We have just finished a very full few days with a team from Imani Baptist Church in Kentucky.  They came to participate in an annual gospel concert in Osaka as well as a gospel concert that we had in Sanda on Sunday.  Because of the swine flu issues and numerous other problems, the ticket sales for our Sanda concert as of last week were very low.  But we were so thankful at the concert on Sunday that the room filled up with almost 200 people (including staff and volunteers), with at least 25 of those being friends from our neighborhood, English classes, and school community.

In addition to the American gospel team, several other well-known gospel singers, and the main organizer Jaye Koyama, there was also a special “fellowship choir” for family members from Sanda, including Eric and our kids! Two of Eric’s elementary English students also sang in the concert.

Here is a 2 minute video with a few clips from the fellowship choir, led by Jaye.  The first half in part shows  the –discomfort– of being helpless parents either sitting in the audience or singing in the back row, out of reach of your children, when their dancing shoes take over… Overall though it was a wonderful collaboration and showed the power of Gospel music  to touch the heart (you can see the choir members crying in the midst!).

There were surveys which about half of the attendees filled out.  It was really amazing to read their comments:  “The tears started flowing and I couldn’t stop them.”  “I am not a Christian but I felt God’s presence throughout the concert.”  “I want to bring all of my friends to this concert if you do it again.”  There truly was a wonderful sense of God’s spirit stirring through the auditorium.  Please pray with us for our friends who were clearly moved by the event and experienced a touch of God’s presence.  We feel that salvation is close for two of these friends – please pray!

We had the pastor and his wife of the Kentucky church stay with us for the last two nights and thoroughly enjoyed the fellowship and time together.  The children really loved them too, and were sad that they were leaving already this morning.

Each team that comes over to work with us brings their own special peculiar interests in Japan and the culture here.  We were greatly amused by this team’s love for Japanese…. shoes!  One of the members brought five pair of shoes with her from the U.S., but then also bought five pair while she was here.  Our homestay had to buy a new suitcase to fit in her new purchases!  Annie couldn’t get over it – Eric teased them about helping the hurting Japanese economy.

Here is the team, as well as a celebration dinner after the gospel concert.  Olivia, like her older brother and sister, is also quite crazy about Jaye!

We love ministering as a family — at times putting on our dancing shoes —  with so many partners from various places as we share the amazing news of the Gospel!

Owen’s first grade experiences have provided many firsts – for him and for us.  We have been very grateful for the prayers and encouragement for his adjustment; and also thankful for Owen’s ability to jump into this new rite of passage with great fervor and flexibility.  Here are a few firsts:

1)  The first two months of first grade in Japan are spent learning the Japanese written language of hiragana.  Owen has faithfully done his practice worksheets sent home every night and we’ve loved watching lights go on as he has been learning.

Every night, his teacher has sent home a printed sheet that has their homework listed, their class schedule for the next day, and any announcements a well as what they need to bring the next day.  I was so moved two nights ago when he pulled out his assignment book, and for the first time, HE had written out all of his assignments and class schedule (in formal settings, Japanese write from right to left, vertically):

Isn’t that awesome?  Parents have to stamp with our name seal that we have read the assignments (bottom right corner- you can make out the red seal)…. I stamped with pride!

2)  Owen is learning (still in progress)  how to make his own playdates…Yesterday after school his good friend Sou. rang the doorbell and came in.  Owen didn’t realize it but they had made arrangements (all in Japanese, of course) to play at our house yesterday.  We rolled with it.  This afternoon, Owen was sitting at the table doing his homework and his friend Y. came walking in expecting to play.  Another surprise for all of us.   So, we still have some work to do on this one…

3) No lunch ladies at Japanese schools- nuh-uh.  Or, I should say, the kids themselves are the lunch ladies.  Every other week, half of the class is responsible for picking up, serving, and cleaning up lunch for the rest of the class.  Each day that week during lunchtime, they don their “uniforms” during lunch (the very uniform that has got me ironing!), including masks over their faces.  A few of the kids bring in the long tray that has 30-person servings on it, some of the kids serve it out to everyone, they all eat, then some are on clean-up duty.  It’s all very orderly, and quite impressive.  Look at this handsome guy trying on his uniform for me:

4)  School Janitors  are also, in essence, non-existent.  The kids all have cleaning duty.   All kids have to take cleaning cloths to the first day of school!  The sixth graders teach the first graders how to scrub the floors, the bathrooms, the toilets… even how to properly wring out their cloths.  (now- can we transfer some of that knowledge to the home front??)

