More Birthday Pictures

Here are some more pictures of Erika Takamiya's party. The first one is my beautiful bride Mihoko. That was the smile that melted my heart from day one since I met her. She is all mine guys. The next picture is of Asako Yokota who recently became a Christian and was Baptized last month in the Okutama River. Standing next to Asako is Candice Rose. Rich Rose's bride. She is from Hawaii. Rich and Candice are the servant/leaders. They are so versatile and will assume any role to benefit the body. They have total selfless attitudes. Pray for the Rose family as they have just started a Bible Study in Fuchu. God is growing it. One family move to be near them and they are not saved. Pray that they will respond to the Gospel. The next flick is of yours truly playing a game. I wasn't drinking enough water and got dehydrated. I felt sick and had a head ache. Travis brought me a chunk of ice and I stuck it on my head. It really cooled me off quickly. I also drank some gateraide type dring and I felt better within 30 minutes. The next picture is of Travis' wife Dawn Takamiya. She is an Ohio native and was a Vollyball player in her college days. God has used this and she has joined a vollyball mama club where they play with other moms once a week. They stick her at right front and she just spikes the ball all the time. I feel sorry for the other team. Anyway, two or three of the moms and kids present at the party are from her vollyball club. The last picture is of a Japanese/Hawaiian Baryshnikov. Naw, this is just travis catching a grape that was thrown at him. But he looks like he is posing in a ballet move pirouette or how ever you spell it. And he looks so happy. Hmm I think he is liking the ministry.

Erika's Birthday party

We went Erika Takamiya's 7th birthday party. She is Pastor Travis' daughter. It was a blast as the school friends merged with the church friends and made a great segway to just love on many who don't know Jesus. We played games and ate goodies. They went to Costco and bought some Thompson grapes. Here all the Japanese grapes are hard skinned with seeds inside and it is not cool or seen as disgusting to eat the skin of a grape. So it makes for fun to watch them try to peel a grape. But we gross them out by grabbing a hand full and just shove them in our mouths. Rich and Travis were entertaining the kids by lobbing grapes into the sky and catching them with their mouths. Michael Pierces is a missionary here from CC Virginia. He is giving us his best side. I can't figure out what he is thinking but I was tempted to say something but since this is the first time introducing him to you I will be nice. He has been here for over a year now full time serving at CCT. He teaches ESL most of the time and has youth ministry on the weekends. He is single???? Anyway, it was a great day.

Radio Chappy 77.7FM

What a ride this missions life is. You never know what is going to happen. I have been asking for prayer for this volunteer radio announcing job of Iruma's only Radio Station called Chappy Radio 77.7 FM. This is a city run radio station that has a few staff and a few volunteers who host shows ranging from cooking to talk to the F.B.I (Foreign Broadcast Information) hour. This is a one hour a week program on a Tuesday night from 7-8pm that I will broadcast city news and announcements. I can play some music from anything I choose. The current DJ plays a wide range of stuff from the 40's to disco to currents Celine Dion. They have a small library of secular songs. I will be able to bring my own songs to record (I hear some Smithfield coming or maybe some Travis T from CCT?). I was not sure if I should take this opportunity but we have been praying for opportunities to connect with the city and community and I haven't sought this job. I was going to turn it down thinking I'd have to do a lot of paper work. Then the DJ (Rodney Bradish) came out and picked me up today and we went to the studio and we recorded a standard weekly program. During the program he interviewed me and I told him straight up I am here as a missionary to serve the Lord. Come to find out he is active in his episcopalian church and has a ministers license. So we had a good time. He is flying more under the radar in his role and runs a very tight ship there. I don't know if my level of discipline is going to compare. Anyway he announced that I was the new DJ taking over the radio program at the end of September. I was shocked but there you have it. I called a friend and asked what should I do? He counseled, "if you seriously have prayed for God to open a door and one opens shouldn't you go through it? Just see what happens. If they fire a volunteer DJ what harm has been done? So, I guess I will have to learn the ropes and become a DJ. Pray that I can just be who I am. I will abide by the guidelines and perform the required duty but I just want to please God who has opened this opportunity and not compromise my testimony. My hope and desire is to get to know the community here. There is one picture of the office for planning the programs out and in the bottom there is a parting shot of Rod the DJ. It litterally is a parting shot of the part of his hair. Anyway, Mihoko met some of the same mom's we met the other day and they had good conversation. Talk to you soon.

