Shopping, Matsuri, Conference

So I'm still in Karuizawa, enjoying the cooler mountain weather! There's an outlet mall near here that is similar to the outlet malls in the states... except things are a bit more interesting... take a look at these jeans:

Here's the Nike outlet. I think the shoes might be more colorful though!

You even need to look fashonable when camping with your ukulele:

In the evenings, there are sometimes Matsuri with fireworks and it is very much like a carnival. The one we went to today had a lot of people, but yesterday we went to a Taiko drumming one which had less people and was a little bit eerie...

Otherwise, I've been keeping myself busy hitting the streets with Manga tracts and visiting the local sightseeing places like Shiraito falls, which are only 3m high but come out of the earth and span quite a distance:

The conference also started, which I registered for and am really excited about. It's actually not a conference for international students, but a training for international student ministry led by a group of people from Seattle who have done a lot of work in this area. The people who are at this conference are mostly japanese people who have studied abroad and now are wanting to get equipped to reach out to foreign students studying in Japan.

Anyways, this conference couldn't be more perfect as I think about the coming year (ask me what I'm doing next year with IVCF at UBC!). International student ministry I think is one of the most strategic and impactful yet often overlooked or underrecognized areas of work there is! Perhaps it's the only ministry where you can travel to every corner of the globe and communicate through educated leaders the gospel without leaving your university campus--

Everything I've been doing this trip like the volunteer work with hikikomori, peace tour with multinational students, and now this conference I think can be connected together in a way I hope affects my everyday life when I get back home! I've been learning that perhaps I too quickly form a framework for what I think is happening before really listening and seeking to understand what is going on!

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and in case you're still reading, here is a random video I felt like uploading of a few of us internationals setting up for telephone pictionary!