Friday morning blues...
Well, it is Friday morning and we are still trying to get settled into some kind of "normalish" routine. Susan has a Bible study with our neighbor, Rose, this morning. I have a LOT of work to do to get our church introduction brochure ready. This brochure is meant to be given to people around town to let them know what we are doing, what a church is, what the Bible is about, etc. In this culture no one has a really good idea about what the Bible teaches or the difference between Catholics, Mormans, Protestants, etc. We will need to be reassuring people that we are not Mormans or Jehovah's Witnesses or Catholics. Most have never heard of a Baptist!
Anyway, I am hoping to use this brochure when I talk to city officials about volunteer opportunities for the GRIT team in the future. Keiko is helping with the Japanese but she mostly corrects my poor Japanese, I haven't been able to talk her into just writing the whole thing for me yet!
August is almost over and that means the heat should go away soon. I will be so glad, the past few weeks have been really draining for me. I am ready for some cooler weather. It is really hard to force myself to do the office work I so desperately need to do when it is so hot in the house.
Well, I need to get out of Susan's way...
Off into the wild blue...
Or at lease as far as Kagoshima. We are heading to Hinatabira Baptist Church on Sunday morning. They don't have a pastor at present so several churches in the south Kyushu area have been filling in and tomorrow is my turn. The timing is nice because we are also planning a small family vacation Monday - Wednesday and because we are going to camp, it is on the way back from Kagoshima so we can get there easily Sunday night. The kids are excited and still expect to see some of the GRIT team there. Boy will they be disappointed!
Tomorrow is also Pastor Ohara's last day at Nagashima Grace Baptist Church. We had all been hoping that he would stay and be the next pastor after Pastor Kishimoto retires but it doesn't look like that will happen. Pastors are in short supply in Japan.
Hot and humid in Kumamoto...
Well, the summer drones on in Kumamoto as we continue to settle in and dig out from all the mess left after GRIT. I have almost dug my way out from underneath a pile of emails and I'm starting to look at the pile of boxes we still need to unpack and put away from the summer at camp.
I don't know about anyone else but my TO DO list is a mile long and seems to get longer every time I look at it! I suppose I need a good week at home to get caught up and read to move forward with more important things. So far we still have not been able to really settle into our house or get to know Kikuyo that well.
Once the summer ends, Chloe will be starting homeschool. We received her box of books last week and she was so excited that she wanted to start right away! If only we were all so ready to learn...
Moving day!
But not for us fortunately! Luke and I are in Miyakonojo helping Tom and Paula Carr pack up and get ready for furlough. They leave August 12. We will be taking a truck to the storage place Friday and then I will take Luke to the airpor to return home. THEN... I will finally have a chance to have a "summer" break! Susan and I are planning to take a week and take the kids to camp for some family time. I think we are all looking forward to it.
Life Challenge Camp
We finished Life Challenge Camp on Saturday. There were 14 people there for all or some of the time. It was a challenge to be and make disciples. Most of the participants were under 30 although the oldest was an 86 year old who came 2.5 hours by bus! He was very enthusiastic about all the activities and seemed to enjoy himself. He had quite a few stories from the early days of ABWE in Japan.
Now that the major activities of the summer are over, we are looking forward to getting back into some kind of routine. The summer has pointed out the weaknesses in my Japanese so I am also anticipating some more study in the near future. To put our summer in perspective, this morning we held our first annual Summer Thanksgiving Meeting. Susan and I along with Keiko and Luke, thought through the summer and reflected over all that God has done. We ended up with a white board full of things to be thankful for! Now, we can use that past lesson of God's faithfulness as a foundation to help keep us relying on Him for the future.
