Money.. Matters...?

"The Christian should never worry about tomorrow or give sparingly because of a possible future need. Only the present moment is ours to serve the Lord, and tomorrow may never come. Money is really worth no more than as it can be used to accomplish the Lord’s work. Life is worth as much as it is spent for the Lord’s service." George Muller

-___-

This is a hard one. I read it on a friend's facebook status update recently and it came at a time when I was worried about tomorrow. We were losing monthly support (and still are) so I started worrying about a tomorrow that may never come. Oops... :/

I know some have questions regarding our finances so I'm going to write a bit of an unusual blog post... I hope this clears up some questions you may have. I was always curious about the finances of missionaries before I became one and I know some of you are so here goes...

When our budget to come to Hiroshima, Japan was created back in Spring of 2009, the USD to JPY exchange rate was just under 1:100. So this is the rate that our budget was based on, hoping that it would stay around about there or improve. However, it's gone steadily down and the average for 2011, our first full year here, was around 1:79 (went down to about 1:76, worst since WWII). In terms of our monthly support, we were at 100% for a couple of months, but then was closer to the lower 90's for the rest of the year. HOWEVER!!! Our home church, New Vision Church, promised to keep us at 100% for the duration of our first year and they came through on that promise. Yay!!! Praise God!!!

For those that are lovers of math, you'll know that even if we were at 100% of our monthly dollar amount, we weren't at 100% in terms of our Japanese yen amount due to the exchange rate. Did the bad exchange rate hurt us? Yes, and so we lowered our salary a bit, but we were good. :) One good thing about our monthly support amount is that some of it never leaves the US. Things like payments for our international health insurance and fees for Pioneers are dollar to dollar payments. Things like savings for annual regional conferences and savings for flights for furloughs remain in our US bank account until we need them. Hopefully when we do need to pull out large chunks of money for these uses, the exchange rate will have improved! (Pray pray pray...)

During the past couple of months, we found out that 2 churches are reducing their support, another one is potentially reducing its support, and that our biggest individual financial supporter (who supported us the same amount as our biggest supporting church!) will no longer be supporting us. We're down by about another $850 and we don't have the extra support of our home church this year. We also have to pay taxes in Japan every year now too. HOWEVER!!! I know that God will provide, that He already has people and finances lined up, and that we'll be fine. :) God has provided abundantly through many of you and for that we are really really truly grateful. It's so awesome and humbling to think that we're here in Japan doing the Lord's work and I hope that we will always be good, godly stewards of the gifts that many of our friends, family, and even people who we barely know, are so generously parting with so that we can be here.

Michael Oh, Korean-American missionary / founder of a seminary in Nagoya, gave a talk during the 2011 national Desiring God conference called "From Every Land to Every Land: The Internalization of Missions - Its Potential and the Price" (longest title ever!). This talk really inspired me and I learned a thing or two too about godly stewardship and being a Korean-American missionary in Japan. Francis Chan is another one that always challenges me too.

If you ever ever have any questions about financial issues, please do not hesitate to ask us. We don't want it to be a mystery. :)

Apparently, William Carey once said, “We will go down to the depths of hell to rescue souls if someone will hold the other end of the rope for us.” Well, you're that "someone".

I feel like I should end with a Bible verse about good stewardship... :) There are lots. But I think I just want to finish by saying thank you. Thank you to those who gave, those who are giving, those who may give, those who are praying for us, those who track with us, those who read our blog, those who send us care packages, those who love us and care for us. I pray that through us, you will truly be able to see God working miracles in our lives, those of the people here, and also in yours. Thank you. :)

February Birthdays

In February, we celebrated the birthdays of two of our Pioneers Hiroshima team members - Peter and Jess! Peter's is on the 13th and Jess's is on the 14th (yes, Valentine's Day), so we decided to have a joint birthday dinner on the 12th.

