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.

秋 -- Aki, which means Autumn

芋煮会 -- Imonikai

In October I experienced my first imonikai. The very first one was my friend Shuichi's neighborhood imonikai.An imonikai is a gathering outside, usually near a river, at which the people prepare together and eat a soup called imoni. It has meat and vegetables in a miso (fermented soybean product) or soy sauce flavored broth. The miso flavored way is the "Miyagi prefecture way" and the soy sauce flavored soup is from Yamagata prefecture. I got to try both.

The neighborhood imonikai was on Saturday and our church had an imonikai on Sunday. In one weekend I had two great experiences of this tradition, which is so popular in this region of Japan.

Like Peter

Recently, I was reading Matthew and was particularly struck by the story of Jesus walking on water. The Holy Spirit opened my heart to see how I have been like Peter. And in that moment, I felt the full weight of my sin of not fully trusting in Jesus, but I was also filled with a sense of hope. When Peter stepped out of the boat, he fully trusted that Jesus would keep him afloat. However, from the outside of the comfortable boat, everything looked different and felt scarier; so Peter started to fear, forgot to trust and began to sink.

I stepped out of the boat into the mission field, because I felt Jesus calling me to bring his love to the lost. I knew and tried to constantly trust that the Holy Spirit would take care of all of my needs and fulfill his purpose in my life -- to glorify the Son and the Father. Yet, on more than one occassion over that past year I have doubted; I have felt like I was drowning. But my hope remains, because Jesus is always there to catch me, to faithfully keep his promises, to cover me in grace.

God is calling all of us to step out in faith and trust that he will not let us drown.

Spring in Sendai

Spring in Japan is beautiful!!! The cherry blossoms were in full bloom for a few weeks in April and now everything is green or blooming . . .

A Shaken Foundation

A few days ago I was awakened at about four-thirty in the morning because my house was shaking. (I wasn't really surprised, or even alarmed -- God has granted me a great peace in the face of earthquakes, which was an immense gift considering that we feel tremors once or twice a month here.) As I lay in my bed sensing my house rattling, creaking and trembling, God showed me how that earthquake was similar to the temptations of Satan.

A couple months ago, I felt that my relationship with God had gotten really distant, because of that, I was feeling tired, discouraged and really sad. In retrospect, I know that I was having a "faith earthquake" -- Satan started by chipping away at my prayer life and my time in God's Word with tiny distractions that grew and grew. Then he whispered to me that God would be angry with me, so I felt embarrassed and scared to go to God and the distance between us grew. And then Satan prompted me to doubt -- a life of following God is difficult, even Jesus says that, so wouldn't my life be easier if I went back to the way it was before God? Satan shook my faith to the foundation, mostly without me realizing it.

But God always makes a way out of evil's grasp. He blessed me with the most surprising reminders of His truth, and then sent me to Singapore and Cambodia to be filled and encouraged by the love of his family and heavily shielded from the evil one, for a time, by the faith of my brothers and sisters, as we served our Father together. I was able to return to Japan repentant, forgiven and comforted, in my Father's arms.

Satan may have shaken my faith, but my faith is built on the foundation of God's love and grace -- that truth will not crumble. I wanted to share this with you so that we can praise God together for the amazing ways he works in our lives. Also, please join me in praying that our eyes with be open to the ways that Satan is trying to weaken our foundations, and that God will strengthen us so that the devil cannot shake our faith.