Lately, when Ian gets excited about some food, he makes sure everyone knows about it.  You can see the mouth – you just can’t hear the squeals that accompany it.

Our friend Y. has been over the last two nights – we both couldn’t stop laughing.  The other kids think it’s pretty hilarious, too, although when it is dessert time and he tenaciously follows them around wanting more it’s not quite as funny.

This cute face is pretty irresistible.  Without wanting to over-spiritualize a cute face, I have continued the past two days to recall the same Bible verse every time he does this:  “Open wide your mouth, and I will fill it”.  I couldn’t remember which Psalm it was from;  so today I looked up the reference, and read the first part of it:  “I am Jehovah, your God, who brought you out of Egypt;  open your mouth wide, and I will fill it” (Psalm 81:10).

While doing some housework, I wondered if God wants me to be more like Ian…my little boy knows how good that chocolate ice cream bar had tasted a minute ago and wants to do whatever he can to get more.  God in this verse tells me to remember the amazing things he’s already done for me – and keep asking – requesting- His amazing blessings.

One of my favorites, Charles Spurgeon, says:  “Let us take in grace at every door.  Let us drink it in as a sponge sucks up the water in which it lies.  God is ready to fill us if we are only ready to be filled.  Let our needs make us open our mouths;  let our faintness cause us to open our mouths and pant;  yeah, let our alarm make us open our mouths with a child’s cry….”

Today I’ve been asking God — my God who has time after time brought me out of Egypt — for more of His Spirit to fill me.  for our children to be Kingdom-seekers who God uses in ways we couldn’t dream of.  for healing and restoration in relationships that are hurting.  for fruit in Sanda – in Kansai – in Japan –  that astounds us all. for God to use our team here to unite and ignite pastors and churches across our region.  for more love, more power, more boldness, more of Jesus.  more Jesus.

“Open wide your mouth, and I will fill it.”  What are you waiting for?

Yesterday I left before dinner to spend 24 hours in Nagoya, where I was supposed to teach the first of four Mondays at Christ Bible Seminary.  Because of the big snow storm, the classes were cancelled (I will teach three Mondays for 7 hours instead of 5) and I was able to come back a few hours earlier than expected, to all of our delight.  Last night, Eric said Olivia cried herself to sleep, with Annie trying to comfort her.  It’s nice to come home to a family who misses you!

But tonight Eric was leaving for longer – eight days to visit his family in Hawaii and help his brother move.  Our family all drove him to the airport and said goodbye.  As I started to pull away, suddenly from the back seat was a very loud wailing…Olivia just let it rip.  “I miss DADD–YYYY!!!!”  It didn’t matter what any of us said.  The wailing was unstoppable for 25 very long minutes –until we pulled into one of the happiest places on earth for some ice cream.  Ahh -McDonalds — nothing like a little comfort food for the broken-hearted. I hope while Eric flies through the night that our children sleep well, and that God gives me extra love, patience, and joy for the days, and nights, to come.

On Monday morning I will teach my first day of an M.Div course on evangelism in Nagoya at Christ Bible Institute.  I have never been there – it actually will be the first time I’ve gotten off the bullet train and entered Nagoya itself.   I’m looking forward to spending the night with our friends the Chapins, who are on staff at the seminary.

Evangelism in Japan- wooh.  Perhaps one of the greatest challenges in one of the most difficult countries in the world.  The catholic author Endo Shusaku says in his famous novel Silence that Japanese culture is a “mud swamp… because it sucks up all sorts of ideologies, transforming them into itself and distorting them in the process.  It is the spider’s web that destroys the butterfly, leaving only the ugly skeleton.”  There have been times in my prep where I have felt stuck in the mud swamp!  But oddly, this topic  has made me really excited.   Exploring the Japanese perspective has remained the biggest challenge, but I’m thankful for the colleagues who have helped with resources and ideas.

