February Focus

Happy Lunar New Year! :)

Hope all of you have had a great start to the new year.

At the end of January, my parents ended up visiting for a few days during Lunar New Year as my dad had a few days off. It was my mom's third time visiting us, but my dad's first. Things have changed a lot since my mom visited us twice within our first six (very stressful!) months here so it was good for her to see things again. It was also her first time going to the churches we work at as she wasn't able to the first two times she was here. It was a super busy but great visit and the kids are a few more toys better off than they were before going to Toys R Us with their grandparents ;) Our fridge-freezer is much better off too! :)

Peter also preached at the end of January for Asaminami Bilingual Chapel. It was his first time preaching for ABC, the new church plant. He continues tolead praise at each of the Saturday afternoon services and will now be taking part in small group preparation classes every other Saturday after the services too.

Peter turns a year older in February. Happy birthday hubby!:)

I'll be teaching English at "Smile Club" again this Friday, 7th, at Asaminami Chapel. There are some new friends of mine coming this week so please pray that they will continue to come, even on the days that I don't teach English.

My two "Kids Brown" Friday afternoon English classes continue this month and it looks like we'll be adding a new class from the new school year in April - yay! The class will be on Thursdays and taught by one of the attendees at Asaminami Chapel.

Peter continues to attend Japanese conversation classesat the local community center. Pray that he'll continue to make good connections there with the students and teachers and that his Japanese listening & speaking skills will continue to improve.

I'm doing lots of prep for Juhee's Elementary School this month and I'm thankful for the other moms that are willing to do things together with me and share information with me.It's great to have friends around! :)

Towards the end of the month, I'll be teaching my last two "English Time" classes at four of the classes at Juhee's kindergarten. For the oldest kids who will be graduating next month, including Juhee and her buddies, it'll be my last time with them. I'm so sad!!! :'( I pray that God will continue to bring them to Him and that maybe through English classes or a continued interest in English, or some other way, that they will continue to be connected to good Christians, Christian organizations, and churches who can share the love of Christ with them continuously as they get older. Please pray with me for these precious kids!!! NONE of them are from Christian homes.

Pray that I'll be able to complete my Annual Ministry Report and that we'll be able to get out newsletters in both English and Korean this month. They're high on our priority list but somehow still somehow managed to get pushed back with all of the urgent needs. Lots of prayers for this one please!

Peter and I are going through 2 Corinthians during our couple devotional times. Reading this reminded me of all of you who continue to check in with us and pray for us and the work here: "For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. You also must help us by prayers, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many." 2 Corinthians 1:8-11 We don't feel that we've "received the sentence of death", but we do often feel "so utterly burdened beyond our strength". Thank you for your prayers. It's great to have people around us that we can share our burdens with and that we can rely on for prayers. Thank you. :)

Thank you so much for your constant prayers and encouragement. :)

Our Monthly Support is now at 85%! The support from approximately 50 individuals/families giving regularly + 16 churches currently make up our ongoing Monthly Support. THANK YOU!!! :)

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! :)

크리스마스 & 새해 인사

크리스마스와 새해 인사 메일 보냈습니다. 못 받으셨으면 연락 주세요! ^^

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

We sent out our annual "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!" email. Let us know if you didn't get it. :)

Thanksgiving & Christmas

Haha, my blog post titles are so boring! :D  They're so straightforward.  I have friends who become energized by being creative.  Creativity drains me.  There was a time when it didn't, but well, people change.  I still like writing though and wish I had more time to share stories and pictures.

Anyway...  I wasn't going to prepare a Thanksgiving meal this year, but it felt weird to not eat turkey and it seemed like such a shame to miss an opportunity to enjoy a meal with friends.

Last year, we had turkey at least 3 different times.  We ordered our pre-baked boneless turkey from Costco's online website in Japan and baked a tiny 4 and 1/2 pound one in our oven too.  We had a great time celebrating Thanksgiving at the Ladies' Thanksgiving Party at Kabe Chapel, and with fellow American missionary families in Hiroshima and during the Ladies' English Class Christmas Party, both at our home.

