Ten years ago, at which point we had been living in Japan for seven months, a 9.0-magnitude earthquake shook the country for six minutes, and in horror we watched the coverage of the subsequent tsunami that swept in to devastate a total area of 217 square miles. Over 20,000 people were lost that day. In a country that is less than 1% Christian, the implication of that statistic is heart-wrenching, and I felt it in my soul. I couldn’t stop wondering if the next time each of those 20,000 people come to consciousness, they’ll wonder who this Person is in front of them, and why they don’t know Him. I…
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Boston’s Kindergarten Graduation
Today, Boston graduated from kindergarten! While his kindergarten career didn’t look at all like we had hoped it would look, we are so thankful for the almost-three months he has been able to spend getting acquainted and comfortable with the Japanese culture. Kindergarten teachers are something special, and especially at a Christian kindergarten, we knew he was in good hands as he embarked on this new adventure without us by his side. One special aspect of the Christian kindergartens in Japan is that they have a resident-minister of sorts who comes once a week to hold a worship service with all of the kids. Today, he delivered a short message…
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Socially Anxious Missionaries Who Don’t Speak Japanese
So grateful today! For various reasons, today was the first day the kids actually got to meet some other neighborhood kids. I sent them out when we saw that other kids were at the park, but it was just little boys and so the girls kept to themselves. A while later, some girls around the age of mine rode up on bikes, and Madeleine came back to the house to ask me how to say something to them in Japanese. As I got myself ready to go out and help them communicate, I prayed again for courage and blessing in these interactions. The truth is, I didn’t want to go…
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Meagerness And Abundance
The building where the Matsudo church meets is rather old. It’s basically a repurposed house, with the downstairs set up as an assembly hall. It’s not much to look at, but it serves the church well and is a blessing to have. While there’s plenty that could use renovation, one feature I love about the grounds is a small grape vine that wraps around the front fence. It has been there ever since I first came to Matsudo, and I’m sure it was here many years before that. The branches usually produce a good amount of fresh grapes each year which you can eat, assuming the crows (or a few…
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Free from Quarantine!
Tomorrow we are free from quarantine, and we give thanks for God’s grace during these last two weeks! We give thanks that our jet lag recovery was surprisingly quick. I woke up on Day 4 and knew I had gotten over the biggest hill of it. The kids truly didn’t seem affected by it at all. We give thanks that we are in a house! In His wisdom, He used our delay to take the apartment we thought was ideal from our hands, and replaced it with an actually perfect house. I can’t imagine quarantining our (reasonably normal) family of five in an apartment, no matter how ideal. The blessings…
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Welcome to the Neighborhood
One thing you should know about Japan: They take their garbage seriously. It makes sense; given that they’re an island nation, they don’t exactly have the space to dump millions of tons of garbage into a hole and bury it. We separate our garbage into at least 8 different categories just for day-to-day trash, and then you can add in “special” categories. When we moved into our new house, the realtor gave a huge flier explaining all the different categories and on which day each is thrown away. (I’m gonna add pictures of this in the comments.) (And I promptly threw away the right trash on the right day in…
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Rose-Colored Glasses as a Gift from God
In our travels, we have often ended up in sticky situations that could easily overwhelm us and turn super negative. At those times I’m prone to quip, “Bad experiences make good memories!” Whether it’s forgetting to book a hotel for your trip to the most crowded festival in Kyoto and ending up in a roasting rented room the size of your entire bed in what is basically an old man’s house, or hustling the whole family all the way down to Immigration only to find out you forgot a passport and one of you needs to rush home and back before they close for lunch while the other entertains the…
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One Of The Dumber Things I’ve Said
I could do an entire blog series on dumb things I’ve said over the years. I’ve got my fair share of cringeworthy remarks that I regret, and while I’d like to think I’ve learned to control my words better as I’ve grown older, I’m sure there are plenty mistakes yet to come. That said, there are certain remarks which, when thinking back on them, produce not only shame but also an opportunity to mature; words that come back and hit you square between the eyes, revealing to you important truths. In 2010, my family moved to Kojima, Japan, where I worked as a vocational missionary with a full-time job as…
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Life Doesn’t Always Fit Nicely Into A Box
Over the last week, we packed our life into 26 boxes. (Okay, that’s not entirely true. We still have about 8,000 Legos, plus our clothes.) Eight days ago we got our supplies from the shipping company. Seven days ago we found out that the only time they had available to pick up our shipment before we leave is today at 8:15 a.m. Okay! I work great with a deadline, I can do that! I canceled school for the week (homeschooling perks), shipped the kids to my mother-in-law’s for eight hours every day, and called upon my inborn strength and hardiness, passed down from my ancestors who came over on the…
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Nine Ways To Pray For Our Mission
Prayer is one of the most important disciplines God’s people can engage in. Jesus prayed and fasted regularly (Luke 4:1ff, 5:16, 6:12), and taught us to be people of prayer (Matt. 5:5ff; 26:41). We are also told to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17) and to be “constant in prayer” (Rom. 12:12). Prayer really does matter to God, and it impacts the outcomes of events in the world. We believe this, and that is why our family has been praying frequently about our upcoming work in Japan. However, we both want and need others to be in prayer with us. We believe God listens to his people, and that even…
