Heading back (from Facebook)

After an AMAZING time as always at the annual Christar Retreat, we are finally headed back home. We are so thankful for the wonderful Christar missionaries letting us crash their party.

The time always flies by so fast and we always return home so physically, emotionally, and spiritually nurtured!

Even Sungjae who was a bit worried that he won’t enjoy it for the first time ever because his best MK buddy wouldn’t be there had a great time too. How could you not when you’re with such a joyful bunch of people?! Hopefully next time we won’t have to wear masks and will be able to see each other’s faces…

Thankful for new friends we made at this retreat too. So wonderful to get to know more and more coworkers here in Japan.

It’s hard to believe we’ve been gone from home for 6 days… After 2 years and 5 months of no travel, 6 days seems like such a long time. Looking forward to being back home. Not looking forward to the mounds of laundry that will have to be done tomorrow.

On our way again

Napping with Marshall

We brought lots of pillows and blankets for this long trip in anticipation that they’d be well used

Leaving Hiroshima (from Facebook)

On the road again after an absolutely wonderful fun-and-love-filled encouragement-and-prayer-filled flew-by-way-too-fast three days

Next time, definitely need to stay longer!

Next stop - Christar Retreat up in the mountains of Yamaguchi prefecture with the wonderful Christar missionaries!

Leaving Kyushu (from Facebook)

The Oh’s are off the island!

Most of us haven’t even left Fukuoka prefecture in the past almost two and a half years. SO HAPPY to be going back to our hometown Hiroshima to visit some of our old friends and finally get some overdue administrative work done. Wish we could meet ALL of our friends and catch up, but our time there this time is too short. I think we’d need at least a couple of weeks to do that. Hopefully someday that’ll happen! But for this trip, just a few short days before we head to Yamaguchi prefecture.

Hiroshima, we're coming home!

New types of Fukuoka souvenir snacks

Got lots of Menbei too, MENtaiko (spicy pollack roe, a Fukuoka specialty) + senBEI (type of rice cracker)

Juhee stretching before the long car ride

On our way to our beloved hometown Hiroshima!!!

Fundraising for kids in Fukuoka (from Facebook)

For the second year in a row, our students raised money for the thousands of kids in Fukuoka who do not get to eat three meals a day or get to go to other classes after school like most other kids. It was so heartwarming to see them bringing ¥100 coins from their allowance to put in the donation box!

Last Saturday, we were privileged to host 田口吾郎さん Mr. Taguchi CEO of NPO いるかねっと during our monthly Kids’ English gathering. This extremely busy man with a big heart took time to come talk to our students and receive the very small donation compared to the amount he receives from major companies. He shared with us about their work which has expanded a lot even in the past year since he last came and shared with us.

Mr. Taguchi said that there were just 8 volunteers 10 years ago and now they have hundreds, most of them giving of their time in between their full-time jobs. I challenged our students to also become adults who give of their time and blessings to help those in need. We pray that our students will not just learn English, but also learn to look outside of themselves, see the needs of other people, and DO something about it.

Thank you, Mr. Taguchi and everyone at いるかねっと for all of your hard work! God bless you!

Mr. Taguchi’s presentation and me presenting him with the small donation full of love from our students

Lunch together after the gathering at one of our new favorite restaurants, the one and only Korean restaurant in our neighborhood. It was great to be able to hear from him more about their work and also get advice from him about starting a Free School and food bank later this year. We’re looking forward to working more closely with Mr. Taguchi and his staff at いるかねっと!

Missionary fellowship (from Facebook)

 (Late post from Sunday.) So blessed to be able to spend time with these senpai missionaries to Japan! So thankful for the time of fellowship we were able to enjoy! Thankful for like-minded coworkers we can share our burdens and pray together with.

Looking forward to next time when there will be instruments and singing involved. Excited to see how God is going to continue to work through and in each one of us for His love to be known here in Fukuoka.

