I had promised Annie a walk today, so I decided to add a little challenge for all three kids. We went on a scavenger hunt… I gave them pictures on a clipboard, and then had to check off each picture as we found it.

They really got into looking for spiders…mosquitos…making a cross out of branches and a pile of stones… The butterfly at dusk was our best find! They had new eyes as we went on a very familiar route.

After a lengthy stop in the park to enjoy the playground, we continued behind our home to circle around the pond…It really was beautiful at dusk.

On the far side of the lake, there was an older woman decked out in her wide-brimmed gardening hat and gear, hacking away at her bushes. We exchanged pleasantries, and she asked where I was from. She began telling me about her son, who graduated from Oklahoma State University, and then George Washington University. She started to tell me something else, when I noticed Olivia heading up the path by herself toward a road. I excused myself, ran up the path and brought her- against her will – back with me. I returned to the conversation, and asked where her son is now. She put down her rose shears, looked out across the pond, and said, “he died two years ago of cancer.”

I felt like the wind was knocked out of me. I was at a loss for words, and it wasn’t just because the conversation was in Japanese. I wanted to offer her hope; but everything I thought of sounded wrong.

The kids were getting antsy to continue our hunt; I knew we had to move on. She said she understood. I found out her name and wondered- how can I stay in contact with her?

As we said goodbye and started walking, she called out: “Oh, by the way – do you know anyone around here who teaches English conversation classes?”
BINGO!!! I think I just met my eleventh student for my ladies’ class. Ten is our standard limit, but there are good reasons for exceptions.

I hope we can become friends. I hope she will want to know more about my hope. I, too, was given new eyes on a familiar route. Mrs. Wakao was, by far, our best find.

Recently I was asked to send a tribute for a friend’s birthday celebration. I went through and found some fun old photos from when she and I both worked in Asian Access’ U.S. office. They are good memories of a few of the great friends who have been part of our lives….and put up with some of my bizarre ideas. For those of you who know some current and former staff – I thought you, too, might get a few chuckles from these photos and brief stories. (For some reason some of the scanned photos can only be viewed as thumbnails- sorry).

Here are some of the Asian Access staff who enjoyed working together in the mid-90s:

Here are our good friends Peter and Wendi- Wendi hasn’t changed a bit!

Alene and I… I’ve done a few good “facial massages” in my time… convincing innocent suspects that I have taken facial massage classes; they beg me to give them one…not realizing that my fingers are coated with lipstick. Here, friends got revenge on me!

Truly one of my favorite photos – Tim, Jeff, and Reiko in Santa Barbara…they tried to see who could find the best outfits for the cheapest price at thrift stores. Hard to say who won?

One of my favorite parties – a surprise Dating Game party for our friend Reiko! We had three guys from Fuller behind a curtain and the winner got – a date with Reiko! The night of their date, we taught the winner, our friend Jay, how to say “You look really nice tonight” in Japanese. Only somehow we ended up teaching him in japanese, “you are a beautiful horse”. Reiko was rather surprised by this first greeting! (They had a nice first date, but no romance. Reiko did just fine on her own, and now is happily married to Jack).

A staff retreat:

My first year living in Pasadena and a new student at Fuller Seminary, I got a bad case of mono. My sister Allison flew to LA to nurse me back to health, and good Asian Access friends were kind enough to bring Thanksgiving dinner over to us. Alene made her famous southern, deep-fried turkey; Allison will always be remembered for her corn pudding. Following my typed recipe exactly, she added 1 TABLESPOON of salt instead of a Teaspoon!

And, one of my favorite Pasadena memories was a Polyester Prom party my roommate Mary and several Fuller friends hosted. The costumes were great – Mary is so sad that she no longer has that quilted red, white, and blue maxi dress!

Now some of us are back in Japan; some are still in the U.S.; one friend is in China… but I remain thankful for the rich bonds of friendship that exist through Asian Access.

