On Monday and Tuesday, Elsbeth and I spent time with Mickey, an English student of Pastor Tajima. Before we even came to Japan, she had asked if Elsbeth and I could spend a day with her. We went out for lunch to a Japanese Pancake restaurant on Monday. It was so fun and definitely a cultural experience. We sat on the floor and had a grill in the middle of us. We mixed all the ingredients together such as meat, egg, vegetables, cheese, ect. and then cooked it like a pancake. Once the pancake was ready to eat, we put mayonnaise, thin dried flaky fish, and soy sauce on top. It was delicious!

After lunch, we went shopping and out for coffee in Koriyama. In the evening we went to Mickey’s home for supper.. We were the first American’s to visit her home! Her mother made a great Japanese meal for us and kindly welcomed us into her home. Elsbeth and I had given Mickey’s family a card when we arrived. Mickey’s mother worked so hard at reading it out loud! It totally made my night, seeing how a simple letter meant so much to her. She later read the card again to her husband!

Tuesday, we went to see the green house where Mickey’s mother works. Her mother is a precious lady. She seemed to enjoy showing us the various plants and flowers. When Mickey brought us home today, she ended up staying the entire afternoon. We made her lunch, taught her some songs, and enjoyed good conversation.

I was kind of nervous about the time with Mickey since we were told she spoke little English and that her parents new none. But the time spent with her was wonderful. I think that it is one of the highlights of my time in Japan. She was so nervous at first, but I think that as we spent more time together, she realized that we really wanted to get to know her and practice along with her our Japanese/English. I did not know if we would be able to have any “deep” conversations with her with the language barrier. But, praise God, we had some great talks. At lunch on Monday, Mickey asked us why we were in Japan. So, we explained that we were here to help the churches. In this conversation we brought up God. Mickey explained that people in Japan do not believe in Jesus. Then between yesterday and today, Mickey continued to ask questions and we continued to talk about what we believe with her. This morning, Elsbeth was reading her Bible and Mickey noticed. Mickey explained that peoples'personal religion choice is very private here. She has never read the Bible but thinks that her older sister reads it.

Tuesday afternoon we went out for coffee and had a conversation about marriage and family. Elsbeth and I shared with Mickey that we believe that the husband and wife relationship should come first before children and careers. She agreed and then drew a diagram of how many of the Japanese families look at marriage and family. For fathers the career is first, then children, and lastly the wife. For mothers the children come first, career, then husband. Our conversation continued into talking about love, commitment, trust, and communication within a family. We also talked about counseling and the lack of communication parents have with their children. I enjoyed learning from Mickey and hearing her thoughts on these varies topics. I hope that Mickey was encouraged and challenged from our time together. I know that I was!

When Mickey dropped us off at the Tajima’s, we had a chance to sing a couple worship songs with her and try to explain what the songs were saying. Mickey tried to explain back to us what she was hearing us tell her. It seemed she understood some of what we shared with her. Elsbeth and I really put ourselves out there with Mickey. I think that a foundation was started for something more in the future. We both were exhausted after our time with Mickey, yet thankful for the door of opportunity the Lord gave us to share Him with her. Please be praying for Mickey and her family.

Tuesday afternoon was our last English class with Beverly. I have mixed emotions about it! The children and adults we spent time with were all eager to learn English. They have been an encouragment and example to me. It takes a lot of hard work to learn a new language, but it can be done!

Today the Tajima's are taking us out for lunch and then tomorrow Elsbeth and I are moving back to the camp until Monday!

"...So I run straight to the goal with purpose in every step..."

1 Corinthians 9:26

Mariah

Japanese Hot Dog Buns

Hello! I'm so excited to finally have the opportunity to sit down and communicate with you all! We have had some fun experiences and good laughs that I've been wanting to share with you. Since many of you know how "blonde" I can sometimes be, I have to tell you what happened to me the other day. One of the missionary families invited us over for a BBQ. Stan asked if we could bring anything and Chris instructed him to ask me to bring hotdog buns. When I first heard this, I thought hotdog buns? You mean they have those here? But I figured there must be hotdog buns (since they asked for them), they must be pretty easy to pick out (since he asked ME for them), and therfore I didn't need any help finding them. The next day at the grocery store, just like I had envisioned, there were the hotdog buns in bags of 6. They didn't appear to be already cut, but that's what knives are for! So I proudly presented my hotdog buns at the BBQ! Mission accomplished! I grabbed a knife and cut open the buns only to find they were each filled with a whipped coffee flavored filling! Who ever heard of hotdog buns with whipped coffee flavored filling! Everyone got a good laugh out of my mistake. Apparently it's common to find unexpected surprises stuffed inside bread products. Well, now I know. There have been many other funny situations that I'll save for another day. I do want to tell you about my trip with Toby to a nearby park. There was a climbing wall with a soft and bouncy floor at the bottom, as well as a very large jungle of thick bungee chord to climb on. Stan took a quick break from his soccer game to climb all the way to the top. He had been eyeing it for some time and said he couldn't help himself any longer. Toby's favorite thing at the park was the slide. Instead of a flat surface , it was made of many rows of independent tubes. So, as you slid down they rolled under you making Toby slide faster than usual. Needless to say, we stayed at the slide for some time. We met Ana there that day. She is philipino but married to a Japanese man named Yuichi and has a 4 month old son named Noel. She came to the MAPS (Mothers and Preschoolers) meeting and made some good connections with the ladies. Please pray that she will join us for church on Sunday and that we can find out where she and Yuichi are spiritually. Please pray also for us. I've missed you all and I have longed to share with you what is going on here and elicit your prayers. I am constantly in need of the Holy Spirit's power, help, and encouragement. Also pray for Ako (ah-ko). Many of you will be able to empathize with her pain. A couple of weeks before we came she experienced a still born birth. She has two JOLT aged boys but this was to be her first little girl. She and her husband Takeishi are hurting but cling to the Lord for hope, encouragement, and courage. Please pray for them. Thank you so much for allowing Stan and I to come here and do what we can and for supporting us with prayer and encouragment. I hope to blog more soon. Love and Blessings, Michelle