Dinner was our usual special occasion meal of pork (삼겹살) and kimchi stir fried. I'd saved a little bit of the kimchi that my grandma sent me from Korea back in November for this meal. I took it out of the freezer in the morning, but it was still frozen rock solid so I ended up using the kimchi that Jess brought for us after her trip to Korea, fresh from the motherland! There was no red lettuce at the supermarket when I went, so we ended up eating our Korean style BBQ meal with iceberg lettuce instead. Not quite the same, but still very yummy!

Juhee likes making little mini-wraps too and even uses the fermented-bean-sauce/paste-thing (쌈장). Juhee and Sungjae had the pork cooked pre-kimchi. :) Notice our kids soaking in photo-posing wisdom from Auntie Jess... ;)

Jess made delicious sweet mango pudding for dessert, something she tried and fell in love with during the Pioneers conference in Thailand that she went to in January. We got to be her guinea pigs. It was delicious!!! She brought tons.. and I ate most of it. =D

On Peter's actual birthday, we had a normal meal but then had birthday cake! Juhee and Sungjae helped me bake the cake and Juhee helped me decorate. Lemon cake baked with no eggs. I used flax seed as an alternative.

Juhee then helped me with the dishes that evening too! She's so sweet. :) Sungjae wanted to "help" too, but only because he's so competitive with Juhee and always wants to do / overtake whatever she's doing. Thankfully, Peter was soon able to distract him before he wreaked too much havoc!

On the 14th, Jess came over for a normal dinner and.. birthday cake! This time, I knew that I needed to leave the "frosting" (it's not really frosting, but it's a pretty good alternative) out so that it'd be spreadable. :P So Jess got frosting and lots of sprinkles on her cake.

Happy birthday Peter & Jess~ We love you~~~ :)

Been in Japan too long?

I don't think so. Not yet anyway. ;)

Here's a list of "101 Signs You've Been in Japan Too Long". Some are actually specific to the Tokyo area, like the ones that mention Shinjuku Station or turning off headlights at stop lights (hardly any one does that in Hiroshima, actually, I haven't seen it done here yet but Peter has). I don't even know what some of the points are referring to so I obviously haven't been here too long! :)

One thing they didn't have on the list was something along the lines of "when seeing things like pasta with seaweed, fish eggs, and uni (what's it called in English? ;) ) doesn't seem strange to you anymore (and you actually enjoy it)". This is the pasta that my friend ordered at Juhee's preschool class's mommy lunch. I actually haven't tried pasta with seaweed on it yet. Or pizza for that matter...

(A church elder's dinner at a Japanese restaurant near our place. Pizza on Italian style thin crust with seaweed. To eat this with: chopsticks...)

I do have one question though... Why do gaijin (term foreigners use for the word "foreigner", literally, "outsider") call gaikokujin (proper Japanese terms for "foreigner") "gaijin"?

It'll be fun to look back at this list in a few years and see if I relate to more, or at least, know what all of the 101 points are referring to. But some of them... Oh my... =DDD

Help Shine The Light

It's all the rage - on facebook! :)

We've created our first ever facebook "event" fundraiser page. Check it out here!!!

It's an "event" so it has a time and date, but it's actually a 15 day fundraiser to raise $10,500 for the LED cross that will be shining light from our new church plant, Asaminami Chapel, to the surrounding area. So your contribution, whether it be by just saying that you're "attending" the event so that we can get in as many newsfeeds as possible, whether it's by praying for the huge amount to be raised in 15 days, or whether you'll be giving financially, it will literally, help shine the light of Jesus, here in Hiroshima.

My sister pointed out that it'd be good to have instructions on how to send a check into Pioneers as our e-letter and facebook "event" page only give online giving instructions. Good point sis! :) So here's a form that you can click on, download, and print out.

Just in case you're wondering why the cross is so expensive and haven't checked out our "event" fundraiser page, here's a blurb to explain: "You may be wondering, just what kind of cross are they buying?? Much of this expense is due to the Yen-to-Dollar exchange rate: we lose 25% of the Dollar’s value when we move the money to Japan. This also includes fees from our organization to collect and transfer the money. In addition, things just cost more here. So no, there is no gold plating or diamond studding on the cross. Just a lot of light."