5)   Today was a really BIG first.  Owen had finished scrubbing the floor before lunch, and he was walking to the lunch pick-up room.  Suddenly Y. from the other first-grade class came over to him.  Their two years of Kindergarten they were in the same class…

when we left for the U.S. she gave him a frame photo of herself that he kept by his bedside wherever we went.  She came over to him and planted a big one on him.  On the lips!  First grade, first kiss.  Between cleaning duty and lunch duty.  What a -sweet –  learning curve!

My friend Christine send me this email and I thought it was worth sharing with you as it made me smile A LOT:

At a recent computer expo (COMDEX),Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated,
‘If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon.’

In response to Bill’s comments, General Motors issued a press release stating:

If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics :
1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash…….. Twice a day.
2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.
3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.
4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.
5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive – but would run on only five percent of the roads.
6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single ‘This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation’ warning light.
7. The airbag system would ask ‘Are you sure?’ before deploying.
8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.
9. Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
10. You’d have to press the ‘Start’ button to turn the engine off.
PS – when all else fails, you could call ‘customer service’ in some foreign country and be instructed in some foreign language how to fix your car yourself!!!!

This week several things have stood out to me…

Lighning Bugs!  hotaru!  On Monday and again tonight we walked down to the rice fields below our home  with some neighbor friends and celebrating summer starting by looking for fire flies.  Hotaru are a summer icon in Japan, but more and more rare in the suburbs.  They only last a week or so, and it has felt fairly magical to walk among them twice this week.

YESTERDAY was a very full day with a very full house.  Kindergarten gets out before lunch on Wednesdays, so I had over the three moms from our camping trip and their kids for lasagna crockpot lunch and a play date.  When Owen came home from school later, we had 4 moms and 7 kids.  Then, two of the moms older kids came over to play since it was raining and they couldn’t go to the park.  Then the mom of a friend in Owen’s class called and said Owen had invited her son over to play- was that OK?  And then another mom called with the same question… So there were a LOT of kids here!

And during those six and a half hours I realized:  I was really really enjoying my time with these three friends, and I felt like I could totally be me without worries.

 And that led to…

Me telling them about Annie’s recent comment.  Last Sunday I pulled out the iron and ironing board to iron Owen’s school lunch apron and hat (he brings it home every other weekend for me to wash and iron).  Annie came over and with a quizzical look pointed to the iron and said, “What is that, Mommy?”  She didn’t know what an iron was.  Busted Mom!

So, I’m telling my three friends this story, we are laughing, and then one of them asked, “So, do you iron their lunch mats after the kids are in bed?”  The lunch mats?  (Lunch mats:  Square, bandana-like handkerchiefs that they put their school lunches on.  They each take one every day to school).  Me:  “The lunch mats?  Do you — do you all iron your kids’ lunch mats?”  Three cautious nods yes.  And then one of them asks:  “What about Annie’s smock?”  (Smock:  She takes this every Monday, laundered, to wear all week long.  Thin cotton; easily wrinkled).  Me:  “So, do you all iron your kids’ smocks every week too?”  Affirmative.

We laughed, and laughed, and laughed.  You know what?  they laughed with me; they laughed at me.  It was great!  It was very funny.  Two and a half years I have been a Japanese yochien mom.  It never OCCURRED to me that I should be ironing their daily lunch mats and smocks.  But what I loved was — my Japanese friends laughed at me. That sounds cold- but it was a huge compliment.  Normally our Japanese friends would be worried to laugh too much — there would be sort of that awkwardness.  But around our table we greatly enjoyed the moment.

Tonight — I’ve been ironing.  Imagine that.  I have to start storing it on a lower shelf.  As I calculate it, even having missed out on the last two and a half years of ironing, I am going to get pretty good.  And once I’ve got the thing out, I might as well keep going.  I ironed our dish towels, too.  And thanked God with a smile for His continued grace and work in my life.  It’s been a fun week.

I love being inspired by biographies of Christian leaders and saints — especially women — who have gone before and whose lives are worthy of emulation. (See previous entry on mentors). But I’ve also realized what a privilege it is that sometimes God uses real-life women who are in-the-flesh in our lives to teach and stretch me. This week I’ve had a chance to be with two such women.

