Nikko and Camping Trip

So this last Saturday and Sunday was a complete blast with the Tokyo BEST club. We started off heading to Nikko on Saturday morning. We went and visited the Toshogu shrine and saw the sleeping cat, the original hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil monkeys, the tomb of one of the strongest samurai, as well as look at and walk into some of the shrine buildings.

Every time I go and visit a temple or a shrine, it saddens my heart to see the people perform rituals or to throw money into a bin, say a prayer, and then expect the spirits to hear them and answer it. They come before things made by human hands in places made by human hands and pray before their gods. An idol! A craftsman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold. They seek out skillful craftsmen to setup an idol that will not totter or move or fall over. They use the same piece of wood to make an idol that has to be nailed down and they burn the other half of the wood for warmth and for cooking. It burdens my heart to see them expect something to happen as a result of worshiping something they have made. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever!

We then returned back to Utsunomiya and camped out at the Kinugawa river. We had an American style barbecue where we grilled hot dogs and had chips with salsa. We had a fire building contest to see who could build a fire up to the rope the fastest and burn it. We also had some Japanese style s'mores where we roasted marshmallows and used Choco Digestive biscuits as our graham cracker and chocolate. We then did some late night swimming in the river where our group, thanks to Lauren, had a shampooing. She brought some shampoo with her and we cleaned up in the river with some idiotic pictures taken. We had some campfire Karaoke in Japanese and in English.

Some students stayed awake the whole night but I went to sleep about midnight and woke up at 5am as the sun comes up in Japan about 4am and sets around 7pm. We then made some hard boiled eggs and coffee over our campfire at 6am. Then we just relaxed and some people played games, a couple of us tried spear fishing but to no success, and a view funny pranks were pulled. We packed up camp and went for a Utsunomiya gyoza lunch, as almost every city in Japan is famous for something so we took the Tokyo students to a gyoza lunch in downtown Utsu. They then returned home afterwards.

One of my highlights was seeing a believer from Utsu sharing from God's Word with a nonbeliever from Tokyo at the campfire. The Tokyo student is a senior and I know that they have been praying for him to come to know Christ. It is amazing to be able to witness a Japanese believer share from his heart and from God's Word to want to see another student come to know Christ.