trip home

Today went well. We had a lot of people come to the last party. Everyone took lots of pictures and then we went out to dinner with Roxanna and Tomoko. We exchanged presents with Sugao and then practiced Mr. Saito's song that we adapted to the tune of "Jesus is Lord" We will sing it tomorrow for the congregation after I am finished preaching. We still have to finish packing tonight among other things...so I have to go get busy, but I wanted to let everyone know that we are expecting to be in Texas on Monday at midnight, but we won't be back in Longview until the next Saturday, around July 31st? We are so excited to see everyone again and to catch up on everything we missed.

I hope you are all well...
Signing off...

Jeff


P.S. Mike and Tomoko's new teacher was supposed to arrive today from Texas, but she was denied entrance to Japan because she apparently answered questions incorrectly at immigration. She was sent on a plane back to Texas...until she gets another passport or something...If you could pray for her...She has had a rough time... She had just gotten this passport because her dog ate her last one a day before she was coming. Also please pray for the readers, and church members here.

Who wants to do LST next summer?

Hello again...

This will be one of the last e-mails that you will recieve from us about our project...I have enjoyed keeping up with everyone, even though I am halfway around the world...Thank you.

Our last reading day went very well. More goodbyes, more gifts, more laughter... Kristina and Julie met tonight with Sugao to discuss their readers' progress and interests. I prepared much of my sermon. Tomorrow Jake and I will meet with Sugao to discuss our readers. There is so much left to do before we go home, and time is going by so quickly...please pray for our trip home.

Tomorrow, Mike and Tomoko have offered to do something with us. We might get together to play some games, and eat dinner. Many of our readers have decided to come to the last party on Saturday. More and more have been signing up for English Bible lessons online too. It is going to be hard for us to only pick 2 readers each to continue working with online. We are very very speepy...and we get to sleep in tomorrow!!!

Jake and I went to play pool with one of his readers tonight. We had a great time together.
We are already beginning our planning for training a team/teams for next year from Alpine. We are excited about helping others have a similar opportunity to do God's work. It has been amazing. Please let us know if you are interested, or you think someone else may be interested.

If anyone missed any of my e-mails this summer, you can see most of them at: sims2japan@blogspot.com

I hope your day goes great!

Good night,

Jeff

Do you have a tongue?

Another great day!

Tomorrow is our last reading day. We recieved many more wonderful gifts from our readers, and it is difficult to say goodbye. It is hard to stay focused in our "free" time, and to not worry about the to do lists that are waiting for us when we return to America. I am preaching on Sunday, so the preparations for that will take up most of my spare time tomorrow.

It rained a little tonight, and the heat continues...also, I forgot to mention that we had another earthquake yesterday. We thouroughly enjoyed it... :) Even Kristina.

Tonight I didn't get through with reading until 9:15, so afterward we rode our bikes to Mos Burger. It is a Japanese version of a fast food restaurant. Their food and service was great. They had very cool rubber coasters for their drinks, and Kristina and I tried to buy them...but to no avail. They finally got it across that the boss would be there tomorrow night, so if we go back, maybe we can buy them. There was a lot of laughing on both sides on the conversation.

One of Jake's readers invited us to lunch tomorrow, so we are going to eat at her house. It should be interesting...I am going to miss our food adventures (but not the food) when we return home.

Here is another excerpt from a conversation with a reader for your enjoyment...
He was talking about different tastes...salty, bitter, sour, sweet... and was trying to get me to understand by prefacing his comment with "maybe you have a tongue." We couldn't help but laugh.

Until tomorrow, good night, and good morning,

Jeff

Jumping for Christ

Ohio Gozaimas,

Today the heat came back...It was so bad, we had to turn on the air conditioner in the auditorium for the second time of the project. Our readers appreciated it. This is the beginning of the end...at least for this trip. We all had some of our last meetings with some readers, but many of them are trying to schedule reading sessions everyday this week just to keep going. Many of mine are interested in the online classes, and in the Let's keep talking program. It is encouraging to see them continuing their study of English and the Bible.

We have had countless examples of things that didn't translate well, or were misinterpreted, but here is one from today that was pretty good: One of Jake's readers was on the lesson from Luke about people hoping for the Christ to come, and some thinking that maybe John was the Christ...
Jake's reader said "I understand that they thought John might be the Christ, but why were they all jumping (hopping). Jake said he could hardly contain himself as he was trying to explain the difference. The same reader was also trying to distinguish between heaven and hell, and drew a picture. When Jake asked about it, he said "It is a picture of my grandson... when awake...Hell, When asleep...Heaven. :) Thought you all would enjoy just a taste of the average conversation...It has been great to be laughing so much while we work.

Tonight, Mike and Tomoko Mclain and family invited us out to go to Karaoke with them. They wanted to treat their children since today is the first day of summer vacation for them. We had a wonderful time (I got some good pictures Maggie :) and they paid our way as a gift for all of our service for their congregation. It was very nice of them...They are wonderful people.

After Karaoke, Kristina had not eaten dinner because she had worked straight through, so we decided to ride our bikes to McDonald's for a late night meal. It was great. (we had Yaki Soba for lunch made from Cabbage that had been given to us...It has cabbage, noodles, ginger, soy sauce, etc... It was great too, and Judith got to eat with us.)

