Sounds are also part of the feast

Today’s coffee: Brazil (brewed at home, again…)

I had very good intentions of going to the café yesterday and taking a leisurely hour or two for writing. However, “lasagne for 35+ people” happened. Or rather, shopping, making herb salt and roasted garlic, and preparing the meat sauce happened. Today is the big day; I make the cheese (yogurt) filling and the noodles and put the whole thing together. I hope we have enough pans… and since I don’t actually use a recipe for lasagne, I really have no way of judging if I’ve purchased enough ingredients or not. It certainly looks like a lot!

Anyway, in my home country, it is still Friday. That counts, right?

We’ve been on vacation, for almost 3 weeks, if you include the church retreat. I have to say; coming home from vacation (and preparing to go away, for that matter) really hurts. Emails don’t stop coming just because I stop checking. Japanese flashcards don’t stop piling up. The farm doesn’t stop producing vast amounts of zucchini. And we really should write another prayer letter soon.

The last bit of our vacation was 2 nights at Niseko, a ski resort about 2 hours away from here. We went there (during the winter) with my family 3 ½ years ago, and this time we stayed at the same hotel… I knew the onsen and food were amazing, so why look further? A friend of ours is a pastor there, so we visited his family too.

For me, having time away at an onsen is a special spiritual retreat. I don’t have to cook or clean up, there are none of the distractions of home and work, and onsen resort towns tend to be in beautiful places—I can relax and listen for God’s voice surrounded by his creation.

On the morning of our second day, we went on a hike. (It was great—not too long or difficult, but interesting, lots of wildflowers, and great views. The mountain is called Iwaonupuri, if you’re interested.) On the way down it started to rain, but that made the onsen feel even better when we got back to the hotel.

At the peak of Iwaonupuri

Iwaonupuri is a volcano; this is the crater. Smelled a bit like eggs.

View out over the Sea of Japan

Some kind of wild rhododendron

As I was sitting alone in the outdoor pool, I asked for God to speak to me. God brought to mind something that our tea ceremony teacher once said: 「音もごちそうです。」 “Sounds are also part of the feast.” Our teacher was referring to the fact that tea ceremony engages all the senses—not only do we enjoy drinking tea and eating sweets, but there are beautiful things to look at, and the various sounds of preparing the tea are beautiful and refreshing.

So I listened. The wind, the rain, the birds, the sound of water flowing into the onsen became a part of the “feast” as I enjoyed God’s creation.

Later in the afternoon, we went to the deck on the roof of the hotel. We’ve just finished a sermon series on the Sermon on the Mount—I think probably our third or fourth sermon series or Bible study on that topic in the last 3 years or so. I decided to read the whole Sermon (Matthew 5-7) again, while watching the swallows dart around above us. “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?”

This particular passage has always been close to my heart. I think that’s because I always need another reminder to trust in God’s provision—he will give me what I need, even if I think my “needs” are different. He wants me to ask and to trust. I need not be afraid that my prayers will not be heard or my needs left unmet.

The feast in the hotel dining room

Praying for God’s provision for my first attempt at a major cooking project. Today is the first part of an outreach series—we’re watching a movie together (Shiokari Pass) and discuss over a meal. Of course, the meal is Lasagne. More on that next week. :)

On holiday, and camping in Japan

Today’s coffee: coffee roasted by the pastor of our previous church (what a multi-talented guy!) and brewed at home by me.

We’re on holiday. We spent a week on a couple of islands off the northern tip of Hokkaido, but now we’re having a “staycation” week. The week away was really fun, but planning it was kind of stressful… so we really needed some restful time at home. Today we went for a picnic and walk in a nearby park; now we’re hanging out in the living room watching sumo on TV. Then we’ll probably watch a movie or something later.

Today's picnic bento

We went to Yurigahara koen (the "lily park") at just the right time!

Red dragonfly perched on a red lily

I posted earlier this week about camp cooking. As you can see, we went camping—our first Japanese camping experience. And it was quite different than our experience camping in the US. There were no individual sites, just an open field and communal dish washing facilities (which are very convenient, I might add). No showers—why bother when there are onsen nearby?

Our campsite on Rebun

The biggest difference, however, was the people. The first night, other than the two of us, all of the other campers were men traveling alone, some carrying their gear on motorcycles or bicycles. They went to bed early—I heard one guy snoring away in his tent at about 7:00 p.m. There were no late night guitar solos or campfires or drunken parties like in American campgrounds. Well… we had a campfire. It was in our “grill.” But no one else did.

