Nagoya Series 1: Coffee Making & Parkside Chapel

Welcome back to Heart & Soul Cafe~~! It has really been a long time since I last blogged and I must admit I have been very lazy!! My bad for the long wait!!! XP

It has really been upon my heart to put my experiences of my Nagoya mission trip on the blog so I can look back and wander off into the nolstagic moments of the trip. I guess I really owe this post to God, for allowing me to have such a wonderful experience in Nagoya. Glory be to God.

You are now looking at the very 1st series of my Nagoya trip!!!
Coffee Making & Parkside Chapel

One of the best homemade coffee you can find in Nagoya, near Parkside Chapel in Sango.
Japanese are very polite people and considerate! They don't short-change you! Even my
iced-coffee's ice were ice cubes. O_O

Many of you might be wondering.... what exactly has Coffee making got to do with this blog?? It's called Heart n soul CAFE... hmm cafe.. sounds like coffee? XD

Let me quote my very first post 2 years ago as I started this blog and why I named the blog the way it is now: "The discovery begins... as I find out more about myself & this "image" i'm in, and relate to a God who gave this image. This is a journey to find my very own "heart & soul"."

And I finally understood the part why God impressed upon my heart to name it a 'cafe' because Coffee Making is something I will do (for the very first time in my whole life). This coffee making is not the usual coffee a city dweller like myself will make from instant 3 in 1 sachets. This IS real coffee making. Haha.. before we make some coffee, let us look at the master who taught me the coffee making.


MASUDA SENSEI
The Mr. No nonsense, coffee/food Connoisseur who is also a funny professor who wears a bow tie with a strapped pants and lives in a house likened to that of the house in the movie "UP". He is more like a character out of fantasy story LOL! He teaches English in a local University (Nagoya Gakuin University... YAY) and don't look at his friendly face! He appears friendly but can be quite intimidating... well most well-learned professors are... and you are looking at a man who is well-learned in God's Word. Yup. VERY intimidating O_O;;;

The coffee prince and my mission teamates, Priscilla and Michael
and the reason he treated us to coffee is so that we don't fall asleep
during the church sermon later! SO nice!


Masuda Sensei is really a nice person actually, and he loves to invite people to his hillside house of creepy crawlies and a smelly toilet... blah! But he is also a funny and "crazy" man! Hmm a Godly man too. Our first sunday in Nagoya was hosted by Masuda Sensei and he made us at home with his hospitality before driving us down to the Church (Parkside Chapel).

Yup and through the drive he was telling us how to walk 8 hrs from our accomodation to church... crazy in a way isn't that? But I heard from reliable sources that he did walk to church and started walking at 2am... so he can reach by 10plus.. *faints* And this is a man who owns a car powered by "tempura oil", the oil from restaurants he filters and uses as free fuel. (high-tech prof)

I had the chance to stay over at his house one saturday during the trip and it was a life-changing experience. Onsen (Japanese public bath) for the 1st time in my life and also the first time I saw the night sky in pitch darkness. All the cameras failed and I wished I could have a better camera. The perfect night view is however etched into my heart..... and if you look at the next few pictures you can imagine how dark his house is... but apparently every now and then he invites people to stayover...

The perfect coffee making tools... FRESH Coffee Beans, coffee grinder
hot water, filter paper and a flask.


Alright! Finally we got to coffee making. Hope you are not asleep yet. (make some coffee if you are). Coffee brewing is a really tough skill. It takes many years before you can brew a nice cup of coffee. So as an amateur, let me get to it!


Step 1: Buy fresh coffee beans from a local
Step 2: Get a coffee grinder. Trust me, freshly grinded coffee taste so much nicer than 3 in 1.
Step 3: patiently grind it down... hmmm done! XD
Step 4: warm the flask with hot water...
Step 5: putting the grinded coffee in filter paper, pour enough hot water so the beans absorb it.
Step 6: wash down the first brew slowly... and pour it away (kinda like tea making)
Step 7: Finally, more hot water, now but slowwwwwlllleeeeeeee
Step 8: Swirl and add more hot water, this time fast!
Step 9: leave for the coffee to filter down...
Step 10: Leave the coffee to settle a while before smelling
Step 11: smell it and swirl a few times! the fragrance should change! once it changes it's ready!

Coffee making is really tedious. unlike the 3 in 1 coffee we drink so much that we fail to appreciate the true brewed coffee to the machine made counterpart we so easily get. The homemade one is nicer by Soooooooooooo much! OK! a little coffee and here's the rest of the pictures of his nice and warm house.. actually cobwebs are everywhere but can't really tell from the pictures.

Masuda sensei in his 'formal' clothes. His casual ones he says are his suit, bow and top hat. XD
The picture was so dark I had to brighten it with software. There sits Masuda sensei and Mike, my bro for the night. haha.

The house looks like the movie UP right? right??

The little table is a hundred year old tree stump with a lamp on top of a chariot wheel.
The other chariot wheel is hanging above, with a few light bulbs. innovative... hmm.

PARKSIDE CHAPEL =)

Parkside Chapel in the background


This is the church I attended during the trip. It takes about 1 and half hrs to reach but I really like the place and the people there. Parkside chapel is one of the 'healthy' churches with a congregation of 50-70 people and it is supposedly healthy because less than 3% of Japanese are Christians. We are very blessed in Singapore to even have Mega-churches easily outnumbering them. This is also why it's hard for Japanese Christians, the lack of people to fellowship and journey together in faith with. Do pray for them!


Makio Sensei, the pastor of Parkside.

The local service setting. Very homely.
Worship during service
Kodai, one of the NGU graduates who is suffering from muscular deficiency.


Kodai is one of the strongest Japanese Christians I have met in Japan, and probably anywhere else. Suffering from disease that makes him paralysed does not stop this young man from taking part in serving the Lord, being MCs and also doing church stuff in his free time.

When I first met him, he as not in the very least sorry for himself, nor a pinch of self-pity from him I could pick up. I really feel sometimes I'm a normal person but I'm even weaker in faith as I am weak mentally as compared to him, I used to dwell on self pity and also suffer from esteem problems before I became a Christian. However!!! we are all loved by Jesus! He loves us for who we are and accepts us whole the way He made us. Parkside is really a place I took many lessons away from, the song currently playing in the blog is also a song played on one of the sundays.

I am really encouraged to know people elsewhere on the globe are living their lives for God and it encourages me to live my life purposefully as well.
So many things have yet to settle since I returned from the trip and I am still getting used to it. little by little I will edge closer to Him I believe...
Yup this is the end of the 1st series! I bet you can't wait for the next! hahahaaha. until the next time.. God Bless You!

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