A few facebook posts...

Now and again I write updates on facebook.  Here are some that I wanted to remember/share on our blog too from the past few months:

December 24th
Sungjae doesn't speak a whole lot of English, he mostly speaks Japanese, but there are a few things he always says in English. One of them is "Mmmm~ smells good!!!" I love it when he runs into the kitchen, says "Mmmm~ smells good!!!", asks me what I'm making and then asks me to pick him up so he can see. 

Well, today, after bath time, he had to go #2. So while I blow-dried Juhee's hair, he did his business. When he finished he called me so I could wipe him. However, I forgot to take a big breath BEFORE going in so nearly passed out.  He very innocently asked why I was opening the window and informed me that it's cold. As Juhee passed by the downstairs toilet to go to our bedroom upstairs, she said, "Ewww! Stinky!" A few seconds later, Sungjae followed her up the stairs and said, "Mmmm~ smells good!!!"

I have a daughter and a son. Love them both. Stink and all.  

December 10th
need to sleep... it's one of those nights. i have so much to do but my brain's too tired and too wired all at the same time. sleeping late tonight is not going to help me be effective (nor nice/patient/not-cranky) tomorrow... turning off my laptop, going upstairs and lying down might help... 


i leave you with a photo of one of our family's newest menu items. i don't know what this fish is called  but i had it at a friend's house and it was good so i tried grilling it for dinner too. i'm the only one in our family who's willing to eat the heads though. hopefully the others will start eating the whole fish soon too!

(lots of friends replied to inform me (in 3 different languages) that the fish is called "shishamo".  i later found out too that this type that always has eggs is not the original but a specially bred type.  original shishamo do not have eggs all year round.)

November 21st
Made a big pot of chili, first one since Spring. Been a while so forgot the onions - oops! Still tasted good and got thumbs up.  A big pot of chili used to last us at least two meals. Now it only lasts us one and a half... Must be because I forgot the onions!

(A few of my Japanese friends actually came to ask me about this one. It was hard for them to understand... ;P)

November 20th
Yay! Visa renewed so we're ok for another three years. US driver's license renewed ONLINE so ok for another five years. Everything here still seems to be in-person and paper/cash/stamp-based so being able to renew such an important document/ID card online was like a dream. 3 years ago things like that to us were normal, now they seem like amazingly high tech luxuries! 


Been drizzling the last few days even though my weather app's been telling me that it's only supposed to be cloudy. God, please don't let it rain tomorrow. My little Sungjae's really really looking forward to his field trip to the zoo... May tomorrow's rain all fall now and may there be no rain tomorrow. Clear blue skies would be a bonus. 

October 6th
Juhee's first tooth came out. She was so startled when it came out that she came to us crying holding the tooth in her hand. 

October 4th
Recent quotes from my precious little Juhee...

"So what happens when my baby tooth falls out?"
"An adult tooth will grow in where the baby tooth used to be."
"But I'm going to go to Elementary School! I'm not going to be an adult yet!"

Juhee didn't want to eat the small pineapple chunks in the yogurt dessert I made. When I told her that that was going to be her afternoon snack, her reply was "But I can't eat pineapples. I'm allergic."

"Mommy, you're allergic to apples, right? But how come you can't eat them? 'Cause they make you laugh?"
"Huh?"
"You said it makes you feel funny."

I love my little Juhee   

October 1st 
For me, praying and planning for the summer teams that came - the events, planning, the people who would attend the events, the cooperation between us, Hiroshima EV Free church, and the summer teams, the fund raising, budgets, etc - started last winter. Today, we treated the pastors, wives, a full-time volunteer staff member and his wife, and our PI team to lunch, followed by a time of giving feedback re STM2013. It was great to be able to discuss things openly in an environment of mutual trust. Everyone's objectives were the same: to be able to do even better next time, to be more efficient and effective in reaching out to the people of Hiroshima. It's great to be around people who are willing to hold a newbies hand, who are willing to take the time to explain, who are willing to try new things and even take a risk. I thank God for surrounding me with people that I can grow and learn together with. It's humbling to be here! 

(Didn't put this pic on facebook, but this is what my meal was. A special udon with egg in it as it was during the Moon Festival period. In the fall, lots of restaurants in Japan have egg-themed food, including McD's with their Moon Burger (or something like that). We have yet to try it, but apparently it's not bad.)