We are trying to arrange our train and bus trip to the end meeting that is coming up on Sunday and Monday in Tokyo. We are also trying to find times to meet with Sugao to discuss our project before we go.

We have been giving our gifts to our readers on their last visit, and they seem to really enjoy them (we are giving them a Texas post card, a texas quarter, tabasco sauce, and American candy bars). We have also been recieving a number of gifts as well. For instance, I was given a beautiful wind bell today that is supposedly unique from a specific part of Japan.

I hope your Tuesday goes as well as mine did,

Oyasumi Nasai,

Tsuyoshi

God goes to camp

We are back...

Camp went really well this weekend despite the rain. It was a record number of readers for the Taga church at an LST camp. The accomodations were great, but the rules about the campsite were very strict in an odd, and sometimes frustrating and humorous way. The LST camp team did a fabulous job at running the camp. The readers had an excellent time, and really learned, discussed, and thought about God and Jesus. Kristina said eating the camp food (which was very interesting) was worth hearing her readers helping each other answer questions that they had about the Bible and about Christians. The talent show went great...Many of the readers participated, and everyone had a blast. Contestants did everything from stuffing their mouths full of marshmallows, to family singing ensembles. I got some great pictures, and some great memories too. :)

Today we had a day off before our last week here. We spent the day in Mito. We went to a famous garden, toured a famous Shogun-family house, and went to a Tokugawa (the first Shogun) family museum. We also got a little shopping done while we were out. It was an exhausting weekend, and day. I have excercised more here in a month than all year at home I think. We should all sleep very well tonight.

Have a great day, and I'll talk to you tomorrow,

Jeff

Goin' campin'

Well, we are getting packed, and washing our tennis shoes, so that we can use them in the gym tonight...(a very strange country for shoes). We will be leaving in about 15 minutes, and will not be back until Sunday night. I will not have e-mail access there, so I will have to write again when we return. I had an interesting experience at the post office this morning...I am getting better at communicating, even if I can't understand everything that is said to me. I also was able to get a haircut the other day...it was the first time my head had been vacuumed...Very interesting.

I hope you have a great weekend. We are going to be in a talent show at camp this weekend and are singing "God is bigger than the boogey man" in English and Japanese. Wish us luck...


I've got to go for now, but I'll write as soon as I can,

Tsuyoshi

Bean Burritos: the 5th food group?

Gooooood Moooorninnnnn from Japan,

Here is an update: Jake went surfing with me, and he rode one wave (not standing) and then had trouble fighting the current, so he basically swam in place for an hour. He has a lot more respect for surfers now. I was successful again. I got up a number of times...It's too bad the surfing isn't great in Texas.

The camp team has arrived. I know two of the six members already. They seem like wonderful people. Last night we invited two of them out for Karaoke so that we could get to know each other a little better before this weekend. It was a lot of fun as usual, and we sang so much, that most of us were losing our voices by the time we left. :)

Another one of my readers is going to come to camp now. She has been asking a lot of searching questions. She is an amazing person. I feel so close to all of my readers...I can't believe that I have only been here for 4 1/2 weeks. It is going to be bittersweet leaving Japan. We are getting a growing craving for mexican food, but man cannot live by bean burritos alone...

God is working here...and in new and exciting ways every day! Kristina's readers have been asking more and more questions about baptism and what it means to be a Christian. Be Encouraged! God is alive!

We are going to have an opportunity to continue our relationships with some of our readers throughout the year through a program called EBC4U (English Bible Class 4 U). Throught this program, readers will read, and hear a bible story online, will answer questions, and will e-mail them to a Christian who will in turn respond to them. It seems like a wonderful program, and it was created by one of the camp staff members that lives in Japan. If any of you are interested in helping Japanese people continue to learn about the bible, this would be a wonderful opportunity for you. Let me know if you are interested, and I can give you the information. Kristina and I will be taking on about 2 readers each for the duration of the year.

We will be back in Texas before we know it... I am looking forward to seeing everyone there again. I hope you are all doing well.

Walk in His footsteps,

Tsuyoshi

Shark guts

We had another great day in Japan...

This morning I woke up early to go surfing before our devotional. It is great excercise. The waves were bigger today, and we had to work pretty hard to swim out. I did much better this time. I got up several times. Jake is going to go surfing for the first time ever tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it.

After our devotional, or reading sessions went very well. Kristina had a breakthrough of sorts with one of her readers, and one of mine today seems very close to making the decision to become a Christian.

After lunch, the Mito LST team dropped by, and Jake and I walked with them down to the beach. They had their children with them, and they had a lot of fun. Some of them will be at our camp this weekend. (an interesting side note is that a peice of a shark carcas came up onto the beach when we were there...it must have been a very large shark...This happened just after the children's parents assured them that the water was safe...It was pretty funny)

Tonight, after our last reading sessions, one of Jake's readers taught Kristina how to play some Japanese board games. Jake, Julie, and I set up the ping pong table and played for awhile. Jake and I even had a tournament playing left handed. He won barely...It was a lot of fun, and a good way to relax after our day.

Have a wonderful day, and remember what is really important,

Tsuyoshi