Peace and the pursuit of Hope

Hi Everyone

Just a few hours ago Josh and I dragged our tired butts from the train station up to our cabin in Karuizawa after another 8 hours in the Shinkansen (bullet train). Our grand total is now 36 hours spent in trains in the last 7 days, and many thousands of kilometers under our belts. Travelling on the Shinkansen however is very relaxing, it's like sitting on a plane, even the cabin is pressurized to avoid ear popping. Even though we never got to ride the fastest shinkansen (Nozomi) ours still hit an impressive speed, nearly 300km/h

For the second leg of our trip Josh and I chose the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to explore. First on our list was Hiroshima. Our first thoughts after pulling into the station were "this looks just like every other city we've been to" but we soon realized that this is a very different city than most in Japan. The streets are much wider, and the layot has a very western feel. The first spot we visited was the A-bomb dome, museum, and peace park. I must explain: The A-bomb dome used to be the Hiroshima government building, and it's preserved ruins is the only thing left of the city from before 1945. The only reason it survived was because it was located almost directly beneath the hypocenter of the explosion 580m overhead.

The museum was an extremely sobering experience for me, but also a very eye opening one. In it we saw wreckage from the bomb, pictures from before and after, many sickening photographs, and even a stone staircase with the image of a human being burned into it from the intense heat. In the park there is also a burial mound with the unidentified remains of 70,000 people in it, including Koreans, Chinese, Austrailians and Americans from the POW camp that unbeknown to the A-bomb target comittee was in the city at the time of the bombing.

While in Hiroshima we also took a ferry over to the island of Miyajima, Where we saw the famous "shrine on the water" which appears to be floating during high tide. On that Island there are also countless other shrines and high places, and Josh and I contemplated the hoplessness of these man-made temples and idols. A passage in the Bible also came to mind: "Acts 17:22-23 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you." The reason this came to mind is that daily we witness the worship of gods, ancestors, animals, and plants, and yet none of these things bring any kind of certainty of salvation, and to top it off Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the world. Very very sad,

At the end of our trip we went to Nagasaki, which was definately one of the most amazing places we have been to yet. It is grand harbor city with amazing views and big ships. There we also visited the A-bomb museum, getting yet another perspective on the depravity of mankind. The most horrible thing I saw there was a the bones of a human hand embedded in a melted bottle.

Nagasaki is also the birthplace of Christianity in Japan, and the site of the Crucifixion of 26 believers. Even here satan has been allowed to pervert the truth as they have a shrine to worship these martyrs instead of their Lord that they served to their bitter end.

Well tomorrow it's back to the grindstone, Thank you for your prayers, we had an incredible trip.

-Flo