Over the past 3 years, we have made with an annual “Kansai Team” video with our Asian Access cohorts. It has been fun to channel our collectively weird and creative energies for the purpose of explaining what we are doing here.

This past spring, we made our third video, entitled Reality Bytes. Here it is for your (?hopeful) enjoyment. Special thanks to our Kansai partners…it really was a great team effort. If you would like to watch a clearer version with higher resolution, you can find this video (and other Asian Access videos and podcasts) available on iTunes filed under Podcasts and “Reality Bytes.” A search should bring it up.
Note: you are welcome to watch the two previous years’ videos at our currently out-dated website. Click here to the go to the movie page.

Lately Olivia (18 months old) has gotten into dressing up. She finds whatever she can, and finds a way to wear it:

It’s not Halloween yet, but she’s into her brother’s Power Ranger mask:

The other day, our friend Nina came over to play with the girls, and all three of them had fun dressing up:

Yesterday, I was as undressed-up as I could be. I was ALL ME. And it wasn’t pretty. I was tired, and I had run out of being patient with our kids. When Annie kept getting out of bed for her naptime, I let her know (and probably the neighbors too) how I felt about it. Between our house church, and the Gospel Concert event we had that evening, I had several short and not sweet yells at one child or another.

During the gospel concert, I was sitting there and remembered what our friend and psychologist Jack Anderson has said — that there are times when you need to pretend. You might not feel like showing love at the time, but if you pretend, and practice doing it, it can become real. (This isn’t an exact quote, but general idea). I wasn’t happy about who I was yesterday with our kids. There’s something about being real and genuine; but there’s also something important about the times when our real self can’t be loving but we can put on love, like Paul says:
But since we belong to the day, let us be self-controlled, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet. (1 Thessalonians 5:8)
The Message says, Walk out into the daylight sober, dressed up in faith, love, and the hope of salvation.
I’m a lot more fun to be with when I put on love, even when I don’t feel like it. Hopefully it will become more and more real. Oh…I need to play dress up more often!

This week Eric has been gone for 3 days at leadership meetings up in Hokkaido. Picking up Owen at yochien (kindergarten) on Tuesday, my friend Atsuko came over with her daughter and said they’d love to get together and play. So they both came over on Wednesday (every Wednesday yochiens get out early, before lunch time). They stayed until 5:30 pm – playdates are SERIOUS in Japan. Because most Japanese men don’t return home from their jobs until very late — 9 or 10 pm, or even later — Japanese housewives don’t seem to start thinking about dinner until 6 or 7… so afternoons often stretch long.

I had shared in a previous blog entry (Golden Fasts) about the challenges of starting again in making new friends through Owen’s school…. I realized (through unwanted tears) that one afternoon that it will take time to know where each other’s spoons are kept in the kitchen, and more familiarity to be able to freely hunt for them without asking permission. I’m a pretty intentional person in relationships, but I recognize the importance of both time and shared experiences to deepen friendships to places of comfortableness.
(Below: Atsuko is on the right- another time that she and a friend came over for a play date)

On Wednesday, Atsuko and I were drinking diet Coke together and eating oatmeal cookies that the kids had made. She told me that her husband has recently quit his current English conversation class in order to begin studying with Eric at his Saturday morning men’s class. We were sharing photos from our recent family outings. I was holding Olivia, when Annie suddenly stood up on the living room floor and a FOUNTAIN of pee started pouring out of her big girl pants. Atsuko, herself a mom of two girls, quickly stood up, picked up Annie under her armpits, and carried her to the shower. While I cleaned up the mess before Olivia could have fun in it, Atsuko showered off Annie, washed out her pants, and had found some pants and re-dressed her.

While of course feeling slightly embarassed about all the mess, and thanking Atsuko for her swift help, I had to grin to myself. Finding each other’s kitchen spoons is NOTHING compared to showering down your friend’s daughter’s pee-pee. It’s happening. Silver friends…becoming more precious.