When I first started working on the class, I made a first-draft “slot-filler” – a layout of possible lectures.  What has surprised me a bit is how the lectures, and the reading materials, have changed.  The process of preparing for this class over the last five months has been amazing in terms of the things that I have learned and grown in;  the ideas that were out there floating in my head somewhere that have come together and created new models that I hope to be able to share.

Monday’s classes will include:  1) a spiritual formation about the power of one — what God can do when we share our faith with one person;  2) lecture/discussion on conversion and paradigm shifts;  3) a theology of relationships — looking at several models on relationships and evangelism that “work” in Japan.

I’d love your prayers for me and this class — that God would keep teaching all of us;  that the aroma of Jesus would fill our room and guide our discussions;  that there would be some wonderful break-thrus for us as we tackle this topic that I believe is so dear to our Lord.

We are expecting a possible snow storm tomorrow – I’m not sure what that could mean for getting to Nagoya in late afternoon.  Eric will be on the home-front until Monday evening, when he flies to Hawaii to be with his family.  We’re all going to miss him too much!   There will be a two-hour gap before I get home, and our friends the Boehmes will come and hold down the fort.

I will end with a wonderful paragraph about our motivation for mission and evangelism:

Many well-intentioned church leaders have simplistically presented the words of Jesus “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations”, as some remote order barked by a stern sergeant-major. If Jesus said it, we should do it! But Bosch points out that missionary service that is motivated by blind obedience to an impersonal order from Jesus is built on a flimsy foundation. If our commitment to mission is only based on Jesus “order” in Matthew 28, it makes mission and obligation for us rather than an act of love and grace. It’s not unlike a woman who complains that her husband never brings her flowers. When the guilty husband rushes out and buys her a bouquet and presents it to her, she is still dissatisfied, because it wasn’t that she wanted flowers in particular. What she wanted was for him to be motivated by his devotion for her so as to buy a gift. When we engage in mission only because we feel guilty that we haven’t pleased Jesus and his order in the so-called Great Commission, we satisfy neither Jesus, nor our own sense of calling. Rather, says Bosch, mission emerges from a deep, rich relationship with Jesus. The woman whose husband never brings her flowers doesn’t want flowers. She wants him and his devotion. (Mike Frost and Alan Hirsch from ReJesus: A Wild Messiah for a Missional Church p.50 (quoting Bosch: Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission )

One of my favorite teaching axioms is “expression deepens impression.”  From a teacher’s perspective, if you want to enhance impact of something, it helps to have participants share with a partner or the class what they are learning.  The very process of sharing it creates a greater likelihood of it being remembered, and hopefully applied.

So, too, it helps me when I read a good book to write down some of the highlights in my journal, and sometimes on my blog as well.  A few weeks ago I finished a book that I’ve owned for a few years (thanks to Scott Shaum’s annual reading list!) but finally read it in early fall.  It’s called Anonymous, by Alicia Britt Chole.  Great book… with the premise being that during the anonymous seasons of our lives, God can do his best work:  “The Father’s work in us does not sleep — though in spiritual winters he retracts all advertisement” (page 3).  Jesus is Chole’s main example — ninety percent of his earthly life was spent in obscurity;  ten percent in the public eye.  It was what God did during that ninety percent that made his ten percent “absolutely indestructible.”  As a friend of the author’s said to her, “I feel that trials do not prepare us for what’s to come as much as they reveal what we’ve done with our lives up to this point”

The anonymous years in our own lives may come from a variety of causes:  change in job; moving; seasons where we are more homebound or removed from leadership for various reasons; starting something new; motherhood :).  Here are a few of my favorite quotes:

“Sweetness through hiddenness guarantees abundance in harvest in God’s good and perfect time.”  (p. 181).

