Word Time Experiments

Today was day 2 of my project of trying to wean the OCs and JETTs out of gen-ups and Heaven's libraries onto some meatier subjects. Today we read (or tried to read) "Worldly or Free!"
After about 10 minutes of trudging through spiritual concepts in Japanese, I took a little poll. "Who has any idea what we're reading about?" One person "did". At least the other three had the humility to say "Uh...not so much."
Okay. One of those General Patton-style quick changes of planses. I whipped the guitar out of the corner of the room and pulled out my songbook. Let's have a little heducation time!! No more singing the same 5 Japanese hymns over and over during communion!! We're going to learn a real English song (or TRY to learn a real English song)!!
Quite a hefty challenge. "Diamond of Dust" is too high a hurdle? No problemo, how about "Put Your Trust In Him"? I understand, yes, there are quite a few words in that one. How about "It's Bubbling"? Too fast, quite right. How about we just have a little DISCUSSION time then?
Awkward silence.
Swiftly, Florence pulls out the cleverest filler of all, a Link in English and the same Link in Japanese. Find an inspiring testimony, quick, so that we can discuss it. Oh perfect, here's one from Esther W.W. about witnessing with songs! That's something I can discuss. Eagerly we read the testimony. The kids look a little uplifted. Good, good!
Now they start asking me their questions. "Furorensu, how many songs do you know?" (Goodness gracious, who knows?) "What was the first Family song ever?" (Wow. Good question.)
So I crack open my computer and try to find something that I think may be one of the very oldest. I find an original recording of Aaron singing "Shouting Jesus," some hippies singing "You Gotta Be A Baby," and some Frenchies singing a very frantic "My Love is Love." "My Love is Love," ("私の愛は愛...？") made for some very interesting discussion on the topic of how it only takes one short inspired sentence (in this case, one that is quite questionable as far as actual "sense-making"), repeated over and over, to be a powerful witness to people.
Just for fun, I play "The Lamb" for the sweet kids and offer them a literal translation after every verse. We take various stabs as to the meaning of the song, and come up with a lot of interesting hypotheses. (Who really knows what that song means?) Yuji says soberly, "Hm, it seems quite easy to write a witnessing song."
WOW! Yes it is! All you really need is the Spirit, and that's something you can't drive into your song with a any amount of effort and a pair of pliers. It's just a matter of opening one eyelid and asking the Lord to fill your song, and writing down a little sentence like "My love is love." (Or, not being too much of an OLD BOTTLE to stop writing when the first thing that comes to your head is "I saw a lamb on the road, it was dancing...") And...maybe not being too much of a fuss-pot to finish your song with "Repeat as led."
So maybe tomorrow I will try to read some more meaty Word, and when the kids all start looking bleary-eyed and clueless, we will write a witnessing song.