Creatures of Habit

6/19/07

I did a bit of exploring the other day. The camp is really a beautiful area. It sits on the side of a mountain covered with pine trees. Bamboo shoots are visible just about everywhere. Breathing in the fresh air is like taking a Centrum vitamin pill and there is an innumerable amount of creatures as I’m sure you intuited from my previous posts. Lizards play tag with the flies using their teeth instead of their hands and the birds chirp much louder at the camp, too loud and too early if you ask me. It’s as if they have no awareness whatsoever of the sleeping habits of humans, me in particular. Along with the birds and lizards, there are several other animals such as snakes, tanuki, raccoons, giraffes, elephants, rhinos, and I even saw a jackalope. To tell the truth, there are too many to list.

In addition to the mammals and reptiles there exists a vast assortment of bugs. So many bugs, in fact, that I am convinced the land upon which this camp sits is very place God himself formed and fashioned each and every species of insect ever known to man or beast. It’s absolutely astounding. Never in all my days did I think it possible to have 77 insect bites on my body at one time. But the truly amazing thing is that none of the bites are repeated. Each comes from a different species. I’ve gained five pounds due to the insect venom alone. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not angry, I’m too awestruck to get angry. Every night before I tuck myself in, I “ooh” and “ahh” at all the new bites I’ve acquired during my days work. Seeing my body’s reaction to each new poison is extremely interesting. It has become my favorite past time. Some days the swelling is so bad that the Takahashi’s nearly lose consciousness when they see my disfigured face. I’ve tried insect repellant but I’m pretty sure the smell only allows the bugs to locate me faster so I’ve switched to coating myself with insecticide. It stings the first few times you get it in your eyes but after awhile you don’t even notice. It’s really not that bad and it seems to be much more effective. Of course there are side effects but I’m sure the ticks and twitches will go away once I stop using it.

On a more serious note, I ate dinner with the Takahashi’s and the Koga’s last night. After the meal, we got to talking about the difficulties they face each week having such small churches and not many opportunities for fellowship. It seems like the missionaries and pastors are all spread out across Japan. Often times a single couple (a pastor and his wife) will try to start a church on their own because there are no other Christians to with them. Pastor Koga’s wife was telling me that she gets anxious every Sunday morning before Sunday school because she doesn’t know if anyone will show up. She said she spends so much time preparing but rarely gets to teach. It must be frustrating to put so much time and effort into ministry and then see so little fruit for their labor. From what I understand, Japanese people just aren’t interested in Christianity and most don’t even know who Jesus is. Telling the Japanese people about Christ’s love can be done but how do you overcome indifference?

Romi writes...

This is my first blog entry for the NI team in summer 2007. I am working with the team in Koriyama region. Who am I and what do I do here? I am Romi. My parents are caretakers at the camp Adatara. My dad has been a pastor at a small Baptist church in the city of Fukushima for last 20 years. I have been helping parents' ministries since 2004 after graduated from a college. It has been a real encouragement seeing the NI team coming along side of us helping our ministries. I just want to thank God for the great servants you sent on our way.

On June 1, God has brought us a great team to our camp. Evan, Elsbeth and Mariah have brightened our hearts and ministries in many special ways. Their encouraging spirits and sweet 'n crazy personalities have been lifting up our spirits. They are very hard workers. We have already received many blessings from them. We learned how much our work can be encouraging, effective and a lot of fun by serving and working as a team.

It has been a real encouragement to see the team making their efforts to communicate with our people here with their limited Japanese and some English. If you are speaking in English in Japan, talking slowly is a technique you must learn. It doesn't mean to speak "louder", but slowly. We are very much encouraged by the team showing their interests to our people and our culture. I believe that is a great step forward to reach out to people and make differences in people's lives, especially in Japan. Japanese people, we don't have much opportunity to talk with strangers or to meet new friends and to get to know them, I think. Just because many are too busy with their own lives and no time for others? We see that the team has been doing a great job reaching out to our people. In our fellowship of believers, specially, each church is very small and some discouragements are always there, so it is great to see the team fit into our fellowship and getting to know our people. We are thankful for the team member being here and helping us with what they can. That have been a great encouragement to me and to all us, and believers in our churches here.

Thank you so very much for sending your team to bless our ministries. God is hearing your faithful prayers and answering each one.

Time has been flying by very quickly. Our first 20 days are about to be gone. Before we know, another 10 days will fly by and the team will head back home. We don't want to see them go. That will be one of the saddest tearing moments in life... saying good byes to the NI team, our new friends we have learned to laugh with and work with. We may need five buckets to hold our tears. We don't want to think about that till the day comes, but we trust that sadness will bring us back to rely on God even more. We pray that God may use each of us for something greater for Japan. Pray that our hearts and lives to be committed only for Him. "Only for Your glory, LORD, will YOU use us to do something greater in Japan?"