Well we are on our way...our plane tickets have been bought and now it is just reducing our inventory of 16 years of stuff to just two suit cases per person. We will move out of our place on June 15th into my moms house and go into painting mode to prepare our place for renting July 1st. Mihoko and her dad are flying to Japan for scouting purposes in April. Did you know Easter is a month early this year? I don't remember having an Easter in March. But then I don't remember a lot of things. We just had a friend invite us over to celebrate the Chinese New Year. Gotta love that gyoza. That reminds me of last November when at the Japan Pastor's conference we went to a gyoza diner and had some really tasty morsels. Thanks Travis. I just finished last week a class by Oxford seminars where I have been certified to teach ESL. I was just taught how to create a lesson with the purpose of making some forward progress in their language learning. It was fun. I am not going to Japan to teach English but teaching English is one of the best inroads to sharing the gospel with Japanese that might not otherwise give a rip to listen. My wife is a product of English classes at a church and then home-staying in the US. She became a Christian and then met a really cute guy in college and married him. Now we are going back to Japan to by God's grace to repeat the process not that we are going to become a dating service for Christians but that we'd be leading many to Christ through sharing the gospel while teaching English and friendship and ministry. I was confronted the other day with a well meaning individual who challenged me on going over with a distinct plan. His question was, "so what is the first thing your going to do?" I said, "Find a place to live." He said, "no what is your approach to ministry what are you going to do?" I said, Pray first and do what ever the Holy Spirit tells us to do. Of course, we have the plans of visiting hospitals and meeting the neighbors and making friends and going to schools to make contacts with the kids. But mostly, we will be hanging out as the Lord leads us to make friends and teach them the word of God. I think the stereotypical mindset of the Americans is that as a missionary we must be waking up at 4am and having a 3 hour quiet time with the Lord then we go out and stand on a street corner and proclaim the gospel of Jesus day in and day out. We will be visiting some of the Calvary's in the area to see what they are doing. Who knows maybe the Holy Spirit is going to use us in one of the other churches? I don't know. Many of the guys have a great mind for the things of Christ and they are doing outreach through starting a Coffee Shop or a thrift store or some of the churches plan for the City festivals and get a booth and do outreach through the city sponsored events. I am looking forward to using all the means God allows us to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with whomever wherever and whenever. Some Christians are made and gifted by God to be seeker missiles and they can go out and zero in on a victim and blast away. I am more of a stink bomb. I just hang out and the fragrance of Christ comes out and either they like it or they run away. I'd be interested to hear what sort of godly ordinance you think you are. I could see some one being a claymore mine with a trip wire that would blast away when the subject wire is tripped. Anyway, back to packing. God bless you all.