September 25th
my ice-cream-loving little three year old was eating his creamy strawberry popscicle and about 2/3rds of the way thru, looked at it and sadly said, "大きくなってない" ("it's not getting bigger") 


i had a good chat with juhee's teacher last week. she told me that both the bully and juhee have "leader" qualities, one of the reasons why the bully has thought of juhee as a "rival" from the beginning. juhee's teacher said that the bully recently realized that the way she leads is not good and is in fact, turning kids away from her. she's realized that if she *doesn't* hold the other girls' hands to keep them by her and tell them that they have to play with her and cannot play with juhee, then they *won't* play with her because she's bossy and aggressive. but with juhee, kids just naturally tend to be around her and want to play with her. the teacher said that the other kids are now rallying more to support juhee too as they're also learning how to deal with bullying and are becoming less afraid of the bully. juhee's teacher said that the bully herself, is trying to change. it obviously won't happen overnight, but we're grateful for any signs of improvement. 
thank you everyone for your prayers!!! please keep praying for our little ones. 

September 11th
  God is amazing. Who would have thought that all that time spent watching Sesame Street would help a 16 year old boy with autism enjoy his English tutoring class and help the teacher to be able to understand him better. Who would have known that Elizabeth Yang coming to visit would have opened up such an amazing opportunity and more. God's plans are always so awesome and mysterious.    

Urgent and Important

There are too many things that I have to do.

A lot of them are urgent and important.  Urgent to the point that they should have been done yesterday (like my Annual Ministry Report), or last month (like the ministry & financial report in Korean that was due 6 weeks ago).  It's not really OK that I haven't met these deadlines.  It's not really OK that I haven't finished my 30 units of Bible Study that I was supposed to have completed by earlier this month.  For goodness sake, they gave me 5 years to do them and I'm not even half way through! :(  It's not really OK that we haven't written to our Korean supporters for almost a year, especially when more than half of our 13 supporting churches receive their newsletters in Korean and a lot of our prayer support comes from them.  School paperwork and payments need to be looked through and paid.  It's not really OK that I've had to ask for more time to submit Juhee's preschool class's yearbook entry either.

And these are not things that anyone else can do for me.

I used to be so good with deadlines.  I was never early :P but I wasn't late either.

But now...  I can't seem to meet most deadlines...

There are lots of things I have to do.

A lot of them are urgent and important.  Groceries need to be bought, healthy (and sometimes not-so-healthy) meals and snacks prepared, obentos made, laundry washed / dried / folded / put away, house cleaned, bigger clothes / shoes bought, kids washed, Juhee needs to be taken to and picked up from after school classes, school and church meetings need to be attended...

Some of these are things that can be done for me.

So sometimes, we eat out.  And now, hubby always does the dishes.  And sometimes, he folds and puts away the laundry.  He always takes care of the vacuuming and the trash.

I had to do a load of laundry in the evening yesterday 'cause Sungjae wet his pants as he woke up from nap time at daycare.  His sheets got wet too.  And if anything gets soiled, the teachers rinse it so he came back with soaking wet clothes, sheet & blanket in two heavy plastic bags.  He has more than one blanket, but he only has one sheet that covers the bed-thing and I didn't want soaking wet things in plastic bags smelling like rags so I had to wash it all last night.  I started the laundry and then went up to put the kids to sleep - and ended up falling asleep.  I woke up when Peter came back from Wednesday night prayer meeting and thought about the laundry that needed to be hung up to dry but immediately fell asleep again.  I woke up a few more times in the middle of the night thinking about the laundry but was too tired to get up.  I thought about how nice it would be if Peter realized that the laundry was still in the laundry machine and hung it up to dry...  It was such a pleasant surprise to find all of the laundry hung and dry when I came down this morning!!! :)  Praise God for awesome hubbies!!! :)

There are still too many things I have to do.

But I'm grateful that I have a hubby who helps out at home and friends that I can go to for help too.

I'm being broken and humbled.  I'm being challenged and stretched.  God is growing me and making me better.  And I know that sometimes, even though I think I might fall apart 'cause of the stress, pressure, and urgency of everything, I know I'm not going to break.  'Cause my God is a loving Father... :)

.......

I'm so not looking forward to the report that needs to be completed in Korean...  I never had to write big ministry or finance reports in Korean until we became missionaries...  I opened it up before I opened up our blog just now 'cause my head knew that it has to be done and today's the first time I've had time to do it in months.  It's one of four documents that make up one report for one church that was due over a month ago...  So I really shouldn't be writing a blog post, but I needed an outlet. :)  My heart needed to write about normal stuff before having to go into report mode again...

