October has started with some encouraging movement forward! Literally, we were able to purchase our car! Thank you for those who generously gave towards this need!
Our home and our car.
It is the most tiny van to ever exist and gets us through all the narrow streets.
The pace of our environment has been a real reflection of the change in our season too.
Niseko was exactly what we needed. It was a slower pace with quiet fields and so much space. It was a time for setting a great foundation, for healing, gaining vision, learning about hospitality and unapologetically worshipping the Lord with a beautiful community.
(Our street we live on now vs. our street we lived on in Niseko)
Now our environment is a much faster pace as well as our weekly schedule. In our time in Japan we’ve gone from a big city, to quiet village living, to now -something in between and I think this fits us well. When we lived in Okinawa ten years ago, we lived in Yomitan, a peaceful beach town. People who lived there didn’t drive to our area because it was more busy and a little gritty, and we thought the same thing. However, it was close to our school so it was a convenient place to live. Now that we are here, we actually love it. Parts of it remind us of south east Asia. And while the island is full of American military, our area is still almost fully Japanese which gives us a lot of opportunities to practice using our Japanese!
Our cute city.
Speaking of, we started our Japanese classes at the local university! We thought maybe Jon would be the only one able to go this semester but we found a way for both of us to attend. It was interesting to walk into a college class after so many years of being out of school. College feels a lot more effective at our age. We have more purpose, motivation to learn, and our brains work better now. You feel more confident as an adult so you’re not afraid to participate in class and get the most out of it. We feel like it has been really fun to learn again and to have a regular schedule like this. Though we wish we could have done this sooner we have had a lot of listening practice so now we are able to retain a lot more from our classes.
The other day we were learning how to introduce our family and I kept saying little brother instead of husband. The difference is a short pause between two letters and I could not get myself to make the pause. The teacher went back and forth with me many times trying to show me the difference in the sound that eventually he was also messing it up and we had the whole class laughing. I was grateful to feel safe in the environment to make mistakes and to get people laughing at my own expense. I know if I was college age I would have felt so much anxiety to mess up.
Recently we also have started getting the kids signed up for public Japanese school. Jon has been working with all of us to help us learn Japanese more in preparation.
Please pray for them in this transition!