Thank you so much for helping us to shine the light of Jesus. Literally. :)

Not Mumbo Jumbo

During a recent grocery shopping trip, I bought a few pieces of pastry at one of the cheap bulk local supermarkets that I go to. They were having a special promotion on a few new items that they'd put in the refrigerated section and not the usual bakery section. They had THREE people standing by this little tiny section and when Juhee and I went up to make our selections, they were a bit flabbergasted 'cause we were speaking English. The lady who was taking our order didn't know what to do... :) The other two kept on commenting on how good Juhee's English is and how cool it was that we were speaking English. ;) They were impressed when I spoke Japanese too! =DDD Even though I spoke to the lady in Japanese, she barely said a word to me and didn't know where to look... :/

Anyway, she put my selections in a little box for me and I took it to the counter to pay. As I was moving the box from my cart to the counter, I noticed that there was English on it. I was expecting the usual random mumbo jumbo but instead, found a Bible verse!

I was SOOO happy, I almost went back to ask the 3 employees if any of them knew what this significant Bible verse meant or even where it was from. Half of my items had already been scanned, it's always a bit awkward going back in in a supermarket, we were already running late for lunch, I was pretty sure they had no clue where it came from and that I'd probably get stuck at some point while trying to explain because of my lack of Japanese, so I didn't. :( But it made me hope, and pray really hard, that at least a small, tiny proportion of the people who read the Bible verse on the box will google it (or yahoo it as is more likely the case here) and find out more about it. That would be so so so so awesome!!! :)

A missionary friend in Tokyo recently posted a picture on his facebook wall of a money tray at a crepe shop that had "Give us today our daily bread" on it. He explained to the clerk what it meant.

Seemingly random things like this remind me of God's goodness, His omnipotence, and His promise. They give me hope, joy, and make me excited. :)

He will reign victorious, His name will be known everywhere. His ways are amazing and perfect.

If you ever hear of a Japanese person who got saved through a Bible verse on the side of a box full of pastry...

Nothing is impossible with our God. :)

One Last Lunch

On February 3rd, Juhee's class had another "Observation Day" for the parents (mostly moms, but there was one dad!).  We were given instructions in a letter (written by Haru-chan, one of the older kids) and 4 "tickets" to purchase items with...

There were tickets for snacks, accessories, dolls, and decoration.  The kids were told to keep everything a secret and I could tell she was bursting to tell me everything.  She was very excited! :)

When I got there, I was greeted by this sign on the door of the school's "Hall", which said "Tsuyukusa (name of Juhee's class) Town".

Unfortunately, upon entry, I wasn't allowed to take pictures but I was in for a wonderful surprise!  The kids were split up into the four categories listed above and they pretended to be workers in shops selling those items.  They were so cute!  They even had little bags for the little items that they'd made.  They'd made all sorts of things out of origami paper, felt, yarn, beads, toilet paper rolls...  And it was pretty good stuff, too!  I got a bracelet, "purin" (a Japanese pudding type dessert), a laminated decorative piece, and a doll.

After the "Tsuyukusa Town" bit was over, they put on a talent show.  They sang a few songs together - a song about the donkey that carried Jesus, one about housework (laundry!), and one which has "bang bang bang" in the chorus and the kids absolutely love - which were super cute.  Each child also had an individual piece.  The younger kids went up on stage one at a time to show and explain what they made and some of the older kids did things like hula hoop, acrobatic moves, etc.  It was fun!  I was very impressed. :)

Afterwards, the moms and some of the younger siblings, went to eat lunch together at a Japanese-y pasta place.  I'd never been there and was surprised at the fancy Japanese-y atmosphere of a pasta place.  They also had a kids' play room next to the room we were in which was nice.  Sungjae and I shared a lunch set.  It was salmon and bacon with basil in some sort of Japanese-y oily sauce.  It was yummy but very, um, oily... ㅡㅡ;  Sungjae loved it, ate most of it, and got his hands very oily. ^^;;;

My friend had the one below.  A sea urchin, seaweed, and fish eggs pasta... Definitely one you won't find in Italy!