First Day of School

Well it is finally here the kids first day of school at Iruma Tooyou Shogako. We are home schooling but the city and the school has allow us to have a relationship together. The kids will go one day a week for language lessons. Nathan wants to go two days the second being P.E. and Art his two all time favorite subjects. Funny I think those were mine too. The nut doesn't fall far from the tree as grandpa says.
The kids had to wear funny hats and white play shoes. They are strict here. MCA teachers in Costa Mesa would flip thier wig to see how their assemblies go. Each time a new speaker was announced there was the call for Kiritsu! and the children would jump to there feet and stand at attention. Then the command "Rei" (Ray) would come and all the kids bowed in unison. It was like a military school. My kids aren't used to the bowing to the teacher stuff. They do the funky chicken bow unsure of what they are supposed to do. Pray for the kids we met today that we'd be able to foster more relationships with them. We met many of the boys from Nathan's class after school and played a great game of ball tag. The mom's giggled as a debu man ran around with children dodging a ball. Mihoko came out and blessed the mom's with some fresh oranges that Obaa Chan sent us. They were so happy and indicated they would like to take an English class. Pray as things are beginning to roll along. God bless

Cool spider

Japan has the coolest bugs here and the kids are not afraid of them. In fact, to our whole families surprise the kids play with them. The simmi (Circada) bugs are huge and they make this maddening buzzing noise. I saw two boys carrying them around and shaking them to make the noise. As much as I hate the bugs I actually felt sorry for the Circada. The pictures I got are from the internet. The Circada though are interesting as the live underground for up to 7 years and then they come up to the real world and they climb a tree shed a shell and then morph into a flying insect that makes a huge racket for all of about a week to 10 days they mate and then die. Surely that will preach about the brevity of life. The first gross picture is of the Circada killer wasp. These guys are bad. Don't mess with them. Nathan and I found one eating a stink typr beetle. We found this cool looking zebra spider hanging out in our stair way outside.

Grace Christian Fellowship Matsuri

Hello, we had a great Sunday as Mihoko was blessed to be able to translate Pastor Travis into Japanese as their translator Sho was stuck in bad weather in Hokkaido and the plane was delayed. There has been freeky weather here as Thunderstorms and major lightening everywhere. Then after CCT we jambed over to Grace Christian Fellowship where Pastor Jonathan Wilson hangs out. They have a nice facility that is about the size of a 3/4 gymnasium. They had their first Christian Matsuri for the community. They borrowed a pop corn maching, a cotton candy machine, a Kaki kori (Shaved ice) machine. and they had lots of great fesitval foods. One of those is the famous Tako yaki (octopus) balls. They also had yaki soba, and a suprise was the Oden. This is a dish of gobo fish cake and shoyu hardboiled eggs, with daikon and the famous kon yaku. I am not a big fan of Oden but it is good once in a while. Anyway, they had Christian matsuri music playing and everyone was wearing the Yukata clothes for the festival. I am wearing a Hapi which is more comfortable and they can double as pajamas (HA). They had tables with games on them for kids to play and all kinds of fun stuff to do. Some folks from the neighborhood came out and were blessed. Pray for relationships to be fostered and grown. The last picture is a Hapi with the Kanji of Christ on it. Carleton check that out. It was a fun time of fellowship. The event was marred by a down pour of rain but we were able to take it inside and enjoy more of the fun. One neat thing is that Pastor Jonathan's wife Rie is able to play a Shmisen stringed instrument. She played some Christian hymns it was beautiful. I included a picture of the Wilson's daughter Gracie who is also learning to play. She did play the song "Sakura". Great day and we have our first day of school tommorrow. There is a 3 to 4 hour opening ceremony/meet the teacher day. Pray for us as we are homeschooling but we have agreed to attend these functions and have a relationship with the school. We had to buy some white shoes and they gave us yellow hats. Nathan my 10 year old is just mortified in his charlie brown type ball cap. Later