ON SUNDAY, I went with Annie and Mary to the airport to say goodbye to Reiko T. She has been serving on our Kansai team for the past three years. She moved to L.A. from Japan when she was 16. She was Buddhist, and while raising her family in the L.A. area saw her family one-by-one becoming believers. She was in her 40s — the last one in her family — when she finally gave her life to Jesus.  Her husband passed away, and when she was able to retire she left her children and grandchildren and came to Japan for three years.  Reiko used a lot of her own funds to minister in Japan, and was  a wonderful encouragement and inspiration to the small church plant that she worked with here. She also was an amazing example to our family and others in how she served — without any regard to her own needs.

What I learned from Reiko:  following Jesus is always worth the costs involved, and that serving Jesus is on His terms, not ours.  Reiko faithfully taught English for three years — and she doesn’t even LIKE teaching English.  But you wouldn’t have known that.  Thanks, Reiko, for your witness among us.

ON TUESDAY,   Eric, Olivia, and I went to a church about 45 minutes away where I had worked as a summer advisor about 18 years ago (eek!).  The senior pastor is a woman — Makiko Shimojo.  She had such a huge impact on me when I had worked with her.  It was wonderful this week to visit her again, and have Eric hear her testimony firsthand.

Pastor Shimojo felt called to the greater Kobe area when she was a young woman.  She moved into a small, ten-foot one room apartment and started a church from there.  One day she went up on a tall mountain to pray for revival in Japan.  She looked over the sprawling cities of the region before her, and saw the huge Koshien baseball stadium.  In her heart, she felt the Lord give her the vision– what if there could be a huge  crusade conducted by a Japanese evangelist  in this region that filled this stadium with people praising God?  There had never been such a thing.  Billy Graham has come to Japan a few times, but never a Japanese evangelist.  This vision was planted in heart as a young woman.

She continued her church planting efforts– the church now has a daughter church, three associate pastors,  and about 240 members!  They prayed for this vision.  And in 1993, through some amazing acts of God,  her vision came to be.  Here’s what one writer said about the Koshien Revival Mission:

The Koshien’s Mission Crusade’s three days of seminars and conferences and three nights of powerful messages by Japanese Evangelists made spiritual history. There was no focus on a “foreign” speaker, and the enormous cost was funded by Japanese believers.  The evening meetings, alternating with 15 minutes of praise and worship, ministered to approximately 124,000 people and 20,000 came forward to register a profession of faith in Christ Jesus.

It absolutely stuns me to think of this happening — in Japan! (I was in the U.S. when this happened).  God is amazing.   Pastor Shimojo held tightly to this vision, trusting God for what is impossible.

It was wonderful to see her, and her assistant pastor Rev. Kanbe again.  She is a hero of the faith for me.  She teaches me to hold onto the dreams God has given me;  and not to be afraid to dream of things even greater.  Her faith reminds me that God is much bigger than the God I worship– I do not need to be afraid to let Him grow larger as I worship and believe.

Who are your in-the-flesh heroes of the faith?  And what dreams has God imbedded in your heart?  Don’t let go…

A fun set of chopsticks and holders are being sent to Sharon Ayabe of Kauai, Hawaii for being the fastest winner of our 2 year blog anniversary challenge quiz.  Nice job, Sharon– Thanks for your loyal friendship to us and reading this blog…

There is also a runner-up set of chopsticks being sent to Dan F. in Anoka, MN- he just sent in his answers – all correct — as I was getting ready to post this.  Thanks for your faithful readership (?) as well….

Here are the quiz questions and the answers, and links to the corresponding blog entries:

1.  When my friend N.’s pet died, it opened the door for ministry.  What kind of pet was it?  (Answer:  A parakeet.  Their family is trying to breed their parakeets right now to give Annie one as a surprise birthday present next month.  Stay tuned).

2.  What kitchen item represented growing friendship for me with Japanese women friends in our neighborhood?  (Correct answers:  Could be crockpots;  or silverware/spoons – with an entry here and here)

3.  What sign did God give me when we were camping that He will provide a new home for us? (We’re still waiting, but still trusting in His sweet promise!)  (Answer: a shooting star – it was awesome.  Owen and Annie both keep talking about looking for one the next time we go camping because they know how God came through two years ago)

4.  What food item birthday cake did I make for two friends’ birthdays because it is their favorite comfort food?  (Answer:  macaroni and cheese cake – one of the funnest cakes I’ve made to date).

5.  Where did Annie hide at Kindergarten her first month or so because she couldn’t understand what was going on?  (Answer:  the bathroom.  She seems to be doing better now- the teacher said that she’s loving their dance practices as their class gears up for a festival next month).

Thanks to all for your guesses, encouragement- for your friendship and partnership with our family.  Just writing these answers has made me stop and thank God for the wonderful ways He has been at work, in our midst, dwelling among us.