Why was everyone so quiet and well-behaved? My theory is that if you don’t go to bed early, you’ll be pretty tired still when the sun comes up at 3:30 a.m. You won’t want to get up when it gets too hot to stay in the tent (in the open field—no shade!) at 6:00 a.m.  But it’s too hot, so up you get. There you have it.

If I get really ambitious, there may be a post about the hiking we did on our trip sometime in the next few days… but only if I feel like it. I’m on holiday, after all. :)

Camp Cooking

We've been on vacation. Well, we're still on vacation, actually, but we're at home... but if you ask me to do anything, I'm going to say no. :) Last week was our 8th wedding anniversary, and also the 10th anniversary of the night on the sand dunes by Lake Michigan when, during a romantic starlit walk, Keith said "Well, I guess we're dating now." Happy anniversary, us.

So, in celebration, we went on an exotic island vacation to two small islands off the northernmost tip of Hokkaido. I should perhaps mention, perhaps, that the location was quite remote, cold at night, and we camped. Also, not much in the way of grocery stores or restaurants, except for shops selling kombu seaweed and uni-don (raw sea urchin on a bed of rice).

So... camp cooking was in order! And I have to say, we ate pretty well. Here are some highlights.

The first is uniquely Japanese, although I don't think many Japanese have this meal while camping. However, I'm sure this will be the new wave in camp cooking. You can have delicious rice, meat, and vegetables all in the same little pot! It's called kamameshi.

Thanks for the mini-kama (the little pots with cooking stand) and camping table, Mom and Dad! We used some of the anniversary money. :)

We have it several times on our trip, but this time it had poached and marinated chicken (this recipe with chicken breast substituted for the pork), daikon, and slivers of local kombu seaweed, with homemade radish pickles on the side. Delicious! (On this particular day, we had hauled all our gear to a park by the ocean to watch the sunset... which was underwhelming... although the previous night and the following night were both spectacular. Oh well.)

Waiting for the kamameshi to cook, with Mt. Rishiri in the background

Kamameshi, ready to eat!

Itadakimasu!

We also had aluminum foil wrapped packets cooked in the coals of the campfire. The first time it was potatoes, but the second time was daikon, chicken, carrots, and furikake made with some greens from the garden. It's a cooking technique Keith's been using for ages, but with a bit of a Japanese twist using local ingredients--we got the daikon from one of our neighbors at the farm!

Keith's favorite part of camping: making a fire and cooking over it.

Meat and vegetable packets over the fire!

Not cooking fast enough; Keith put the packets right in the coals.

Ready to eat! Served over rice cooked in the mini-kama.

Right when we came back, we went for an overnight retreat with our church, so of course there was Japanese-style barbeque--"Jingis Khan," which is a Hokkaido specialty of lamb and vegetables cooked on a cast-iron pan over the fire.

Jingis Khan! (The zucchini came from our farm--a bit of an unusual ingredient, but delicious!)

Keith with the youth group boys

Everyone helps when cooking Jingis Khan!

Café Meguri

Today’s coffee: Nicaraguan coffee from Tokumitsu, ground and brewed at home. :) Busy day today… now is the only time available, and Tokumitsu doesn’t open until 10!

There’s a cultural difference for you. In America, we expect our coffee shops to be open by 5 or 6 a.m. so we can get our early morning fix, right? I’m not sure about Starbucks (I’ve never been in the vicinity of one that early in the morning), but most cafés in Japan seem to open around 10 or 11 a.m. If I want early morning coffee, I have to make it myself. Thankfully there’s a coffee-otaku nearby who taught me how to make good coffee.

Sharon demonstrates the correct way to make coffee with an aeropress. Also, there's some tasty stuff in the picture. That was this year's Osechi (new year's feast)

Not just one, actually. The pastor at our previous church roasts his own coffee… and it’s good! When we went to visit him, he brought out the coffee siphon. Fun!

Actually I had intended to write about tea ceremony today, but things seem to have taken a coffee sort of turn. So let’s talk about coffee.

Back in April, my friend, Sharon (the previously mentioned coffee-otaku) and I decided to do a coffee crawl in Ishikari and the northern parts of Sapporo. When explaining to a Japanese friend what we intended to do, I discovered that there is actually a Japanese word: カフェ巡り(café meguri). “Meguri” means going around; it can also be attached to “onsen”—温泉巡り(onsen meguri). I also like to do that. Good word, yes?

