skype prayer meets

I was supposed to write about my dilemma in choosing a church in Tokyo. One is a Chinese church which I first attended with my parents when I first came to Tokyo after my graduation. The other is a Japanese-English church which is more like a uni Christian Fellowship in many ways. I've made friends in both, and have grown to become quite settled in these two churches.

I've been attending the Jap-Eng one, called GAP (short for Gospel Assembly of Praise) more often because its services are in the afternoon. I kinda like the camaraderie and more so because there are Malaysians there. In fact, Masami who's half Malaysian, half Japanese knows not only my cousin but some of my church friends due to her history in INTI College's CF too!

One of the activities that I've gotten involved with the GAPers is their weekly Skype prayer meeting. We kinda came up with this idea during the recent Winter Retreat at Karuizawa, and Hikari has always been faithful in coming online to organise it. In fact it was his idea initially and since he's been championing it so well, I myself have been motivated to join them every week too as much as possible.

Whoever is online on Wednesdays 2200 local time can just join the prayer meeting at any point. Hikari, or the person who has bigger bandwidth, will usually be the host and make the calls to those who are online. It's been quite fun actually, even with the background noise, people coming and leaving in between. We've learnt to manage it better - like starting on time no matter who's online, and trying to end by 2230 since people are tired by that time, and writing prayer points in the chat box while prayers are being said.

This evening, so happened it was only Hikari and I on the Skype prayer meet. We were already halfway praying when we noticed Masami online. She was on and offline intermittently in fact. We couldn't call through to her initially, but she managed to write something on the chatbox. In my excitement to have her join us in the prayer meeting, I hope I wasn't using God's name in vain! :p

[9:16:13 PM] Masami says: oh.....
[9:16:19 PM] Masami says: didn get ur email lah
[9:16:28 PM] Hikari says: sorry i don't send
[9:16:34 PM] Sno says: wat email?
[9:16:38 PM] Masami says: prayer thing...
[9:16:51 PM] Sno says: but he's stopped emailing for years already

* At this point Hikari asked me on the conference call why I said "years", I had to explain to him I was just exaggerating (大げさに言う)

[9:16:53 PM] Hikari says: we always have prayer meeting at 22:00 on wednesday
[9:16:59 PM] Masami says: really!!
[9:17:04 PM] Masami says: now i didn know taht
[9:17:38 PM] Masami says: anyway, we are building the shelf now... and i need to call mom....

* Masami's married to Stephen, an ABJ (American-born Japanese) and she's expecting her in-laws the coming weekend

[9:17:52 PM] Hikari says: ok
[9:18:08 PM] Masami says: just 2 of you guys?
[9:18:09 PM] Sno says: stop building ur shelf
[9:18:14 PM] Sno says: Jesus is coming soon, we hv to pray now
[9:18:23 PM] Sno says: He doesnt care about your shelf
[9:18:42 PM] Masami says: alrite
[9:18:55 PM] Masami says: let's pray then only i call my mom...
[9:19:02 PM] Sno says: yay


* PC Clock is set to Malaysian time, hence the 1 hour difference.