Amazing Times

(She's suddenly started noticing these days that some of her toys are.. uh.. not dressed. So one day, she was playing with her polar bear, stops, rushes to our room, rushes back with a diaper, puts it on top of the polar bear trying to figure out how to get the diaper on the polar bear, and then eventually looks at me with a big smile. She was very happy when I put the diaper on the polar bear. All of her "naked" toys have diapers on them now. :D)

April so far has been just absolutely amazing!

We sent out our March newsletter on April 1st, a day later than we wanted to. So it started out a bit disappointing, but then everything changed...

Very soon after we sent out our newsletter, we had a sister from Pathway Bible Fellowship reply to the email saying that they were interested in hosting a Small Group Gathering but wanted to find out more info first before committing. PTL! We were so nervous about whether or not we should even ask in the newsletter about hosting Small Group Gatherings. But as we were praying through these types of decisions, God really gave us peace about communicating our heart and allowing the Spirit to move people to respond. It was really exciting and encouraging to get a reply back so soon.

On April 3rd, Friday, I had a wonderful evening catching up with my pastor's wives friends and meeting new ones too at the Pastor's Wives Fellowship. We had such a great time we didn't want to leave! We could've kept talking all night. But duty called... :) We were so pampered physically (luscious food provided by Pathway's Women Ministry), spiritually and emotionally.

The following Monday - Wednesday we spent preparing for our first ever speaking engagement to an all-adult crowd at Pathway's Singles Cell Group. There were so many things we wanted to share we nearly got into an argument! We shared together, which was fun and we ended up adding things we hadn't anticipated and not sharing things we'd planned on sharing. The listeners were open and responsive and we really appreciated their timely laughter, funny faces (esp when I was explaining parts of the Japanese bathing culture!), and attentiveness to what we had to share. Peter did a great job setting up the display table too (while I stayed in the car with Juhee for a bit while she was napping). We didn't have our camera with us so we unfortunately didn't get any pictures but we'll definitely have to take some on April 19th when Peter preaches at Pathway. If we forget, someone remind us please!!!

After we spoke, Kevin Ch came up to me and spoke to me about an idea he just had. We still need to figure out exactly how, but it seems like God's leading him in some way to help me with the 15 units of Bible I'm required by Pioneers to complete, whether it's as an encourager/pusher or as my Independent Study teacher! Either way, it looks like I'll finally be starting my studies too - yay!

With Juhee going to daycare, I'd finally been able to read through the DMV (US version of the DVLA) booklet and practice on a few sample tests. So on Friday, after we dropped her off, we went to the DMV and I took my California driving theory (or what they call the "written" test here) test - and passed! Yay!!! We had In-N-Out as our celebratory lunch. :)

When Juhee and I went to the Easter Egg Hunt at SCVJCC on Tuesday, I saw the poster for their Good Friday service and as it was earlier than ours, the church is closer, and we wanted to catch up with a few friends and hopefully meet some new ones, we decided to go to the SCVJCC's service. We're so glad we did! We had such a good time and it was good hearing Japanese again. It was good to meet more members of the church as the mums who attend the POPs group are mostly non-Christians / not members of SCVJCC.

Slowly but surely, more and more is happening, and it's so exciting to have this momentum! It's so awesome to take part in the things God has planned for us in this journey, as we seek to follow Him step by step. :)