Aileen's extended family keeps quite an active email list going, with family members all around the globe chiming in regularly. At the end of last year, one of her cousins sent out a request to help compile a list of memory verses for the new year.

I do a fair amount of programming for both PBA and BJapan. There's a new web scripting language that I've been wanting to test, so when he sent out the list of verses to everyone, I made my first project with the scripting language a web-base Scripture Memory Calendar. Take a look at it here; any feedback appreciated!

Oh, and even if you're not part of the Seely/Crum/Ogden/Wilson clan, feel free to use the calendar to memorize verses this year :-)

"Dollar hits 14-year low against yen"
http://tinyurl.com/y9pn4cz


This is really hurting BJapan.

After more than 200 years of self imposed isolation from the rest of the world, American Commodore Matthew Perry's show of force opened the ports of Japan in the mid-1800's. In 1859 the first Protestant missionaries were officially sent to serve in Japan. This past week there was a big 2 day event in Yokohama, celebrating that anniversary.

In addition to the meetings, lots of organizations had PR booths, including PBA, and the Dendankyo I made the videos for.

I attended the meetings; lots of impressions that I will probably write about in the future here. But the day before the events began, I was eating lunch with a couple of other PBA staffers, talking about the anniversary and all. Missionaries are often discouraged by the relatively meager fruit of evangelism here, and relatively slow growth of Christianity in Japan. "150 years -- so long and so little progress made," I mused out loud. The other two, almost in unison, said, "What do you mean, 'so long'? Buddhism has been here for 1, 500 years. We evangelicals are just getting started!" Another cultural eye-opener. For us young Americans, 1859 feels like ancient history. For Japan, well, it was just the day before yesterday! Here's to the Protestant church in Japan -- congratulations on being 150 years young!

Today was recording day for "In Touch."

While most of our programming on Friendship Radio is original, recorded by Japanese pastors, we also produce and air a Japanese version of In Touch, the radio program by Dr. Charles Stanley. Rev. Tamai is the voice of Charles Stanley in Japanese. The folk in Atlanta, where In Touch is located, were extremely happy with Rev. Tamai's voice -- they say it sounds very much like Dr. Stanley.

My role in the project is going through the English scripts to clean them up for the translator (fix grammar, typos, idioms, etc. that can give a translator fits). Then I assist with the recording, translate listener response and handle liaison work with Atlanta.

Mr. Otsuka is a freelance who voices the opening and closing announcements, and then edits the whole package together.

For the most part, I think you get a better message when it's created in the broadcast language and not translated. But we work hard to make it as natural as possible for Japanese listeners.

Rev. Tamai has become a fan of Dr. Stanley - almost every time we record he says, "Man, this guy says some great stuff!" I can't say I exactly enjoy editing the scripts, but I am often challenged by the messages as I'm doing it!

Two points to today's post -- wordy Japanese and simple slideshows.

Japanese is a really wordy language. To say the same thing takes 20 to 30% more syllables than English. So take "Dendou Dantai Renraku Kyougikai." That mouthful is the name of an association of parachurch organizations that BJapan belongs to (PBA, too, for that matter). Even for Japanese that is a mouthful, so it's abbreviated by picking up single syllables from the words, Den Dan Kyo, to make up the new word, Dendankyo, as the shortened name of the organization. There are tons of these abbreviated words in use. (Yes, tons -- words have weight, doncha know.) They've even gone back into English. Singing along with pre-recorded music is called karaoke, right? The Kara is Japanese and means empty. (Same kara as in karate -- fighting empty handed.) The 'oke' is English -- first part of the word "Orchestra," (Oche in Japan where R is unpronounceable).

I would not be surprised if Japanese has more abbreviations in common use than any other language. Makes it hard on us foreigners who have a hard enough time keeping track of real words, let alone the slew of made up abbreviated ones!

Point two is a bunch of simple slideshows. The Dendankyo wanted to put out a PR DVD highlighting their member parachurch organizations. So BJapan volunteered to make little PR spots for each of them, and compile it into a DVD.

That has been a job I've been working on in spare moments here and there over the past three months. Just turned in the DVD for duplication today. We put up a page where the groups could check their videos before going to press. Again, it's all in Japanese, but you can take a look too.

Here's the link: www.bjapan.jp/dendankyo.

The first video that comes up is BJapan's. Click the other links on the page to see other samples. You'll need a recent version of Quicktime installed on your computer in order to view them.

BJapan, one of the main ministries that I work with, has a 24/7 Christian radio broadcast over satellite channel Friendship Radio. We're also trying to be of practical help to the many small, struggling churches in Japan. I wrote up a little flyer for Back to the Bible to use in their PR efforts on behalf of BJapan. I'm also making it available here as a .pdf download. Here it is.

Please take a look at it, and if your church or S.S. class or cell group, etc., is willing, perhaps you could print up a stack of them to be handed out! Thanks so much.

Though I love living here, I gotta admit that much of Tokyo is not exactly pretty. One of the common eyesores are the tangle of electric lines that you see pretty much every where you go. But after just a short time, you start mentally blocking the mess out and don't really notice it anymore. (hmmm..., if I were a preacher I could make a sermon out of that!)

But for some reason I was looking up while walking home from church on Sunday afternoon, and noticed this huge rat's nest of wires that I was walking under. First reaction was to look to see if any pigeons or crows were up there waiting to commence target practice on unsuspecting pedestrians. Next, I noticed a little white tag way up there. A closer look warmed my heart.

It was the Usen company tag on their wire. Usen is a big media conglomerate. They started off doing cable radio, then satellite radio, and now are huge on the internet and a whole bunch of other stuff, too. BJapan's Friendship Radio is a channel on their cable and satellite system. Usen's only religious channel, and Japan's only Christian run media outlet. (Japan outlaws religious groups from owning over the air radio and TV stations; PBA, for example, has to buy their airtime from commercial stations.)

So I'm standing there, looking up, for quite a little while. Odd sight, no doubt, to all the other folk walking by. And I swear, I could almost see the electrons taking the shape of Bible messages and hymns and all, zipping through that wire at the speed of light. Go, guys, go -- get that message out! Finally got started out for home again, still kinda happy inside. Now them's some Power lines!