 Most of the moms got their drinks toward the end of their meal, including me.  I ordered ice yuzu tea (유자차) as I'd never had an iced version before.  The moms were all shocked that a Korean had never had it before as most Japanese people think of yuzu tea as being a very Korean thing. :)  Again, Sungjae loved it and drank most of it. :)

Below is a picture of the English speaking mom (right) in Juhee's class that's been translating for me during Juhee's first year of Japanese schooling and another mom (left) I got to know pretty well.  I am eternally grateful to her for the huge amount of help she gave me.  I thank God for placing her son in the same class as Juhee.  I definitely could not have done it without her!  Not sure what's going to happen next year when she moves to Yokohama 'cause of her husband's transfer... ㅡㅡ;

The moms of Juhee's class for the 2011-12 academic year minus a few.  They were very gracious, patient, and understanding to a mom who was often lost. :)

English Time - Hallelujah

“What does Hallelujah mean?”, I (Jenny) asked. After practicing “Happy New Year!” in English and Korean, counting from 1-10 (easy) and 10-1 (not so easy), and then reading them the suspenseful ;) kids’ story, “Ten Little Ladybugs” (thanks Stoutamores, they loved it!), I posed the students at Juhee's preschool this question and received very unexpected answers. :) “It’s a nice day!” and “Sunshine!” were just a couple of them.

Each month, Juhee’s preschool has 4-5 new songs that they teach to the students. At the end of previous month, all parents receive a plethora of paperwork which includes the sheet music for these songs. I guess so that the parents can familiarize themselves with the songs their kids are being taught at school? I don't know. Anyway, :) one of the songs for January, was “Hallelu, Hallelu, Hallelu, Hallelujah, Praise ye the Lord”.

(This is part of the standard paperwork that I receive monthly from Juhee's preschool. The top left song is the one I sang with them. The song underneath is about mochi. :) The one on the top right is called the "Calendar March" (as in ka-len-da ma-chi) and goes through the months. The one below it, is about kite flying. If you look really closely (or click on the pic to enlarge), then you can see my notes. The word for kite is the same as that of octopus. :/)

As I know this song in English (obviously ;)) and Korean as well, I decided to sing this with them during my English Times with the three classes this month. It was a great way for me to teach them the meaning of the word Hallelujah, a word that they often hear in a Christian preschool (a group of about 40 moms sang the whole Hallelujah Chorus for the 3 Christmas services!) but don’t know the meaning of. I told the teachers in advance and by the time I went to do English Time with the three classes on the 25th and 30th, they knew the song well. We sang the “Hallelu/jah” parts together and then I sang the parts in the different languages. The kids and teachers were fascinated. I asked them which parts of the song were the same and which parts were different.

(Close up of the Hallelujah song. We only sang the first verse together. After the class, a couple of kids pointed out to me that there's a second verse too... =D)

And now, hopefully, they’ll always know what “Hallelujah” means. Hopefully one day, they will truly praise the Lord when they hear/say/sing it. Small steps, small seeds. :)

Baking Together

When I have the time and energy, I like to bake (cake mix out of a box!!!). And when I have a big dose of motherly love and patience on top of all that, I try to bake with the kids. It was great when it was just Juhee and me. Now, it's a bit complicated, 'cause Sungjae wants to get in the action!

These are pics from when we were baking brownies for one of the single brothers at one of our churches who speaks English and helps us a lot with lots of things. He loves chocolate. Brownies were a rare treat (and a Korean spicy pork BBQ dinner too). :)

They were taken with my iPod so apologies for the poor picture quality...

Juhee's turn to mix while Sungjae waits (not so patiently).

Break for a quick picture.

Sungjae doing his v-sign (can't do it yet so always does it with just one finger :)) but his mind (and eyes!) are elsewhere...

OK, enough with the pictures already...

