20 years ago Nishi Tokorozawa

It has been 20 plus years since Mihoko left her home in Nishi Tokorozawa. Originally Mihoko came from Tokyo where she lived until she was 14 then she moved to Nishi Tokorozawa. It was there that God surrounded her with Christian friends and she began to read the Bible. She yielded her heart to Jesus there and it has a special place in her heart. Then on to California for school. She happened to get sidetracked with a great guy in the US and married him. So we toured the old stomping ground and found the landscape drastically changed. The tea fields are all gone and the buildings are everywhere. We had fun and ended our day trip at the Mami mart with some noodles.

Ladies Tea Party

The kids in Iruma are out of school for a week and the mom's are the one's who worked so hard all year to shuttle the kids around the town. So we decided that we'd give them a time to just sit and enjoy the fellowship. I taught the kids ESL and the Mom's and Mihoko were in a back room sipping tea and eating delightful delicacies. They discussed the scriptures of Proverbs 31 and Psalm 23. Pray that the seeds sown will bring about the Lord's fruit of Salvation through faith. The girls got all dressed up to demonstrate the next party for the girls in the neighbor hood. We are planning a Easter outreach. Pray that God will do a work in the hearts and lives here in Iruma.

CCJC Family hanging out

CCJC Childrens Ministry

The kids had a great time in the childrens ministry. They sang and played and listened to Bible stories and they just loved the times building friendships. I participated in serving and made a couple of new friends myself. Benjamin is a cool kid from Takamatsu on Shikoku Island

CCJC

The worship was heavenly. I wish I could upload the sets to the web. The new songs that have been translated were glorious and the working hard to stay true to the the original lyrics are really great. It can be a stumbling block when a song is said to be translated but then as you sing the lyrics are not saying the same thing. God bless all you guys for allowing God to use you to bless the body here. I can't wait until we go the heaven. There was on the trip to the conference a cloudy sky. As we were riding the train the sun was beaming through the clouds with rays going gloriously everywhere. Rachel staring out the window with the clickety clack of the train tracks says, "when I see clouds like that Mommy I can hear the music of heaven." We asked her what it sounded like. She said she could not explain it. I all the more want to get to heaven to hear this glorious music of heaven.

Calvary Chapel Japan Conference

The Conference was awesome. God did an amazing work. We had pastors from the US and Japan come and teach us the Word of God with the theme of Love. Some of the themes were loving the unlovable, loving the lost, the love of God, leading by love, loving family, and loving the word of God. We were so blessed to meet so many of the servants from all over Japan that have come from all over the world to minister here in Japan. It is just glorious to hear their story of God working in their hearts to lead them to Japan and to hear and see the Lord bringing fruit is even greater. We are so encouraged by the Lord and his love for the Japanese people. I'll upload more pictures soon.

Christian Academy of Japan visit

 We visited the Christian Academy of Japan today. The CAJ is a K through HS academy for English speakers. We realized there is a bigger family here in Japan. Our community has been very small and I forgot that in dealing with Culture shock one of the symptoms is your circle of friends becomes limited or small. We saw a wall of home schooling families pictures and we actually knew half of the families there. It was great to hang out and hear of what others are doing. The CAJ has some 450 Students from all backgrounds but mostly Missionary families and they are primarily English speaking and teaching. We are joining the Home Schooling Services for support and networking. They were very nice and we really enjoyed our visit with Mrs Abraham. Isn't that a cool name for a missionary. There was a missionary family on the wall named the Love family and there was another named Humble. I thought those are great names for missionaries. Bolinger just doesn't sound cool it sounds like sports equipment or something like garage door related. Pray we will have great support for our Home Schooling activities and pick a curriculum that will best suit our kids learning style and our schedule. It is hard to believe but we are shopping now for next years stuff. Registration is going to go out for next year in April. Time flies when we having fun ne.

Pastor Katsumi Santo and Family Yeah they came

Santo San and his Family came and visited us. We had a great time and it turned out to be Yuuki's birthday. Santo pastors the famous West Tokyo Calvary Chapel. Santo San was saved in San Francisco while working as a cook and attending Calvary Chapel San Francisco. He then came to Japan and attended Mike Kohama's church there in Tokyo. Santo took the reigns of the church and it has since moved to West Tokyo. They are a great Family. His wife Ritsuko helps lead the worship while his sons Yoshiya and Yuuki play in the youth band. I have had the priviledge of knowing them for many years now and every Tuesday I get blessed to have a weekly Bible study together with the other Pastors and men in a morning Study in Tokorozawa. We had a great meal of Mexican Tacos and bean burritos with chips and salsa. It was yummy. We topped it off with a chocolate birthday cake. We had great fellowship. Pray for Santo san and the West Tokyo Fellowship. Pray that they'd just keep growing in the word and bringing pleasure to our Lord. God bless you Santo Family.

Hello and Goodbye

We have just gotten to know one of our neighbors and they are having to move far away. We enjoyed their friendship and we shared the gospel with them. Pray the seeds will grow in the good soil of their heart. We will miss you Sutani family.

Elections are finally over

We have endured the most trying two weeks here to date. The city of Iruma was having an election year and there were these Vans driving around the city announcing the candidates name. The loud speakers are very loud. They would start at 8 am and end about 8 pm everyday. The kicker is there were some 20 candidates. So we could have two or three vans back to back shouting each other out. I was missing the liter of the signs that scream at us in the US. Sunday was the election and the vans are gone and we are back to normal. I don't have any clue who won.

Rachel and Jane had fun dressing up in the dresses Mommy wore as a young girl. I was taken aback as they really look like missionary Amish kids from Pennsylvania. Anyway, Jane loves play doh and Grandma loves to send Jane playdoh. She made a ice cream. Looks good enough to eat Jane.

Nathan's Science Project

Nathan had a science project where we had to make a light bulb using AA batteries and some leads with a piece of lead pencil inbetween. As the electricity from the batteries flowed through the lead it started to smoke and then it started to glow. We had fun and learned a lot.