On Sunday I was sick in bed most of the day with a cold. I got it bad this time!! I had a sore throat, headache, and fever. I rarely get a fever!  I did not even want to touch my Bible, a book or my Mac. I have to be really sick when that happens!! Today I felt just better enough to play on my Mac and read the Bible but not anything else. (Well, that is till later in the day when the whole family wanted to go see the new Narnia movie and they wouldn't leave me home.  It was really good too!) So, as I said I got a chance to play on my Mac. That has been quite rare lately due to our move. I still have programs on this Mac that I have not discovered even after a whole year!! Today, I discovered one of those programs. I had seen it before but thought it was just a toy that Caleb would like. I was mistaken. The pictures here are a result of that discovery. Wonder what else I have missed!

This is a story that wrenches my heart as a Mom and especially as a Mom of adopted children. To see the story please click here. Maria, the youngest daughter of Stephen Curtis Chapman, was hit and killed on May 21st. Imagine the grief of her family! Please pray for the family.

Once again God is blessing us. I prayed for a close relationship with our neighbors and He is doing just that!
As is customary in Japan, we went to our neighbors homes to greet them, taking a gift towel (also customary) and some homemade cookies. Our next door neighbor offered to go with us. That was the first blessing. She and her husband are very sweet people. One of the neighbors is an 83 year old lady. When we went to her home she was all smiles and used the little English she knows. Several days later she came to our home with gifts. She made the origami fan to the left from the gift wrap of the gift we  gave her. The fan and the cranes on the fan are folded from one sheet. She told us that she hoped to be good friends. I told her she almost made me cry bcause that was just what we were hoping. She also made the family of dogs and two tops that actually spin. Thank you Jesus for such good neighbors!!

What a blessing from God. Sunday, April 20th we celebrated God's goodness to us in giving us a new building to worship in. Pastors and friends from all over Japan joined us to celebrate. We estimate that there were at least 250 people in attendance. Wow! We are excited to see what God has in store for this year of new beginnings and for the future!
The following day JPEC (Japan Pastor's Equipping Conference) was held in our building. For more news and to see our pictures please click here. If you are not a member of our LWF group site and would like to be please click join on the site or let us know if you have trouble and we will send you an invite.

Recently, in case you haven't noticed, I have not been doing much, if anything, on my blog. I have missed the connection with everyone and thought I should start trying to make time to blog again. I am still aspiring to be like Satomi but... alas... that will never happen but at least I can try and maybe I will find my own style.
 As I was wandering around the house yesterday taking pictures so ya'll could see where we live now, I got to thinking how different my house looked when looking at it through the "eye" of the camera. I thought that just maybe it would be fun to blog about it.
I noticed that I hadn't noticed many things until I looked at each room that way. The camera sees things we miss.  I took pictures in the kitchen and wondered why I didn't see that big box of Cheerios sitting in the middle of the table. Where did that come from? I moved it.  This led to straightening up more things in the kitchen. The flower garden was more beautiful perhaps? Rooms looked better with people in them. People add life.. but you still need a room to put people in. Profound!!! So, is there a moral to this blog? I don't know. You tell me? I guess I could get spiritual here and talk about the Bible being like the "eye" of the camera....

Thank you so much for your prayers! Jamie is home from the hospital. She goes to see little Emily in the hospital everyday. Emily is doing fine. She may be home in a couple of weeks. She is gaining weight now. Jamie posted pictures on her Multiply site. You may see them by clicking here if you like. We are so happy and blessed with another little granddaughter.

To our
 surprise Emily Rose, our granddaughter, was born January 4th, 2 months early.
 She weighs 3 lbs. 13 oz. ( 1,729 grams) 
Jamie had gone to her regularly scheduled appointment and the doctor discovered Jamie's blood pressure to be very high and the baby in distress. He ordered her to go directly into the hospital. Jamie's and the babies lives would have been in danger had they not delivered the baby by c-section now. Please keep Emily  and her mother, Jamie, in your prayers. They are not quite stable yet.   We were woken by a 3:30 AM telephone call. You can imagine how this worried us. We had my mini church pray and we prayed and prayed! I talked with Jamie this morning. Was it ever good to hear her voice!!

Just a quick update on our church building. Construction started in November. We are moving in by the end of December. It is a lot of work but so satisfying. Everyone is having a good time. For pictures please see our church multiply site at http://lwfshimada.multiply.com/
Enjoy!!

Just a quick update on our church building. Construction started in November. We are moving in by the end of December. It is a lot of work but so satisfying. Everyone is having a good time. For pictures please see our church multiply site at http://lwfshimada.multiply.com/
Enjoy!!

This is one full day after leaving my precious daughter, Jamie and granddaughter, Esther at the airport.  There is something about sending a daughter off...I am glad that it wasn't easy but it wasn't easy. I enjoyed their visit immensely.

This was the first time for Jamie to return since she married John Bostrom. We took her to all the places she remembered going to during her teen years here. Most of all, she wanted to see people. She did just that. I thoroughly enjoyed the time she and I spent eating lunch and talking at Belle Rose.  But, I guess, what I enjoyed most was seeing what a great caring young woman and mother she has grown into.