“The One who planted us… will be faithful to grow us.  Father knows best and would never sabotage his own.  He is, after all, good.  We are stewards, not owners, of the fruit he cultivates in our lives…”

This quote gets me every time I read it:  “When our potential seems stifled, we can easily begin to believe that someone or something is standing in our way:  our leaders are nearsighted or that supervisor is jealous or our spouse is holding us back, the old guard has lost vision… But is God’s will really that fragile?  Does he not foresee?  Is he caught offguard?  Is he unprepared?  Along with unmodified obedience, a sweet spirit is one of the most powerful guardians of tomorrow.”  (p. 173)

“Over the years, Jesus’ consistent choice to submit to his Father God’s will and Word clustered and built momentum as he stepped out of his anonymous season and into the waters of the Jordan River.  There, the Holy Spirit descended not on talent, title, or worldly possessions but upon the submitted heart, mind and spirit of Jesus.”  (p. 150).

Powerful words.  I want God to descend on my submitted heart, whatever the present, past, or future holds.  My mentor used to often say – paraphrased — that it’s not so important what happens, but how we respond to it. Thank  God that His will – it really is not that fragile.

Just found this – and as someone who has been helped to understand myself and others through this personality inventory, enjoyed these prayers.  See what you think!  (BTW, I’m ENFJ).

“Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.”  -Ralph Waldo Emerson

The first two days have been a wonderful start to 2011, with some sweet touches of the new year, Japanese-style.

The highlight of our first day of the new year was fun time spent with our  friends the Thomsons.   We were all thrilled to discover near the end of our evening several inches of snow.   There was no stopping the kids from having fun outside, even in the dark.

During the night, the snow had started to melt but then froze over, so we weren’t able to drive to church. But it was perfect for sledding in the park!  Ian might have had the most fun…

…though it’s hard to say.

After the snow play, we had a chance to go through our nengajou – the New Year’s cards that many Japanese send out to friends and colleagues (similar to the North American Christmas card tradition).  Since this is the year of the rabbit according to the Japanese/Chinese zodiac, we love seeing the creative ways the rabbit gets incorporated into people’s cards:

This is our year!  Eric and I both were born in the year of the rabbit, so we had to splurge on a special Starbucks mug that is out here for just the first week or so of January:

Tonight, I cooked my favorite Japanese New Year’s food for the first time – ozouni soup.  It uses a green leafy vegetable called mizuna, which I have never used before.  (The dictionary defines it as potherb mustard, which is probably why I’ve never imagined cooking with!)

It was a fun dish to make – and we liked it a lot.  Here is our simple version of a recipe that has many, many versions.

New Year’s Ozoni Soup

Cook chicken breasts in 6-8 C boiling water and 2 T salt.  Boil for ten minutes, then lower heat and cook about 30 more minutes.  Remove chicken, shred, then return to stock. Wash and prepare vegetables.  Add carrots and daikon and cook until tender (10-15 minutes). Add mizuna the last minute of cooking (should stay crisp).  For mochi, either add to the soup last five minutes;  or put into toaster oven and toast until puffy, then add to soup bowl and pour soup over mochi to serve.  Add kamaboko on top and serve.

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I hope this is a year of trying more new things… letting our kids play outside at night once and a while… taking advantage of snow days to go sledding in the park…. splurging at times on rabbit mugs that make my husband smile a lot.  You, too.

On Monday we worked with our Sanda co-workers  to put on our first (annual?) ladies Christmas tea.  (Shout-out to MLEFC and HOPE Christian Fellowship for the tea inspiration!)  Thanks to wonderful babysitting efforts by several of our husbands (yeah Eric!), we had thirty-two ladies and about ten children participate.  There were seven last-minute cancellations mostly due to the flu that is going around, but we loved seeing this many women gathered together to enjoy Christmas.  I was thinking — thirty families from across Sanda are here in this room — enjoying warm fellowship and many of them hearing about God’s wonderful love for us for the first time.  What a great privilege!