The first café we visited was Café Olive. It’s run by a church. Keith and I went there for lunch before, but the lunch was spectacular and filling, so we didn’t need dessert. (Not that you ever “need” dessert…) I absolutely wanted to try the gobo (burdock root) chocolate cake, so I’m glad we went again! It was tasty and a bit crunchy from the gobo… and I felt so virtuous eating a dessert with gobo in it.

Sharon, with our desserts.

Gobo chocolate cake!

Next stop was Sakura, which is not too far from our house. Fantastic lunch… and no room for dessert. Although the focus was supposed to be coffee, we actually didn’t have any there.

Lunch set at Sakura!

Although I checked the intended third café’s website, I must have made a mistake, because it was closed. :( Instead, we took a very cold walk on the boardwalk at the beach… and quickly gave up and went to the next place.

A great day for coffee, but not so much for taking a walk.

The last stop was Tokumitsu, which I discovered was about a 3-minute bike ride from my house. It came highly recommended from a number of coffee-loving friends. Noriko, a friend from church, joined us. I have to say Tokumitsu wins the “best coffee” prize… but that’s not surprising, since it’s a coffee specialty shop. There aren’t any cakes or cute handmade items for sale—just coffee. It’s a nice spot to sit and chat with friends.

Enjoying the Japanese tradition of "taking pictures of food and drink"

Which brings me to the “why” of it all. Of course we were searching for good coffee and good food. But I was also looking for places to meet friends, and places where I can go to relax or to get work done if home is too distracting. I’m also interested in cafés as ministry—places where people in the community can gather and care for one another.

I’m glad there are some good options nearby!

No post next week, probably... we're on holiday!

Family

Today’s coffee: many cups from the hotel coffee machine, and a delicious cup of coffee at a café overlooking the river, enjoyed in the company of friends…

We’re at Jozankei Onsen for 5 days of OMF Japan Field Conference. The schedule is pretty packed, but I’ve found a quiet moment to write a bit.

Last weekend, I had ample opportunity to reflect on what it means to be the family of God in Japan. On Saturday, our church had its annual memorial service in which we remembered and thanked God for the lives of church members who have died. Eight of us made the trek to the other side of Sapporo where many of the area churches have their graves.

The small building in the foreground houses Wakaba's grave as well as those of three other local churches.

At the top: "Our citizenship is in heaven." Below, the names of the churches and of the deceased members are written on the wall.

Although some Christian families have their own family graves in the same area, there are many families in which only one or two are Christian. In order to be buried with the rest of their family, they would need to be buried according to Buddhist customs, which they no longer want to do—many Christians see funerals as an opportunity to proclaim their hope for eternal life with Jesus and together with each person who believes.

We have been taught that to a Japanese person, it is very important to know that one will be buried with the other members of one’s family, to not be forgotten or neglected by remaining family members, and to die with the hope of going where one’s ancestors are. Christian burial in Japan reflects the reality that in Christ, we have become family. We have been adopted as God’s children; we are brothers and sisters in Christ. We do, in a sense, hope to go where our ancestors are—those who have gone before us in the faith. This practice isn’t limited to people who are the only Christian in their families; sometimes families are buried together in the church grave.

Now for something completely different (although not entirely unrelated)…

On Sunday, we had our first movie night with the middle and high school students at our church… and a couple of people who recently graduated from high school. I was expecting about 4 people, but we had 7, plus 2 adults who came to help with food. I’m thankful to have been so well supported by our pastor and church members in prayer and in practical ways.

It could have gone better, but it could have gone worse. The food was good. Since we picked Lilo and Stitch for the movie, we went with a Hawaiian theme for the food. I’m sure it wasn’t authentic, but we did our best with the ingredients we could get. (The menu was pineapple fried rice, pineapple salsa, and chicken and vegetable shish kebabs—maybe if I get really ambitious, I’ll try to post a couple of recipes later.)

Shish kebab team!

The movie discussion was… a little disappointing, but I’m thinking we may have set our expectations too high for the first time. I think we have some better ideas for how to get the discussion going, but we’ll have to keep experimenting. In our minds, the most important thing for this first time was to get to know these kids better and spend some time together outside of church in a relaxed atmosphere. If they feel comfortable, we hope they feel that a movie night is something safe to bring friends to.

