Risa Maeda
Yearbook Edition
Something interesting about me? Oh, I have had a lot of experience in traveling. New Zealand! I went there to study abroad...to learn English. On a foreign exchange program for the SDA academy there in, um, 3 years ago. 2004? It was the first time I went to a foreign country, I mean, I went on short trips to different
countries but it was the first time I actually lived there...in a different culture...soo different. And it made me realize how much I love the English culture...it's so different than in Japan cuz when I speak in English, I don't have to worry about changing my language when talking to older people or younger people to be polite. It's so stressful!
In English, I can make friends with anybody! No matter what age or background they are. But it made me appreciate my own culture as well, after I appreciated English cuz when I went out of my own country, people kept asking me about Japan and, "What is it like?" and "How do they do this?" Like, before, I didn't like my culture because it seemed so strict.
Oh!!! The worship service in my country was sooo different from when I went to New Zealand. When I went to New Zealand, I was so shocked because they had guitars and were clapping their hands and in Japan the worship service is so conservative. They would never have that. Like, we have hymns but when I hear, I command my soul and my hands to praise the Lord, it's just soo different. It's passionate. (Smiles) I actually almost failed school cuz I didn't want to go to worship in Japan. But when I was in New Zealand, they didn't require us to go but I wanted to go all the time.
"...whenever I focus on God,
everything is sooo good."
Also in English, I can tell my faith...but if I speak in Japanese I can't tell my faith...cuz we don't say that. In prayer we usually don't say, "I love You." Like, our faith is inside and we pray with each other in groups sometimes, but we don't SHOW faith. I'm just so glad I went to New Zealand. It gave me my dream, my faith...and of course friends. So much diversity. Like, we were a small school...only a hundred people, but one time we were eating dinner and there were only 6 people at the table. And we went around the table and counted all the different languages we could speak and...I think there was 8?
(Laughs) I think it was the first time I noticed how the tower of Babel was true! (Laughs again) It really changed my life.
And I love it here at Andrews. It seems like whenever I focus on God, everything is sooo good.
Courtesy of the 2007 Cardinal Yearbook
Daniel Bedell, photographer; Jonathan VanOrnam, writer