10-11월 소식지

10-11월 소식지의 일부분입니다. 이메일을 전체적으로 읽어 보고 싶으시면 연락주세요. 감사합니다~ ^^

Wednesday December 28, 2011

감사합니다!

안녕하세요!

지난 추수감사절은 저희가 받은 많은 축복들을 생각하며 하나님께 감사드리는 기간이었습니다. 저희의 일본 도착 일주년, 아사미나미 개척교회의 기공식, 일본운전면허 딴 것, 미국에서의 친구들 방문, 많은 사역 기회들 (사진: 10월에 주희의 반 아이들이 “I love you”라고 하고 선물 받는 것, 아래 "사역 업데이트"에 자세한 내용있습니다)등, 감사드릴 일들이 너무나도 많았습니다!

저희를 그 동안 계속 기도와 후원으로 함께해 주신 모든 분들께 큰 감사를 드립니다. 그리고 많은 분들께서 저희가 여기서의 사역이 가능하겠금 해주심에 하나님께 감사를 드립니다.

우리 구세주로 이 땅에 오신 예수님의 탄생을 기뻐하는 크리스마스를 보내셨음을 믿고, 주님과 더욱 더 친밀한 관계를 즐기는 새해가 되시기를 기도합니다.

신실하신 주 안에서,
Peter Oh 선교사 가정 드림

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year Card

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

This is the card that we gave to everyone at the two churches that we work with, Koyo Chapel and Kabe Chapel. Peter did the whole thing. Pretty cool, right (yes, I'm slightly biased)? :)

Last year, we gave a New Year card (Japanese give out New Year cards, giving out Christmas cards is a fairly new thing and not something commonly done) to just a few people, but this year, we decided to give it to everyone. And amidst all of the craziness, we just about managed it. Last year, our card was in English, even the names. But this year, the card was in Japanese and I even wrote some of the names in Chinese characters too. They looked like a kid's drawing and I gave up trying to write everyone's but it was progress... :P

THANK YOU everyone for your love and prayers during the past year. We seriously would not be here without you!!! May your Christmas be filled with much joy and your 2012 filled with much love and laughter, knowing that the babe in the manger died and rose again for us. May God bless you with much adventure, health, and wisdom too. May you keep your eyes on Him during the thick and thin.

Thankful for you and thanking God for you... :)

English Time - Christmas

In December, English Time (what I'm going to start calling it from now) at Juhee's preschool provided me with an opportunity to tell the kids the nativity story in English - twice! :)

(The one student not sitting down is a child with autism. There is at least one in each class at Juhee's preschool and a teacher's aide per class for these special students. This boy is actually from Sendai, where he and his parents survived, but his home, school, everything was ruined by the tsunami.)

I read them two books, “The Rinky Dinky Donkey” (thanks Murrays!) and “Peek and Find Christmas Story” (thanks Jeeyun!). One of their favorite songs during Christmas time was a song about Christmas from the donkey’s perspective. The lyrics are about how the donkey is not the strongest or the fastest, etc but was the one chosen and is happy (honored?) to be the one to labor for God. “The Rinky Dinky Donkey” was a fun way of reading them an English version of that song, was easy for them to try to follow, and fun to listen to as it's all in rhyme.

The “Christmas Story” book was also like that as the older students performed the nativity story as part of their Christmas Service. The kids were fascinated that an English book had the same story and also that there are different pronunciations of the same name, for example, that “yo-se-fu” is “Joseph”. They had fun calling out the Japanese name of the characters of the story and the older kids would sometimes put up their hand if it was the role that they played.

After reading them the books, I told them that we should be thankful to Jesus. I wish I could have explained more, but alas... :( I taught them all to say “Thank you, Jesus”, and after a few practice runs, everyone received a slice of gingerbread as they lined up by the door and said it to me one at a time.

When I told the kids that it was gingerbread, most of them made a face ‘cause they don’t like ginger! Ginger’s used a lot in Japanese cooking so I explained to them that it doesn’t taste like the taste that they’re used to. I also asked them to share with their moms as some moms lamented that they didn’t get to taste the pumpkin bread I gave out in November. :)

Oct-Nov Newsletter

Here's a snippet from our Oct-Nov Newsletter. If you would like to receive the full email, please email us or sign-up on the right hand column of this blog. Thank you! :)

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Giving Thanks

Thank you!

This past Thanksgiving season has given us an opportunity to reflect on the many blessings for which we are thankful: our one year anniversary of arriving (and surviving!) in Japan, the groundbreaking of the new Asaminami Church Plant, many ministry opportunities, obtaining our Japanese driver's licenses, encouraging visits from friends from America - and much more!

A BIG “Thank You!” to you, our friends and family, for your continued prayer and financial support. We thank God for you and for the vital role you play in reaching out to the people of Hiroshima, Japan.

(Picture: Tom helped with Kids' English Club during his visit; Jenny with her new Japanese drivers' license; our Team Leader, Scott, "breaking ground" with a wooden hoe.)

May your Christmas be filled with joy celebrating the birth of our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ, and a New Year full of the blessings of an increasingly intimate relationship with our Lord.

God bless,

Time with Friends

We had more friends visit us in December - yay! :)

Vincent & Bonnie came for a few days after Vincent's business trip in Tokyo. We were so happy they decided to tag on a few more days to their trip and fly down to Hiroshima to spend some time with us! :) Many of our Japanese church members were so surprised and happy to see Bonnie again (Bonnie came for VBS in August). Bonnie was able to reconnect with a couple of the young adults here and even went to a monthly English praise night downtown. Vincent got to meet some of the people that Bonnie and the summer missions team reported back on and see the churches too. They got to experience a normal Japanese worship service which was a first for Bonnie too as the Japanese churches had made changes to their normal service to accommodate for the American visitors. They even joined us for a team meeting and provided the corn bread to go with the meal! :)

Jessica T. (in pic with us) and Anita (in pic below reading with Juhee) came down to visit us from Tokyo, where they were missionaries with Cru (CCC). Jessica's grand-mother's grave site is in Hiroshima so it was a meaningful journey for her as she ended her many years of service in Japan and returned back home to CA.

It was great to be able to chat with the ladies till late at night and swap stories and experiences about being missionaries in Japan. Despite having traveled all night for two nights straight in night buses, and walking/hiking mi~les from early in the morning, they were still willing to keep me entertained. :)

Juhee and Sungjae loved playing with them too! Anita actually read a book to Juhee that we'd received months ago but hadn't read to her as it's in Japanese. XP

Jessica & Anita actually answered a prayer request too... A few days prior to them coming, I randomly really craved bagels. They're hard to find here and expensive so we haven't had any since moving to Japan. They were supposed to bring dessert for dinner the evening they arrived but they brought dessert in the form of omiyage (souveniors) from Kyoto (where they'd just come from) and lots of different kinds of pastry for breakfast the next morning - including a bagel! Guess who ate the bagel. It was heavenly. :) (I shared - a little bit. ;))

Juhee was over the moon that Jessica went to the bus stop with her early that morning. :)












As always, it was wonderful to have real friends that we could really connect with and communicate with. Times like these are precious and an immense blessing. :)