WINTER UPDATE

Winter has been here in full force this year. So much so that our snow pile beside our house has reached the height of our roof. Avila excitedly ran into our house and announced how she had sat right on top of the roof with one leg on each side. We were impressed and also very concerned for her safety and the quality of our roof.

This past month the Lord opened up a way for us to take a trip back to mainland Japan. We joined a leadership meeting in Yokohama. It was good to connect with co-workers from all over Japan and to see the Lord unifying each location’s vision better to reach Japan.

We visited Kamakura, it is a beach town with some city vibes also. It is where surfing was first pioneered in Japan. I don’t know that anywhere in Japan has the surf culture like California or Hawaii but it might be the closest thing to it besides Okinawa. It was fun to see the beach for a day with a view of mt.fuji too!

We had also felt to visit a church in Tokyo. They are known for street preaching which is something we would also like to do, but it was good to see a practical example of how they do it. Their church is seeing a lot of fruit and one thing that stood out to me was that it wasn’t a hard thing to do-it was just a faithfulness to continue to show up and spread the seed and trust that it is the Lord that will make those seeds grow.

Our immediate group has received new staff last year. A lot of work goes into the first year settling in as a family. At the same time new people bring new reminders to go back and look at our own foundations. As a team we are becoming more unified in our  purpose to learn language here.

Jon and I have been going to the city’s classes twice a month, studying on our own and are now finding more in-person classes too.

We are still homeschooling all the kids.

One thing great about homeschooling is we get to take advantage of the good weather days and take them skiing. Even our four year old is now skiiing! There are a lot of difficult things about raising your kids overseas, including finding close friendships and going through a lot of transition so things like safety, having space to run around and play outside and ski whenever they want are things we greatly cherish for their childhood memories they are making now.