Now, about Esther. What can I say?? She is such a fun, amazing little girl. She added a liveliness to our home for three weeks that I miss now. Monday evening was one time we will not forget. Angela was leaving to go home with Elisha. It was their final good-bye. Esther is 4 years old and Elisha is 3 1/2 years old. Elisha was tired and really wanted to go home. She was pretty strong about about this.  Esther literally jumped in front of her in our genkan and said "Hey" and that no she couldn't go home because she would miss her and she loved her. This was repeated over and over. Grandma and Mother of Elisha were in a dilemma. What were we to do when Elisha really wanted to go home, (She was in tears) and Esther was insisting that she not go home? Well, we finally decided to have Elisha stay against her wishes. Within minutes she was back to all smiles and happy to stay. The next day Elisha rode to Narita with us. The girls had a great time. Grandma was glad to have someone hold and hug to help ease the pain.

Watching our children grow and turn into wonderful young adults has been a great joy! And it has been fun getting to know them in a new way as adults.

Here are two "before" pictures of the building we intend to use for church hopefully from the beginning of the new year.  As you can see, it will require a lot of work.  Things are on course concerning the new building we are hoping to renovate. It seems God is opening doors. The loan that we have requested will probably go through this week and construction can start next week. Some of the men of our church have already been working hard to prepare the building for renovation. God's provision is also being seen. Church member's offerings have been very generous. We are able to rent a lot next to the building for the next 3 years. Land across the street has been offered to us as well for parking on Sundays. Other interesting things are that the building is owned my our church member, a Christian. The land offered across the street is owned by the father of another Christian young lady in our church and other land in that area including the parking lot we are renting is owned by the Matsuura family. Some of them too are Christians. What is God doing? Thanks to the many of you who are concerned and have bee praying for us.

Please be praying for us as we are still negotiating details of our new church building. The owner of the building, our church member, was turned down for a building improvement loan. She is reapplying next week at another bank. Please pray for favor, for clear direction, for financial provision and for continued unity among our leaders and church members and for whatever else God puts on your heart for us.  Our present building has been sold but we are praying we can stay through December. So far so good. Some of you know what all this means and how it feels. There are all kinds of emotions but mostly we are excited to see how God is going to work this out. 

Typhoon #9 came with a fury to our house. We wondered what the huge thunderclaps were outside. We looked outside and could see nothing. Finally we went out only to discover that the roof to one of the garages was gone. This garage holds some of our owner's rice farming equipment. We then noticed several beams had broken in the nextdoor garage where we had put the Odyssey to keep it out of the rain because the tailgate leaks. Well, we moved the car out so it wouldn't be hit by falling wood or a falling roof. My girls were laughing at me all the while... I never found out why.

A group of frogs were traveling through the woods, and two of them fell into a deep pit. All the other frogs gathered around the pit. When they saw how deep the pit was, they told the two frogs that they were as good as dead. The two frogs ignored the comments and tried to jump up out of the pit with all of their might. The other frogs kept telling them to stop, that they were as good as dead. Finally, one of the frogs took heed to what the other frogs were saying and gave up. He fell down and died. The other frog continued to jump as hard as he could. Once again, the crowd of frogs yelled at him to stop the pain and just die. He jumped even harder and finally made it out. When he got out, the other frogs said, "Did you not hear us?" The frog explained to them that he was deaf. He thought they were encouraging him the entire time.

This story teaches two lessons:
1. There is power of life and death in the tongue. An encouraging word to someone who is down can lift them up and help them make it through the day.
2. A destructive word to someone who is down can be what it takes to kill them. Be careful of what you say. Speak life to those who cross your path. The power of words....it is sometimes hard to understand that an encouraging word can go such a long way. Anyone can speak words that tend to rob another of the spirit to continue in difficult times.

May we take the time to encourage another this day

Yesterday was a sad day for us. We have been teaching English in a small elementary school in a mountain area of Shimada for a few years. The entire school has around 60 students. The kids are always excited to see us come. Ruthanne and Kelly have shared teaching with me on different years. Yesterday, we learned that one of our students, 10 year old Anna Masuda, was hit by a motorcycle and perished. Kelly and I were so sad! Then when Ruthanne came in from doing weddings all day we had to inform her. Anna was one of her "special" students. She said Anna had been the one to greet us from the 1st day when she was a first grader and many times after that. Our hearts are aching...

Ruth Bell Graham was a woman to be honored and greatly respected. I found this slide presentation on a friend's site. I know you all will enjoy this.

What a great day we had yesterday! We celebrated our church 16th anniversary with worship and baptism at the river followed by a Filippino barbeque, swimming for the kids, excellent fellowship and play. I think this has to be one of the most touching times we have had with baptizing 10 people. Their testimonies were so moving. Just watching them share and be baptized greatly blessed us leaders. I know that some of you know this feeling. What joy!! For all the pictures please see our church multiply site

The Bible says we never have to die. We will sleep meaning our bodies will sleep but our spirits immediately go to heaven. We are never separated from God's presence which is real death. Jesus did that! He suffered death, not just sleep, to conquer death for us. He was actually separated from His Father for 3 days. What agony! What sacrifice!

For map to Yama no Ie click here:
http://maps.google.co.jp/maps?f=q&hl=ja&q=島田市身成４８−３&ie=UTF8&ll=34.866708,138.111963&spn=0.077465,0.161362&z=13&iwloc=addr&om=1&pw=2

Hebrews 3:6 "but Christ as a Son over His own house, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end." I came across this verse today. Previous verses state that God is the builder of the house, that He built all things and that Moses was a faithful servant. This verse excited me to think that Jesus is our Chounan! My! What does that mean? I know that many of you Japanese with your understanding of "Chounan" can enrich us. Would love to have comments on this!!