The theme of “family” is one that comes up again and again in Lilo and Stitch as each of the characters struggles with loneliness and loss of family. Keith and I are far away from our families. One of the adults who came to help cook has just sent her daughter off to college—I caught a glimpse of her dabbing her eyes during the scene where “family” is defined as “never saying goodbye.” God knows that our families are sometimes far away, and that they are imperfect and even broken. I’m thankful that in Christ, I have family wherever I go, and “goodbye” is only temporary. I’m thankful for the people who are around me right now at our church, and I pray that we can become family to them.

Producing our own food, and making friends at the garden

Today’s coffee(s): Ethiopia, East Timor

This is such a nice café. Do make a visit if you get a chance.

It’s been a busy week. Sunday was Keith’s first children’s-message-in-Japanese and a sushi party for the kids at church, and then on Monday (our day off) we went fishing. My hat fell in the water; thankfully our friend, Yanaoka-san fished it out for me… but by “fished out,” I mean literally, with a fishing pole, which still had the worms attached to it. Let’s just say I got sunburned after that.

Yanaoka-san with my hat

We caught some fish! The little flounder (カレイ in Japanese) we had for supper right away. It was good just as is, cooked in the fish grill that’s built into our stove. The ugui (don’t ask me what that is in English) we made into fish dumplings and had in a hotpot Wednesday night. Actually, Yanaoka-san sent us home with the whole catch—he caught a couple of ugui too. In order to make the fish dumplings, we had to first go out and buy a food processor. We tested it on yukari powder (pickled, then dried red shiso ground to a powder) and ice for kakigouri (snow cones). It works. But it didn’t grind up the fish bones quite as well as we would have liked… oops. Not the most successful of kitchen experiments, but fun and tasty all the same.

Is this one big enough to eat?

Dinner!

Keith's ugui

This morning I spent 3 hours at our vegetable garden. I’ve always wanted a vegetable garden, and I admit that I’ve coveted other people’s community garden plots… my mom might wonder about that statement, since I didn’t help out much in her garden at home… but I find that I’m remembering lots of random bits that I learned from her about gardening over the years.

Garden plot, 2 weeks ago

Last week

This morning I rode my bike to the vegetable garden. It takes about 10 minutes usually, but today it took a little longer, since I was trying not to spill the pepper and basil seedlings in my bike basket. We had a couple weeks of sun followed by quite a bit of rain, so there was quite a lot of weeding to do. I had a lesson in pruning tomato plants from our neighbour at the garden plot, Saitoh-san.

A few weeks ago we saw Saitoh-san at the garden for the first time. We said the usual greetings (はじめまして—“it’s the first time we meet” and so on) and proceeded to talk about what kinds of vegetables we planned to grow. Somehow we got around to talking about melons—Saitoh-san is known to be good at growing them, and Keith wants to learn how. Saitoh-san offered to teach us. We bought a seedling, and he took it home with him to take care of until it got a bit bigger.

The next Sunday at church, we talked to our landlady, also named Saitoh, about gardening.

Landlady: I hear you’re interested in watermelon.
Me: Yes! There’s a nice man at the garden who is teaching us how to grow them. His name is Saitoh too.
Landlady: I know! (laughs) That’s my husband.
Me: … Ehhhhhh??? Well then, please say hi to your husband and our watermelon for us.

I had only seen our landlady together with her husband once—but still feeling slightly embarrassed that I didn’t recognize him.

Our watermelon, staying warm in a plastic tent

It looks like we’ll have some radishes soon, and we can start eating the lettuce any time. Hooray! One of the cucumber vines has produced a few flowers and some tiny cucumbers. We’re very excited about that too.

Baby cucumber... so cute!

In other food-related news, I’ve just started a second batch of umeboshi (Japanese pickled plums), which smell like heaven. The ume plums for umeboshi have to be completely blemish-free, so Keith and I made ume syrup with the rejects. Ume syrup mixed with soda water is one of our favourite summer drinks. I also added red shiso and shin-shouga (new ginger) to the first batch of umeboshi. We’ve planted daikon, radishes, cucumber, and turnips in the garden, so we’re excited about the pickles we’re going to eat this summer and fall!

Tomatoes! They're in bags to protect them from the wind.

Keith checks out the kabocha squash

There’s a lot of waiting and hoping and praying involved in gardening… and also in making pickles! I’ll probably write more about that later.