We decorated each table with a different Christmas theme, and put a theme sticker on their nametag to help them find their assigned tables.  It was fun to see our friends go around and take photos of each table on their cell phones…

We had a scary moment when all of our hot pots and coffee maker blew the fuse in the large room of the community center we rented… It took several of the community center staff to come and figure out the problem, ending with us putting hot pots in different rooms.  A few minutes later, I saw all the front office ladies coming up the stairs, and thought “oh no! They’re going to throw us out!”  Instead – the two staff had gone down and told everyone about the Christmas decorations and they had to come see for themselves.  Yeah!  Later, our coworker Mary took them our left-over cookies, so I am sure they were quite pleased.

In addition to coffee, tea, pastries, and homemade christmas cookies, we made a fun craft, thanks to my inspiration Martha Stewart!— button wreaths. We had to order the buttons from the U.S. because they are so expensive here (five for a dollar is the cheapest) – so it was a fun treat for the ladies to make these..  (Personally, I think theirs were cuter than Martha’s – but please don’t tell her I said so.)

Our friends from CBC in Cerritos had sent us some great Christmas items to help make this tea possible –big bags of confectioner’s sugar (very expensive here for some reason) and  American-style cookie cutters which became cherished doorprizes for everyone.  Yuko and Rhonda made and attached laminated sugar cookie recipes with Isaiah 43:4 written at the bottom:  “Because you are precious in my sight, I have loved you…”

We wanted the ladies to know that the true theme of Christmas is about the amazing love of God.  We had the ladies share at their tables about a favorite gift they have received, and then a few of us shared up front.

I shared at the end in my not-perfect Japanese the story of our infertility, and the promise God had given me the promise of Psalm 128 when we could not have children: “Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house:  your children will be like olive shoots around your table…”  Through God’s wonderful gift of adoption, he gave us our first three children, thus leading us to the name Olivia, meaning olive, always reminding us of God’s fulfillment of his promises.  Many of you know that we agreed last year to do foster care for baby Yuu for a month or so… and after three months needing to say goodbye to him so he could go to the waiting family in Okinawa.  I stood in our carport as Eric and baby Yuu drove away and just sobbed and sobbed… but realized that I understood God’s love in a new way – how he gave his only son to come to earth because he loved us so much.  And that is the real meaning of Christmas — God’s amazing love for us.  Two weeks later, God gave baby Yuu back to us – when his Okinawa family became unexpectedly pregnant.  He became Ian Yuu, and has blessed us so much, still reminding us of God’s wonderful love for us.

It was a wonderful morning.  We have written in the past that the most effective way we have found to do evangelism in Japan is through the layering of relationships:  Japanese are moved closer to Jesus over time through building friendships with different believers.  On Monday, I loved watching all the layerings happening… our neighbors, students, mom friends mingling with other believers and thus finding the gospel authenticated in new ways.

As Wendi led the ladies in singing two christmas carols at the end, I looked around the room and could not help but tear up, realizing anew  the undeniable realities of the wonders of His love.

We have been praying with our good friend Aiko for the health of her Dad, who was diagnosed in the summer with cancer.  It has been challenging for Aiko and her husband to share their new faith with her parents;  until the past few weeks I don’t think her parents even knew that Aiko had been baptized three years ago nor her husband this past year.  She was afraid of what they would think….

The past few weeks her dad’s health declined rapidly.  The doctors allowed him to be at home, deciding at this point that it would not be helpful to do extensive chemo or radiation.  On Sunday at church, Aiko and I grabbed hands and our eyes filled with tears as she shared that he is barely eating and not walking anymore.  But she told me that our pastor, Makio Sensei, would be going with her and her husband after the service to visit him.  We prayed and I was so thankful for this special opportunity.

Makio Sensei went to her parents’ home and shared the simple Gospel.  Aiko’s dad kept saying, “Amen!”  And he wanted to be baptized.  The family was gathered round as Makio Sensei performed this important rite.  Aiko said after that he couldn’t stop saying, “Amen!”  He was weak, and so they left a few minutes later and were walking to the train station when the cell phone rang…. Only ten minutes or so after his baptism, Aiko’s Dad, 72 years old, was ushered into the corridors of heaven.

