasn’t so far that we couldn’t still see each other on a regular basis, and at one point I was even able to take a trip up to spend the weekend with him and visit the church where he spent most of his time while in Japan. Sekiyado Chapel was a very unique church in that half of the congregation was, and is, under the age of 15. It was a great experience though, and I was able to participate in some special activities that they had going on, as well as being able to attend their church service. I even got to watch Joshua practice with the church’s hand bell choir, which the church uses as a witnessing tool by touring around the area and putting on performances. It was a tremendous time, and even though I managed to get lost on my way back, and spent some three hours trying to find my way home, the experience filled my heart with gladness. Unfortunately I only managed to get up to see Joshua that one time—usually we would just meet in Tokyo—and as I finally ended my year there I was a little sad that I hadn’t had more opportunity to visit Sekiyado Chapel.

This past year, as you know, I was excepted into the JET program and packed up all my precious belongings to once again make the move to the far east. You also may remember that the place I was assigned to work, by chance, was Saitama prefecture. Now Saitama is a pretty big prefecture, as prefecture’s go, and where I ended up was in a medium sized town by the name of Kuki. What you may not know is that Kuki just happens to lie ten minutes away from another town by the name of Kasukabe. Now for anyone who ever kept in regular contact with Joshua, you may recognize that name as the town where he spent some two years of his life living in. By sheer luck I managed to….ah, who am I kidding? By God’s design and plan He placed me within a stone’s throw of the very church where Joshua spent so much of this time working in. Worshiping in. Living in.

This past Sunday I attended church service at Sekiyado for the first time (it took a bit of time to coordinate a ride, as I have no car here. What a strange thing to say for an American right?). It was almost too much being back in this place I remember so vividly from my time in Japan before, and being a part of a community of believers again was monumental to say the least. It was crazy seeing some of the kids I had played with previously, who were now a bit too big for that kind of thing. Instead though I was able to play with some new kids, who had previously been babies when I was there, and were more than happy to teach me how to do cartwheels and stand on my tip toes. Ah time, you sneaky rascal! It was, to put it simply, exactly what I had needed at exactly the right time. I hope to start attending regularly from now, and can’t help but wonder what God has in store for me next.

Oh yes, and they already asked me to join the hand bell choir.

After another much to short weekend, it’s back into the swing of things for me. I taught at an elementary school today–2nd and 6th grade students–and I’ll be teaching at a different elementary school both tomorrow and Wednesday. I generally enjoy my time at the elementary schools more so than at the junior high school, so for me this week is actually a pretty nice schedule.

But let me elaborate on that a bit more.

Usually during a given week I teach four days at the junior high school, which is referred to as my “base school”, and then one day, usually Friday, at one of two local elementary schools. It’s a pretty good schedule–I’m never there later than 4:00pm–and because of the amount of free time I have to prepare for lessons etc., I rarely take work home with me.

But what is an average day like, you may ask. At the junior high school, the day is divided into roughly six different periods, including lunch. Of those, I usually teach about three or four periods a day, with some days being more, some days being less. The school itself is made up of three different grades, and my duties rotate between each of the years. My responsibilities in each class vary quite a bit between the three different English teachers that are on staff (I’m not an actual teacher at the school, merely an assistant, so I’m not allowed to teach without one of these English teachers present), and can range from helping to teach the whole class, to teaching during a certain period at the end of a class, to being limited to the first ten minutes of the class and then being sent back to the teachers room to sit out the rest of the hour.

Being merely an assistant, in essence a tool with which to better teach English, can feel severely limiting at times. You have less access to the students, and so forming relationships becomes somewhat more difficult. Also since about half the day is spent sitting at your desk in the teachers room, keeping yourself active and productive can also sometimes be daunting. It’s certainly a good situation overall, though I could never see myself doing something like this for more than a couple years. The need to have my own classroom, and to create my own curriculum, is simply far to great to be constrained in this type of environment long term.

The best days though are always my elementary school days. It goes to reason then that today in fact was a great day.

Because there’s no certified English teachers at the elementary school level, it means that for all intents and purpose I am the language specialist at that school. This is a wonderful situation, as my duties in the school are actually very similar to language specialists back in America. I have full control over how I want to conduct my lesson, and how I want to break up the hour. The classroom teacher is merely there in a supportive role, which means they only will intervene if called to do so. This is incredibly liberating for me as it actually gives me the chance to be a real teacher. I get to prepare my own materials and activities, basing them around a target vocab. word or phrase that they want the students to learn. Also because the student’s grasp of English, especially in the lower grades, is still quite low, I’m allowed to use as much Japanese in explaining the lesson as I feel necessary. This aspect is especially nice because it makes the students much more willing to approach and interact with me. At the junior high school in contrast we’re actually told to not use Japanese at all when talking with the students except outside of school (which of course is ironic because we’re also not supposed to have contact with students outside of school unless by coincidence).

Today I taught three of the same classes again for the first time. (Becuase I teach only five classes every two weeks, it’s taken this long to rotate between all the classes and start from the beginning again). The looks on the students faces when I walked in again was like cool water to a parched throat. They became instantly excited, did amazingly well in all the activities, and for the first time I heard one of the students say “oh no, I don’t want English class to be over…”.

Needless to say I was pretty tempted to give him an extra sticker today.

I’ll have a new post up sometime tomorrow, meanwhile Autumn has at long last made it’s way even to Japan. Rejoice!