Today is a national holiday in Japan (Respect for the Aged Day), so our family took advantage of two free tickets we had received to go grape-picking. Owen had gone with his kindergarten sev
eral weeks ago, and brought home some of the most delicious grapes we’ve ever had. So today was our chance – we took our family and our friend Yasko, and thanks to our car navigation system we were able to find the vineyard about 25 minutes away.
We left just before lunch, so on the way we stopped at McDonalds’ drive-through and took our lunches with us to the vineyard. When we got there, we paid our admission fee and then sat on the outskirts of the vineyard and ate our lunch. Just as we were finishing, one of the staff came over and said that we should take our lunch into the vineyard and eat there. Since we were already mostly done, we packed up, threw out the trash and then started to enter the vineyard.
It was SO beautiful. Once we ducked our heads and started walking into the vineyard, I was so amazed at this new world that we entered. It felt like a surreal environment as we walked up the pathway with huge bunches of grapes dangling on our shoulders.

For our admission fee, we could cut, rinse and eat as many grapes as we wanted, but any bunches that we took home we needed to pay by the gram (one bunch cost about $4.00). Ooh- they were delicious.

The funny thing was realizing that everyone else was picnicking inside the vineyard- we hadn’t realized that we could have had such beautiful surroundings! We still enjoyed the grapes, but were sorry that we couldn’t have eaten our Happy Meals in the vineyard.

*****
Yesterday, our house church met at our home. The name of our house church is called “Vineyard.” We also had four Americans visiting on an Envision trip with Asian Access. They are exploring whether God might be leading them to longer term ministry in Japan. It was neat to have them with us, and hear one member share his story, as well as to have our friends Aiko and George share her story with the group. We all got teary-eyed as George shared about his recent salvation (see George’s story).
Afterwards, there was wonderful fellowship over lunch… and games (David is enjoying playing with Owen and his remote-control insects).

Today, as we were strolling through the vineyard with the sun flickering through the grape leaves and the huge clusters sagging on the vines, I could not help but feel so thankful for being part of the vineyard. Yesterday as we fellowshipped over crockpot pork it was such a joy to know that being American or Japanese wasn’t important – rather, we were all grafted on the same vine, made into one body by the master Gardener. Grapes – they really are a good thing.

There is a popular expression in Japan right now “My Boom.” It is spoken in Japanese when talking about something that is trendy or popular in your own daily life currently. Right now, for Eric and me, raw cabbage salads and dark chocolate are MyBoom. (see our friends, the Ryus, blog entry on this). So, if we were sharing, we would say, “My myboom right now is raw cabbage salads and dark chocolate. What’s your myboom?” A little redundant and strange sounding, but that’s how imported words often are in Japanese…

Anyway, unwittingly, we have created a myBoom in Sanda. The crockpot. Making a few meals for Japanese friends from church in our crockpot caused a stir. Several of these friends ordered a crockpot from an import order store. They started raving about crockpots (which aren’t normally found in Japan), and then seven of the ladies in my English class also decided to order them. We had seven crockpots delivered to our doorstep last week! We have just ordered two more for friends, bringing the total in the past few months up to about fifteen crockpots.

So, to help these Japanese friends know how to use American crockpots, we are going to do a crockpot party in two weeks. I’m going to give them all different crockpot recipes, and they will make the recipe the night before and bring their crockpot filled with a dish to the party. We’ll try the different menus and look at the recipes.

I NEED CROCKPOT RECIPES! Could you send me your favorite crockpot recipe? Either you can post it in the comments or email it to me. We have a few favorites, but I would like some other favorites for variety.

What’s your myboom?

There is a small, obscure temple behind our home, that gongs three times a day (6 am; noon; 6 pm). There are many temples in every town (and country) across Japan; they are marked on maps with an interesting emblem –it looks sort of like a backwards swastika. If you see a map of any city, you will see many of these symbols. Here is a map of our immediate neighborhood – the arrow is on the location of our home, and behind it to the left is the temple:

And some of the other temples in the Kansai (western Japan) region. When visitors come to Japan, usually this is where they go. Kyoto, the most famous city in Japan, located about an hour from us, has between 1200 and 1300 Buddhist temples alone (not including Shinto shrines). People go to temples and shrines on special days to pay money, buy talismans, and pray for special requests, such as entrance exams, marriage, children, health, etc. It’s often a cultural visit rather than a religious one.

