How we ended up looking for a parking space to rent is a slightly long story...
But anyway, we ended up looking for a parking space to rent.
The area was Kita-senju. A bustling centre in an older part of Metropolitan Tokyo.
Cost of parking would double what we pay for in our sleepy Chiba suburban town...That was what we were prepared for.
But the actual search turned out that it wasn't double. It was quadruple or more.
On Wednesday, we received a letter from Mr Kimura, the staff of "PH Estate Agency", which we were using.
He had copied a map of the area and marked out 8 to 9 car park lots. Each lot had a post-it note stuck next to it, giving the rental cost. Finally, on the right hand side of the map, Mr Kimura wrote, "And the nearest lot with the most reasonable price is......Lot #1 !"
We were deeply impressed by the high standard of Japanese service which goes the extra mile to help us make a good decision.
We had already felt an affinity towards Mr Kimura before this.
He had helped us well in our search for a new flat and shown us around the area.
As we looked around empty apartments and walked around the vicinity, he had, in between pointing out the pros and cons of the area, told us much about himself and his past.
"You would want to take into consideration the elementary school nearby," he would say.
"Oh, what's wrong with that?" we asked.
"Well, the school bell chimes every hour, so it might annoy you if you need to rest in the day. I find it very annoying myself."
"Ah, I see."
"This room faces the road and in this area, bikers may disturb you at night. I should know since I am a biker..."
"Aha!"
After about 3 of such excursions, we had heard about his surfing hobby, his student days, previous job and lifestyle, his cars and bikes, his wife and her sleeping habits, his going-to-be-born-anytime baby, his current flat, his blood type, etc.
The seemingly shy and diffident looking young man we first set eye on in the PH Estate Agency office had turned out to be friendly, personable and extremely helpful.
As we considered the different parking options he sourced out for us, we wanted to take a walk to see how long it would take to walk to the various parking lots before fixing on one.
"We will decide after looking at the place," we told Mr Kimura over the phone.
And as Mr Kimura insisted on accompanying us there and showing us the place, we met at the office and he showed us more maps of where the parking lots were. He had marked out all possible parking lots in the area.
When he was taking us around the marked out lots, we found out that he had spent the day before, his only day off in the week, going around in his private car to personally test out the convenience of each lot.
"This car park's disadvantage is that there is only one entrance/exit. So when the traffic is held up by the traffic light, you can get stuck for quite a while.... And for this other one,your car should have no problem going in. If my huge car can get in, yours should be fine too," he had even taken into consideration the size of our car.
That was a cold, dark rainy Thursday evening. The next day, on Friday, at about 9 pm, just as we had finished house church, the phone rang.
It was Mr Kimura.
"I have bargained down the price of the lots in location B," he said, "Can I send you the plan of the car park by email?"
The final price Mr Kimura had bargained down to was just double (not quadruple, not even triple) our current car park lot -- what we had originally naively thought we could pay and much lower than what we had subsequently resigned ourselves to paying.
"Thank you so very much, Mr Kimura. But, please, don't overwork for our sake. Please get some rest!"
We feel touched and, indeed, loved by this service personnel who has gone far beyond his duty to serve us and who has, in some measure, begun to share a little of himself with us.
We feel deep in our hearts that in this Japanese young man, who has yet to know the deep love of God, we have met someone who has demonstrated what Jesus means by going the extra mile beyond what is asked. In fact, we feel that Mr Kimura has gone about 5 miles on our behalf.
We pray that our encounter will not stop here, and that one day he and his family will come to know the friendship of the One who loves him and who has gone all the way for him.