Sayama History

well we went for a walk the other day and we went across the railroad tracks to a park in Sayama the next city. Known for silk worms and green tea they also housed the famous Johnson Airforce Base. This park used to be a track of homes with houses. The steps to the houses are still there. It is kind of eery as there are steps going nowhere. It reminded me of the Winchester house up the coast of California. That house Mrs Winchester was afraid of the ghosts of all who were killed by her husbands invention the rifle so she went crazy and had crews for many many years there building staircases that go no where. Doors in floors and doors that open to walls. So this park is just stairs where the homes used to be. They had a museum of Sayama but they couldn't just talk about their city history they went back to billions of years ago and hypothesized about evolution. It was exactly what Nathan is learning in Science so it was a great opportunity to explain the false belief they have. They even had a geological column which is the perfect way to explain away evolution as a myth. It is funny they had all this palaeoenviromental material and right in the middle there is this radical concept car of the future. It was funny to the kids as I explained one strand of DNA has more information than 1000 of those cars put together. I did like the Samurai warrior gear. Shhh I didn't flash when I took the picture but Miho later said I wasn't even supposed to take it at all. So enjoy. If you feel guilty looking at my illegal picture then you can send $1.50 to the Sayama Museum in Saitama Japan. That is the price of admission. Pray for the people of Japan because they are not taught any facts about evolution though the teachers/evolutionary prophets teach it as such. Evolution is the worlds greatest hoax and deception for all time next to the belief man doesn't need God. The Bible says all men are liars...well Japan doesn't have any proof of evolutionary history. Yet they have bought the lie. Pray that the truth will be unvailed.

The last picture is of a motor bike with water bottles around it. At first we thought this was a strange religious ritual that warded off evil spirits. But truth be know there is the belief that the water bottles will keep stray cats from urinating on your stuff. We have seen this in many places in Japan so we thought it was odd. Give it a try why not? If anything the water can be used to water your plants outside.

Something Old and Something New

Hello Today I am uploading our gifts from the Lord. Mihoko's friend Setsuko is a graduate student in Michigan and some 20 years ago when Mihoko moved to the US Setsuko inherited her coffee table and stereo. Well, we got it back the other day. Rachel likes to use it as a desk. Also the Takamiys's came by and took us out to the recycle shop and we found this dinning set for $50.00. What a blessing. Nathan was first to enjoy a bowl of Ramen on this prize. Then we ordered a $200.00 sofa on the internet. It looks great.

Tokorozawa Obon Outreach

For many Japanese it may be repulsive to do an outreach at a festival for the dead but the living are dead without Christ as well and this posed a great opportunity to network within the community and extend a hand to love our neighbors. Pastor Travis being Hawaiian made some yummy Kahlua Pork and Cabbage and sold it with some yummy sausages. Then Rich Rose taught me some fun ballooning and we blessed all the kids and some adults with some balloon creations. It was a blast. The organizers praised the church for ministering to the kids and the balloons were the free treat that the whole neighborhood was talking about. We were even teaching them how to make stuff and letting them pump and twist their own stuff. The committee in charge was very pleased. The fruit of the outreach is that the body of believers was strengthened to just go and love on others, and we gained favor within the leaders eyes, also on Sunday morning one lady showed up at church attributing her coming to seeing us all at the festival. Praise God. Next weekend Mihoko and I and the kids will help out at Grace Christian Fellowship's Obon celebration outreach next Sunday the 31st. Pray for that. Jonathan Wilson is back from Ch*n* and he is declaring the praises of God's faithfulness to the weakest of those earthquake victims. Pray for their continued work in the mainland. The last picture is of Pastor Travis's daughter Erika isn't she cute in the kimono.

BURGER WARS are here! I'm loving it

Hey we were at Sunshine and they had every burger joint there and we noticed that there was a Burger King in there and they are aggressively selling their burger the whopper at $4 something with a combo it is 7 to 8 dollars total. Well, MC Donald's Corp true to their American heritage just wants to crush and anilate the competition which is what they did in the 90's and BK pulled out of Japan to restrategize. Well here they are again with the famous Big Mac at a Whoppin $2. US. That is unheard of... The only problem is the Sunshine Mc D's used the funky Japanese deli mustard in the secret sauce and it tasted nasty. I was bummed. Mihoko made it up by getting us all frosty's. We went by an ice cream store called Dipper Dan which was a funny name and then we saw Cold Stone. But we settled for the good ole Mc D frosty. This was on Friday for last week we did this. Today is the 26th of August and it has been rainning for several days now and will rain for the rest of the week. We are learning to adjust to the volume of rain here.

Sunshine City

In Ikebukuro there is what used to be the tallest building in Tokyo called the Sunshine building. It is now dwarfed buy another in Shinjuku. But they have built a city/mall inside this place that is sprawling with many other buildings. They have the Namjatown. It is a kids place that is pricey and just ain't like Adventure city. But they have inside this Namjatown an Ice Cream museum. It too was pricey. I am a simple guy just give me a McD's Hot Fudge sundae for 200 yen and I am happy. So were the kids.