Today as I was continuing an ongoing study of Genesis, I was looking at verses related to sanctification as my study was comparing Abraham’s sanctification and process of holiness to that of Lot’s. As I was reading 2 Corinthians 6, I was struck by the meaning of this verse:
“For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will live in them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” (2 Cor 6:16).
It must have been a huge shock to Paul’s followers, who had grown up with holy temples as places that you GO. Here, he says that holy temples have becomes places to BE. That WE are the temples now; God lives and flows through us and makes us into His temples. Wherever His people are…there is a temple.
The real map, then–in God’s Reality — does not have symbols for Buddhist temples, but it has temple symbols for the locations of where His people live. In neighborhoods across the world, God’s temples are where His people are living and worshipping and being changed by Him.
As I went out walking and praying tonight, I stood up on a bridge overlooking our neighborhood. I asked God – where does He want His temple to be? (We are hoping to rent a slightly larger home in our neighborhood). I asked God to make THIS temple more filled with His glory – a jar of clay shining His light. And as I stood in the darkness, I pleaded with God for there to be MORE temples here … more lights on the hill… more places of refuge for people to come who need hope, healing, and love.
Our home/apartment/room – it is God’s temple. Picturing your neighborhood map with the big X marked on it for God’s temple -really believing this – might just change how we choose to live.

Our friend Paul lives in L.A., but he more of an expert on some segments of Japan life than we are. He spends about 2 months a year traveling around Japan (see Hitchhiking entry). He recently sent us these photos from his recent visit. Often when he is in large cities in Japan, he stays in capsule hotels. After looking at the photos, Japan’s reputation for utilizing small spaces becomes more clear:

When you live in a foreign country, there are three categories for food: the good, the bad, and the ugly –or the really bad. Fortunately, the longer I’m in Japan, the more foods move towards the good category annd less in the bad. Last week in Tokyo I tried some whale sashimi (or raw whale). Ten years ago it would have been in the ugly category…last week, it certainly wasn’t worthy of being in the good category, but it wasn’t too too bad either.

But, no matter how long I’m here, there is one food that has remained in the ugly category: Natto. Natto is, simply, fermented beans (i.e. beans that have gone moldy). According to wikipedia: Nattō (納豆?) is a traditional Japanese food made from fermented soybeans, popular especially at breakfast. A rich source of protein, nattō and the soybean paste miso formed a vital source of nutrition in feudal Japan. For some, nattō must be an acquired taste due to its powerful smell, strong flavor, and sticky consistency. In Japan nattō is most popular in the eastern regions including Kantō and Tōhoku. (For the record, we don’t live in the Kanto or Tohoku regions).

The more you mix it, the more webby it becomes… and the more it smells. I have a strong sense of smell, and I can tell if someone within 100 yards or so is eating natto.

The problem is: Eric likes natto, especially its healthy factor. Because he likes it, Owen started eating it very young. And now Annie. Olivia liked her first bite. The other day at the food store, Owen started BEGGING for me to buy natto. Oh my. Here are some pictures of Owen and Annie enjoying their breakfast this morning:

By the way- one CAN learn to like natto. There is a website about two Americans in New York City who made themselves eat natto every day in order to see if they could learn to like the taste. After fifteen days, one of them began to enjoy it… after thirty days, it was actually enjoyable. I guess I could try, but -those first fifteen days might be a little too ugly…

P.S. – What is the good? Our very favorite “treat” when teh kids go to bed is: Diet A & W Rootbeer (we sometimes order it from Foreign Buyer’s Club in Kobe)…in a frosted mug that I bought for Eric at the A & W Rootbeer Stand in Okinawa. Aaahhh..