Mom's Visit

Mom's first Japan experience . . .

Karaoke! We rocked it.

Cow tongue -- Sendai's famous tasty treat

Birthday, birthday, birthday!

Zao day

Matsushima ~ Fukuura Island

Lunch with Sayuri-san

New Sister!

Yesterday Joel, Debi and I drove down to Hitachi, Ibaraki (about 2 hours and 45 mins away) to see our friend Kaori get baptized. Kaori has been studying the Bible for a few years now. I got to know her last year when I went to Cambodia. She was in my international group and we both were from Japan, so we did lots of different things together during that mission trip. She is a very kind and gentle girl, and God has grown a beautiful faith in her heart.

Kaori has been thinking about getting baptized for about a year, but delayed her final decision in order to give her parents some time to get used to the idea and accept her decision. We were so happy that she decided to join the family that we took the afternoon and evening off and made the trip to surprise her. Praise God for bringing this daughter into his fold!


Please pray for Kaori and her commitment to live the rest of her life as a child of God and in the grace of Jesus.

Birthday Sunday

Each month, on the second Sunday, we have a lunch to celebrate all the birthdays in that month. We invite those people with birthdays to share about what they would like to do or how they would like to grow in the next year. Then we pray for them, and praise God for the blessing that they are to us.


We all eat lunch together after church every week; Debi, Joel and I take our turn on Birthday Sunday. I am in charge of the cake.

Returning home

When I returned to Japan after my first trip to America since I moved here I was surprised by how much I felt like I was returning home. As the plane descended above Tokyo my heart skipped a beat at the sight of the coast of Japan.

Then as I exited the immigration area there was a sign that I have seen many times that says "Welcome to Japan" -- but this time I noticed the sign in Japanese above it that says おかえりなさい, which basically means welcome home. And maybe it was just my excitement at not having completely forgotten all the Japanese that I learned this past year, but I really felt like that sign was for me too. Despite all the times that I still feel horribly out of place here and frustrated by my inability to understand the language and culture, Japan somehow feels a little like home. I believe that is a gift from God -- it is a reminder that he called me here to do his work.