As a bonus, here’s a few pictures from the sushi party.

Yokokawa-san, the MC for the party games... when he came out in this getup, I was laughing so hard that I cried...

Keith leads the "sea-seashore" game

Osaka-san, our resident sushi chef, explains how to make temakizushi. Art in the background is by Keith.

They've got expensive taste. The first thing to go was the crab. When I was a kid, I wouldn't have touched this stuff with a 10-foot pole. I had no idea what I was missing out on...

Friday blog posts, and Shiawase no pan

Today’s coffee(s): Kona blend, Peru (organic)

I’ve decided that I need to be more intentional about reflecting on our experiences. I find that if I don’t take some time to reflect on things, I tend not to remember them so well. For me, writing or talking to friends is the best way to process what I’m thinking. So, here we go. Friday morning posts from the local coffee shop, start!

Last Sunday we rented a movie called しあわせのパン (shiawase no pan—the bread of happiness). I wanted to watch it because of the gorgeous bread on the movie poster… and because it takes place in Hokkaido. I love Hokkaido. In the movie, a couple start a café and bakery. The movie tells three stories of customers at the café who find happiness and release from their troubles through food and fellowship. I don’t want to give away too much of the plot, but the three stories paint a beautiful picture (perhaps unintentionally) of various aspects of communion: fellowship, love, reconciliation, and life. I would love to watch this movie with friends, preferably after a good meal, and talk about the meaning of communion and the cross.

There was a loaf of bread like this one (which I made) on the movie poster. Keith kindly told me that he thought my bread looked better. :) Not sure if I agree, but he's very nice, isn't he?

 Actually, this movie isn’t available in English, so I don’t think any of my English speaking friends will be watching this anyway… so I guess I can feel free to “spoil” the plot. Japanese speaking friends, you really should watch this movie, so spoiler alert! You have been warned… :)

The scene that struck me the most was part of the story of an elderly couple who lost everything in “the earthquake” (I assume it was the March 2011 Tohoku quake, since this movie came out in 2012), and the wife was dying. The two attempt to leave the café in the middle of a snow storm to commit suicide together. The café owners stop them from leaving and somewhat forcibly bring them back into the café for a (gorgeous) meal. The wife, who professes to dislike bread, smells the fresh-baked bread and begins to eat it. Her husband then eats the bread with her as if they have been given the gift of life. Yes! The cross is the gift of life for all who will receive it. I want to watch this movie again and again and reflect on the goodness of God. Jesus is my bread of happiness! My explanation doesn't even begin to do justice to this movie.

On a different note, I would have loved to be an actor in this movie… they got to eat so much great stuff on camera… :)

I’ve decided to come to a local coffee shop on Friday mornings and write about whatever I feel like writing about. Today I ended up spending longer than usual at the café because another customer chatted with me for about an hour. I think if I hadn’t been here, she would have chatted with the employees. Maybe someday I will open a café of some sort—I want to provide a safe place for people to come and talk, whether it’s my house or somewhere else. There are so many things I would like to try in Japan, but I’m fairly sure I won’t get to all of them. I’m praying for the ability to use my time and resources wisely for God’s glory.

May Newsletter

Dear Friends and Family,

Greetings from warm and sunny Sapporo. Although the snow pile at the nearby soccer field has not yet melted, I think it’s safe to say that Spring is here.

It's Sakura season! So glad they were still blooming when we got home from Tokyo!

Over the last couple of months, we’ve been busy getting to know our church. Gradually our church responsibilities have been picking up; we’ve started teaching Sunday school for middle school and high school, attending weekly prayer meetings, playing piano and cello for worship services, and inviting church members for supper. In addition, thanks to conversations with Takahashi-sensei and various church members, we’ve had a lot of food for thought about “being the church” in Japan. We’re very thankful to be at Wakaba; we are confident that the next two years will be full of opportunities to learn and serve.

A good deal of a missionary’s work takes place outside of the church building. We’re trying to meet people in our community through common interests. Keith continues with choir; Celia played a concert shortly after Easter and is already preparing for fall and winter concerts. We’ve started tea ceremony classes along with another member of our church. We rented a plot in a community garden close to our house; today we chatted with a neighbor as we planted. What a great opportunity to meet people!