I want to mix too...

Not my turn yet?

It is now!

Juhee proudly showing mommy / the camera their nearly finished brownie mix while Sungjae starts to get upset that it's not his turn anymore.

Juhee pretending to eat it, Sungjae getting more upset 'cause he wants to mix again.

=DDD

Had to stop taking pictures so I could take Sungjae off the table and give him one more turn before I shoo-ed them out of the kitchen. :)

He likes standing right next to me while I'm chopping and likes standing really close to the gas stove and playing with it too.

Cooking is definitely an interesting challenge these days... :/ Hopefully I'll at least be able to bake with the kids now and again and it'll become more fun, less challenging as we do it together. We all love cake, it's expensive here, and it's something (potentially) fun that we can do together. Trying to create fun memories... :)

New Year's 2012

Just in case you were wondering, they don’t celebrate Lunar New Year here (anymore), but there’s much festivity around January 1st. It’s a great time for families to get together. Our regular Sunday School at 9am was cancelled and worship time was even pushed back from 10:30 to 11:00 so that people could enjoy the morning together with family (note: Christmas Day service was at 10:30, Christmas Party was straight after, lasted till 3pm!). Many people were traveling so were not there that Sunday but there were also some new faces of family members who live elsewhere.

How did we celebrate New Year's as a family?

Well, on New Year's Eve, before dinner, I actually started making Korean kimchi pancakes (김치전) and Korean seafood pancakes (해물파전) for us to eat on New Year's Day for lunch after church. But it all got devoured that evening... ^^;;;

Jess came over and we had a great time together eating Korean food (I think there was something really random on the table too but I can't remember what it was...) and watching Kungfu Panda 2. It was so funny!!! =D Apparently Jess had fun watching me watch the movie too. -__- I think I surprised Juhee at one point 'cause I got really excited, squealed and squeezed her a bit too hard (she was sitting next to me). =D

New Year's breakfast was a quick toast, sausages, and eggs and then we rushed to get ready for church. After service, those that could stay a bit longer enjoyed a bowl of red bean soup with mochi inside, a staple in the Japanese New Year's menu. It's kinda like Korean red bean soup (팥죽) but it's (really) sweet, more soup-y, and instead of small round pieces of rice cake, there's one big rectangular chunk of sweet rice cake (mochi). Koreans eat it with a spoon, Japanese people eat it with chopsticks. Koreans spoon it out of the bowl, Japanese eat the mochi with chopsticks and slurp/drink the red bean soup out of the bowl. It's really hard to feed kids without getting messy and sticky. Thankfully, they had a few spoons available for those with kids - phew!

We (Oh's + Jess) slurped it up and then all came back to our place for the most basic, the most staple of Korean New Year's food - rice cake & dumpling soup (떡만두국)! I'd only made it once before so it was slightly experimental but it turned out delicious (if I say so myself). :)

I had so much fun during those two days and was so busy relaxing, I forgot to take pictures of us. :( At least I got one of the soup... ^^;

It was really nice to have someone to celebrate New Year's Eve and Day with, especially while being able to enjoy delicious Korean food like 김치전, 해물파전, and 떡만두국 together. ^^

Kids in Hanbok 새 해 복 많이 받으세요~ ^^

새 해 복 많이 받으세요~

아이들이 한복 입고 찍은 사진 몇 장 올립니다... ^^

우리 공주님과 왕자님 ^^

"절하는 방법 가르쳐줄께~ 잘 봐~"

"이렇게 똑바로 서서..." 우와~

이렇게? ^^;

마음을 따뜻하게 하는 해맑은 웃음 ^^

공주마마의 잠깐의 휴식시간~

한복을 제대로 입었을 때는 둘이 동시에 절대로 안 하더니만
결국은 걸리작 거리는 건 다 벗고 놀다가 드디어... ㅡㅡ;

2012년, 새 해 복 마~~~니 받으세요! ^^

(여기에 클릭하시면 더 많은 한복 사진들을 보실 수 있습니다.)