Today Eric went to the funeral ceremony.  In Japan, almost everyone wears black, even down to the men wearing black ties.  Our kid aren’t used to seeing their Dad so dressed up – Annie said, “Wow Daddy!  You look so handsome!”

What was so amazing is that our pastor was invited by the family to conduct the whole service- it was a Christian funeral  (in a land where most funerals are very Buddhist, even if the family had been only nominally so).  Aiko said when she saw her Dad’s face after he had passed away, he looked so peaceful…. I thought – yes, He’s with the Prince of Peace.  It was a wonderful event that was a testimony to her extended family. Her mother was so appreciative of the pastor and those who were there to support the family from the church.  And after the service, Aiko’s husband, a close friend of Eric’s, pulled him aside and said, “Guess what?  I found out that my mom when she was twenty learned these Christian songs.”  He is now able to share more with his parents, who had attended the service as well.

All day as I did various mom kinds of things I kept hearing the promise of Jesus in my head, “Today you will be with me in paradise.”  It was not complicated for the dying man next to Jesus on the cross — it was a matter of a) meeting Jesus, and b) believing.  On one side was a mocker;  on the other side one who knew this was the Real Thing.  There are a lot of people out there who haven’t yet had any encounters with Jesus – the first step.  What are we waiting for?   For Aiko’s dad, at truly the last few minutes of his life he met Jesus, and believed – and very shortly thereafter met the One who had been waiting for him face to face.  “Today, you will be with me in paradise.”

Amen – Amen – Amen!

Today my sweet sweet boy Owen turned eight!  It sounds so old – it is a bit hard to believe.  He is at such a great age — today in the midst of a very crazy, event-filled day I thought, “it is such fun to be a mom for  an eight-year old boy.”

Today Owen had his first birthday party with friends from our neighborhood.  Usually, birthdays in Japan are more of a family affair, although small parties seem to be growing in popularity.  We decided to try a father-son soccer party with a few of the boys Owen is closest with who also play YMCA soccer with him.  We know three of the dads from our neighborhood and through different events in the past, so this was a fun chance to build on our friendships with these families.

The dads and boys met at a nearby park and played soccer – dads against the kids.  Although there are no pictures of this, Eric said it was funny because initially the dads did NOT want the boys to win.  When Owen scored two goals against his goalie dad, one of the other dads switched with him to make sure that didn’t keep happening!  In the end, it was 11-9 — the boys had the victory.  There was great cheering and joy in the victory of beating their dads.

Then, they all came back to our house for the party.  (Ian, Annie, Olivia, and I meanwhile had been at our church’s Christmas worship service during the soccer playing- we scurried home to get the food set-up).  It smelled like Costco in our home – cheese pizza, hot-dogs, and chicken nuggets for the hungry players.  And cake!  Every elementary-aged boy in Japan knows Inazuma-Eleven, an anime on television about a soccer team with special powers.  All the boys, including – especially! – Owen – love this show.  It was an easy cake to decide to make…

Here’s all the boys…

with the men…

One of the moms came with her little 3 month-old, Nagisa.  It was fun having little ones at the party too.

What we loved about this birthday party was that Owen had decided with us not to have his friends bring gifts, but instead to give small contributions to World Vision to buy soccer balls for boys who didn’t have any (through their gift catalog).  It was a completely new idea to our Japanese friends, but they seemed to warm up to it.  They all talked about looking forward to the “charity birthday party.”  During the party, Eric explained more about the organization to the dads, and Owen had helped to make a box to collect the money.

Owen put some of his own money in, too… and we are excited that we can send enough yen/money to WV to buy twelve soccer balls.  We will give follow-up notes to the families, and hope that it was a fun chance for all to experience the joy of giving.

We ended our day with special friends at a fun birthday dinner at our wonderful neighbors the Ishidas.

Love this boy!  We pray God uses his precious life to continue modeling generosity, fun, and a love for others.