OK...  I think I'm ready now. :)

Love you and miss you my friends! :)

January Focus

Happy New Year! :)

You know those times when you think about doing something so often you end up getting confused as to whether or not you actually did it and then you end up thinking that you did? Well, that's what happened with "December Focus"... Sorry!

December was a super crazy month and so we were grateful for less craziness towards the end. Well, it was less craziness in terms of church-ministry but was more craziness in terms of family-ministry as the kids were at home for winter break. We had fun doing stuff together and just relaxing sometimes. It's great that the kids are a little bit older and so they sometimes sleep in till 8:30 or 9am and they can go downstairs, turn on the heater, and play by themselves / read before I follow them downstairs. It was so nice to have a few relaxed, slow mornings!!! It was really nice to be at home with the kids too! :)

Well, the kids started back at kindergarten / daycare today, so I started prepping last week and this morning was still a crazy one! I love my kids but it was nice to have a bit of alone time this morning. :P

Juhee finishes kindergarten in March. Please pray that shewill enjoy her last three months! I can't believe it's been almost three years since she started and she could only say a couple of words in Japanese. And now, she's one of her class's leaders and the teacher often asks her to help the new kids that come in during the year, like the new girl who started today. Pray that fights / bullying will be kept to a minimum and that she'll graduate kindergarten with lots of memories of fun and laughter!

I received a whole bunch of paperwork today that I need to fill in for Sungjae's daycare application. All of it is due by the end of the month. It requires help from other people, so pray that everything will be done smoothly and on time too. There should be no problems in Sungjae continuing at his daycare but just in case, please pray!

Peter starts back at his Friday morning 3-hour Japanese lessons this Friday after their winter break. Pray that he'll be able to build relationships with the people there and that it'll give him the listening & speaking practice he needs to supplement his book-learning at home.

This Friday I'll be teaching English for the babies & toddlers' "Smile Club" in the morning and then my two "Kids Brown" classes in the afternoon. I still need to do a lot of prep for the new book and materials, so pray that I'll becomfortably ready (do you know what I mean?) by Thursday evening.

Peter's preaching on Saturday, 25th during the Asaminami Bilingual Chapel service, so pray for his sermon prep and the interpreter.

During January, I'll be focusing my "English Time" at the four classes I volunteer at at Juhee's preschool, on the song "Hallelu, hallelu, hallelu, hallelujah, praise ye the Lord". It's part of their curriculum for this month. I'll be singing it with them in three languages - Japanese, Korean, and English. I sing the language specific parts and they sing the "hallelu, hallelujah" parts. I did it two years ago and it was a hit. Hopefully it'll be a hit this month too! And hopefully, the kids will remember "hallelujah" and that God is a God of all nations and understands all languages!

This might seem like a bit of a trivial one, but we would appreciate your prayers... There's a Japanese kids' game using a stick and a ball called "kendama". The oldest kids at Juhee's preschool all have kendama lessons every month and will be tested on it next month. Juhee's the only one in her class who can't do it and her parents aren't of much help! Peter's been trying to learn it and he's getting the hang of it, but isn't at a level yet where he can really teach her how to do it. Juhee's classmates are pretty good at it! Pray that Juhee will at least be able to do enough to pass her kendama test next month. :/

Here are some BIG prayer requests for 2014:

1. That we finish our first term well. We are expecting it to finish in March 2015.

2. That we will remain open to following God's leading in terms of where He wants us to be during our next term (2016~2020ish), who we will be partnering with, and what ministry He wants us to be focusing on. This will probably involve traveling, lots of talking with lots of people, and LOTS of prayer so please join us in prayer!

2. That we are able to prepare for our furlough well. In addition to trying to live a normal life here during the next year, taking part in our various ministries, and trying to discern our next steps, we will also be needing to prepare video presentations, ppt presentations, marketing material (magnets, brochures), scheduling with churches / small groups, scheduling with PI HQ, trying to find out where we'll be staying, what we'll be driving, where Juhee will be attending Elementary School and ballet classes (if at all?), where Sungjae will be going to daycare (if at all?), etc, lots of logistics. And this is in Seoul and San Jose as we'll be in Seoul for a couple of months before flying to the US. So much to coordinate... Sigh... Praise God for friends like you who constantly intercede on our behalf! :)