As a follow up to my earlier blog Lord Give Me a Sign I agreed to meet with Rie, the woman I met at the student center, and visit her church. I was admittedly apprehensive about the situation to begin with because I had heard from several of my Japanese friends to be careful because lots of special interest religious groups (read: cults) attempt to recruit from colleges and universities. Keeping all that in mind, we arranged to meet at a restaurant near my school called Saizeria (which has the closest thing to hot wings fried hard ATL style that I have found around here - and they're pretty good!). I arrived early, as I usually do, and grabbed a table. Rie told me that she wanted me to meet her pastor so I thought the plan was for she and I to chat for a while and then later he would join us. To my surprise, when she showed up she told me that we weren't going to stay at Saizeria, we were going to visit her church which is around the block. Ok.... So we get on our bikes and ride to the "church".
The church is a house. It's a western style Japanese home and when we walked in it was full of people! It became clear to me that Rie had told them I was coming. I was ushered into a room that in a normal house would be a kitchen but in the "church" it was a reception area. There was a desk, (where some woman sat writing, smiling to herself and stealing looks at me a little too often) a round table that was very low to the ground so we had to sit on the floor (where there were two men sitting) and a kitchenette (where about 3 woman were preparing something). They served me tea and freshly cut pears while making the usual "get to know you" small talk and asking me questions about how long I've lived in Japan, why I am in Tsukuba etc. Rie told me that she comes to church every day. There are about 60 members in total and the majority of them are between 20 and 35 years old. They play soccer together 3 times a week at 5am and after practice is over they come to church to pray for an hour before going to work. The days that they don't have practice, they come to church to pray for 2 hours instead. She has been attending that church for almost 2 years now and has never missed one day of prayer or church. Hmmm...
After several minutes of discussing my spiritual walk with Rie and congregation she told me that while we were waiting for the pastor to arrive she wanted to show me the rest of the church. I picked up my bag (that I insisted I keep with me, in case I had to break out) and followed her into the next room which in a normal home would be the living room. She said that room is where they have bible study and prayer meetings. Then we went into an adjacent room which was the fully sound proofed choir room. It almost looked like a make shift recording studio with egg crate looking things on the walls and was equipped with very expensive standing piano.
There were two women in the room, one playing the piano and another singing. She asked me if I wanted to join them in singing and I politely declined but told her I would be happy to listen. At first that was okay with her but then she kept insisted I sing at least one song with them. Keep in mind that none of these people speak English and the songs therefore are not in English either. That didn't matter to her. She assured me that I would only truly be able to "feel the spirit" if I praised Him with my voice. I acknowledged her comment but still didn't feel like singing and that seemed to irritate her. She asked me what was wrong and I told her I was just listening and that I didn't want to sing. She told me she thought I would be delighted to sing hymns with them because they were gospel songs, didn't I like gospel? Of course I love gospel but none of these songs were the gospel songs I knew. She thumbed through her hymnal until she found a song that was in English that she was sure I knew and asked the pianist to play it. I didn't know the song and still didn't sing. She didn't like that and I didn't like the pressure so after that song was over I told her that I really must be going soon as I hadn't eaten (Remember, I thought we were staying at Saizeria and I had my mind set on some hot wings!) and had a lot of studying to do that night. She told me they wanted to end the rehearsal in prayer so the 4 of us held hands and the pianist prayed. I actually don't remember what she said because in my own head I was saying my own silent prayer "Lord, bless me and keep me" over and over again.
As we exited the choir room and went back to the prayer/bible study room she told me her pastor finally arrived. Rie, the pianist and I sat and waited as for him to join us. He came in and made his introductions and now I was the one doing the staring because this man couldn't have been a day over 32. That made me even more suspicious. The head pastor of the church was 32? And after further discussion I found out that he hadn't even finished seminary yet. Something just wasn't right.
He was in awe of me. He stared at me as though I were not actually sitting in front of his face with his mouth gaped open. You know how you stare at a picture in a magazine of something so strange so beautiful so odd it can't be real? That's how this man was looking at me. I was not comfortable in this "church" and needed to make my exit quick, fast and in a hurry. Rie told me that she knew I had to go but she really wanted to pray with me (again?!). She said she felt like God had brought us together and it was meant for us to meet the way we did. Her heart rejoiced and God rejoiced when we met and she knew that it was right for me to be in her church at that time.
Now normally, I don't like for people I don't know to pray over/for me. It's just not something I'm comfortable with. I don't know about you all, but I grew up in the AME church and my mother, an AME Reverend, has always taught us there are two things you do not allow people to do when it comes to prayer: #1. Don't ever allow anyone lay their hands on you (in prayer or otherwise) #2. Don't ever allow people you don't know pray over you. I have always taken both of those things to heart.
So as I said, normally I would have told her, "No" but the zeal at which she gushed over our meeting allowed me to allow her to have her moment. I was also so uncomfortable by the staring and insistence that I participate in their praise and worship at this point that I would have done just about anything to get out of there. I let her say her prayer but I would not allow them to lay their hands on me. For those who don't know what I mean when I say "lay hands", it is when the person saying the prayer touches the person the prayer is being directed towards (more info here). She went on and on thanking God for me and our meeting (3 or 4x), she asked that my school work be blessed (I agreed with an Amen! for that), she asked God to lead me to join their church (crickets) and to join their soccer team (yes, she did) and asked Him to open my heart to a closer relationship to Him. When the prayer was over the 3 of them just sat there with this after glow and a smile on their faces like they had just finished some amazing sex or something?! Ya'll I'm tellin' you...it was WEIRD. I broke the silence by standing up, grabbing my things, and making my way to the door.
Once outside the "church" I took a deep breath and said my own prayer of Thanks while hurrying to my bike so I could get the heck out of there. I'm sure that this group of 20-35 year old, staring, 5 am soccer playing, gospel music singing folks are fine enough people but at the end of the day praising God in a language that is not your mother tongue is STRANGE. I can't really describe it any other way...it just didn't feel right and I won't be going back.