Yay for food and fellowship!

Need to have game time…

Girls played with our Sylvanian Families set. So sad I didn’t get any photos of Lumi and Jiyeon playing together before they left.

With the Ayatsuka’s on our Promised Land

Little by little...

Foundation of prayer (from Facebook)

 Prayer cards are in!

On 3/10 around 10am, we went to the construction site to bury your prayers in the foundation of the Ministry Center. Thank you to the many of you who sent in your prayers!!

I was going to use a glass jar to put them in, but in discussion with a few friends, I decided that something that would biodegrade would be better. We’re not going to be digging them back out at any point, it’s more environmentally friendly, and we love the idea of the prayers seeping into the earth and spreading throughout the Promised Land, spilling out through not just our neighborhood, but also all throughout Fukuoka, Kyushu, and all of Japan!

Please continue to pray for the construction work, that it won’t get delayed anymore, that there will not be any more mistakes made, for all of the logistics that still need to be figured out, and for the big massive truckload of things that need to be done before the opening scheduled for sometime beginning August

The ES newspaper group moms and I finished our newspaper work early so I asked them to stay and help with the prayer cards with the promise of lunch. They helped so much! I made copies of everything because many of the prayers were SO NICE!!! I also printed out all of the prayers I’d received electronically after changing them into different fonts and colors. I wanted to be able to look back at them and also be able to show them to those that visit and are interested. I’m planning on putting them all into a scrapbook one day. It was also awesome that the moms stayed to help because they read me a lot of the prayers cards written in Japanese which I couldn’t read

Left top and bottom are the cards we received from most of the people who attended the Groundbreaking Ceremony. Some were double sided hence two photos. The colorful cards on the right are all from Hiroshima!

I put all of the prayers cards in an envelope I’d written some Bible verses on.

Covering up the hole and then making it nice and flat

The first part of the name of our general corporate association is いいと. It has a few different meanings which I won’t get into here. The one on top has a drawing of a door. The と in いいと is door and いいところ is a play on words of the name and literally means “a good place”

Cement blocks saga (from Facebook)

 I’m on a roll!

Can’t remember the last time I posted so often on Facebook.

Here’s a progress update on our Big Project. I’ve been going almost every day to check on progress, mostly because I’m so excited and so curious, and take photos. Well, last weekend’s photos confirmed that the cement blocks on one side of the property had been put up in the wrong location! So on Sunday, we had an emergency meeting with the people in charge and after apologizing profusely they said they’d be knocking down the current one and rebuilding them. And now, they’re almost done! Next step will be to start working on the foundation, but we’re not sure yet when that will be. There’s a shortage of carpenters and the head carpenter needs to be decided before they start any work related to the actual building. Hopefully soon!!!

The day we got the property. We recently found out that those bare pipes and the water pipe tied precariously onto a rusted nail with a wire are actually the ones that provide the water supply to the old house. One of the previous owners didn’t want to pay to have it done properly. We told our contractor that we do want to have it done properly and not have bare pipes out in the open. It’s going to cost extra, but it’s gotta be done! Our contractor is in negotiations with the various people he needs to talk with to try and minimize the cost for us.

The demolition process was very slow. I’m sure it was very loud too! 

Photo on the left is the one I sent to our contractor asking him to check if the new cement blocks were being put up in the right location. He confirmed that our x was correct and that having the blocks in that location would not just take away some of the valuable space on the property, but also cause problems with the architect’s plan of the property. The misunderstanding came from the fact that we have to legally leave 40cm from the road right in front of the property to anything we do (plant, build, etc) on the property. Instead of measuring 40cm from the road, the builders measured 40cm from our neighbor’s wall

Clockwise from top left. Big picture changes during the past almost two months. 

The new cement blocks are going up! They have a wooden pole and green string to mark exactly where the wall is supposed to go. Yay! Top left photo was taken from the upstairs balcony of the old house while I had some people looking around inside for quotes.