Easter concert

Keith practices Tea Ceremony with Fujiyama-sensei

At our vegetable garden with Tamura-san, a friend from church

In May, we spent about 2 weeks in the Kanto area (in and around Tokyo) attending “Indigenous Biblical Church Movement” training and visiting friends and colleagues in the area. The training, simply put, gave us the opportunity to think and process what it means for a church to reflect its community here in Japan. We’re looking forward to putting the course content into practice. (Also during our trip, we went to see Sumo, and Celia had 2 viola da gamba lessons, the shorter of which was 3 ½ hours!)

Sumo!

***

Prayer Points

• We continue to thank God for his guidance in leading us to Wakaba Church. Our relationships with Pastor Takahashi and other church members are going very well.
• Please pray for our endurance with language--for us to be able to listen for long periods of time without losing focus. Sundays and Wednesdays can be hard.
• We have started to transition from observing to supporting various events at church. Celia will be preparing an Italian-style meal as part of a movie outreach event in July, and Keith will start preaching monthly from August.
• Please pray for our involvement with PB Kids, the children’s and youth program at church. Pray for our relationships with the other teachers and with the students. There are currently 4 high/middle schoolers who regularly come and many others who occasionally come. 
• Please pray for adult children of church members who can’t find jobs, who are too busy with work to come to church, or who are uninterested and disconnected from church.
• We attended “Indigenous Biblical Church Movement” training in May. We had many meaningful conversations and times with friends.  Pray that we will reflect well on and apply what we have learned.
• Pray also for us to continue building relationships at church and in the community through gardening, tea ceremony and kimono classes, and music.

***

The First Wednesday

It would be hard to explain in detail all that we do now at Wakaba Church, so I (Keith) thought a snapshot into Wednesday morning and evening prayer meetings might give some insight into our new weekly routine. Let me first say that most churches associated with OMF in Hokkaido have Wednesday prayer meetings. I have also heard of churches that have a daily early morning prayer meeting (6:30 am or earlier), but fortunately ours are at 10 am and 7:30 pm on Wednesdays. These two prayer meetings, although slightly different in content, follow a basic two hour schedule of worship, Bible reading and sharing, prayer request sharing, and then splitting into pairs to pray. For Celia and me, four hours of prayer meeting in English often leave us drained, so when you multiply that by Japanese, at the end of a Wednesday, coherence in any language becomes challenging.

The good news is that our endurance is growing as well as our relationships with key members of the church. Of course, the bad news is that no matter how hard we try to keep concentration, there are times when we are completely lost. For instance, at the first Wednesday prayer meeting, I was trying to remember everyone’s name and follow their prayer requests. As each person shared, my memos became shorter and shorter until I was simply writing down random Japanese words here and there, some that I didn’t even recognize, in hopes that they would be useful if I were called upon to pray for one of these items. After we all shared, we numbered off to decide which portion of the church’s prayer bulletin we would pray for, and then we paired off to pray. The sweat pooled in the palms of my hands as I attempted to remember the person’s name with whom I was praying, decipher my poorly written memos of her prayer requests, try to read the complicated Japanese of the church’s prayer bulletin for the first time, all while trying to craft sentences using the specific set of rules of Japanese prayer language.

Those first few Wednesdays were rough, but by God’s grace Celia and I not only got through it but were able to contribute. There were times when complicated Japanese forms or words I didn’t even know that I knew came from my mouth while I was praying. There were times when the person for whom I was praying was moved to tears. Many times I felt the presence of God in my prayers and others’. I am positive that my Japanese prayers were and are riddled with mistakes, but even so, I trust God knows what I’m trying to say, and my Japanese prayer partners understand the kimochi or feeling behind my prayers even if they don’t entirely understand its contents.
***

Language Corner
Last Sunday, we were celebrating our church’s 32nd birthday. Yes, that’s right, Wakaba Church is the same age as me (Celia). For a while, everyone listened attentively to Tamura-san, who was leading the meeting. Then the photo albums came out, and everyone started flipping through the albums while excitedly reminiscing among themselves as the meeting descended into happy chaos. So, in celebration of Wakaba Church’s birthday, here is a lovely Engrish from the cover of one of the photo albums. It reads: “Let’s have a fun! Why don’t you go out and play games with us under the shinning sun? Every member is a super hero in our happy team.”

***

Thanks for your continued prayers! Let us know how we can be praying for you too.

            Love in Christ, Keith and Celia

This month I grew a flower... and it smells really good!