This year, we were able to just go to Costco and buy one of their pre-baked boneless ones - yay!  We enjoyed a belated Thanksgiving dinner with two other couples on the Sunday following Thanksgiving.  For one couple, it was their first time at our new place and the first time we'd had them over since last Thanksgiving.  For the other couple, fairly new friends, it was their first time at our house and the two couples had never met.  Three of the four are Japanese who have spent over 10 years in America and are fairly Americanized.  One of the fun discussions that evening was when they were talking about things that caught them off guard about Japanese culture when they came back, aka "reverse culture shock".  The older couple shared how hard it was for them and their kids to fit back and their kids never did...  They didn't fit back in America either when they returned for college.  The older couple shared that their lives and the way that they related to many things, cultural miscommunication, etc all made more sense once they changed their thinking - they were really "foreign" missionaries in their "own" country, not just Japanese people who had returned "home".

Juhee & K-sensei; our Thanksgiving Dinner plate - mashed potatoes, turkey, gravy, cranberry sauce, baked mac & cheese, and salad with Dr. Pepper; us and our American-Japanese missionary friends

And here's our Christmas tree!  People here have Christmas trees in their homes too, but they're all fake.  They're also of various sizes and colors, although I guess they tend to be on the smaller side and most are green, but you can get some that are white too.  Juhee's friends had been telling her about how they already put up their Christmas tree and so Juhee had been bugging me for a couple of weeks.  Every time Sungjae sees anything Christmas-y he says "It's Christmas!" :)  This year, for the first time, the kids decorated the tree on their own.

Sungjae loved putting the ribbons on the tree, mostly all in one area :/ he very proudly showed me how similar his decorated tree was to the tree on the box "They're the same!" ^^; Juhee enjoyed decorating the tree too and the two enjoyed decorating themselves with the ribbons too! ;P

After I took these two, I was going to take one more when Sungjae said "Wait! I'm going to go to the back!" And in a very big-boy like manner, he went and stood behind daddy and patiently waited for me to take a picture... My little baby's growing up!

Chronologically speaking, the Christmas photos should have come first, but that just seemed not right.  We had our Christmas tree up before we had our Thanksgiving meal and listened to Christmas music while eating it which was a bit weird, but.. it worked. :)

After being in a country where they put Halloween decorations on Christmas trees, Halloween things and Christmas things are sold together in shops, and Thanksgiving in between the two doesn't really exist, we're not too particular now on the how and when.


And here's a Japanese-y Christmas photo for you that I took the other day while driving (hence poor photo quality, sorry!).  I've seen many many Christmas lights both in the US and in the UK, but I haven't seen many with hearts and umbrellas!  The other side was pretty spectacular too.  Christmas lights around homes/apartments isn't very common here so it was surprising to see one that had so many (the other side was pretty extreme) and such Japanese-y ones too!

The lights around our house haven't gone up yet and may not go up this year.  Peter's still deciding.  TBC... :)

Sept-Nov Newsletter

Yay! We finally sent it out! Let us know if you didn't get it. Click here to see it online. Thank you for your prayers and support. :)

Newsletters, newsletters, newsletters...

So...  Our Sept-Oct newsletter has now become a Sept-Nov newsletter.  Our monthly newsletters became every other month and now sometimes they're quarterly. :/  At least we do get out newsletters in English...  We've been really really bad with our Korean newsletters this year...  Really bad...  We've only sent out TWO.  It's been at least six months!!!

As our newsletter for this month is starting to become too long (and I keep on having to changes tenses from future to past...) I'm going to post up a few of them as blog posts, lengthened from their original succinct newsletter versions and with more pictures too. :)  I'm going to back date them though so for those of you who don't get our automated blog update emails, here are a few posts that have been sneaked in...

Deepening Relationships
Finishing Well: STM2013
All Asia EV Free Conference

There may be more later, some that are more personal.  There's always tons I want to blog about and share with our friends and family!  When I see God working in and through our family, it really makes me want to share.  I want to share the blessings that He is pouring out onto our family.  And sometimes the not-so-awesome things too.  I guess I do a bit on Facebook...  But we need to do newsletters for churches/missions committees, for supporters not on Facebook/online, and for our missions agency.  It's hard to keep things succinct in newsletters.  Actually, that's one of the hardest things about writing newsletters.  There's always too much I want to share.  I love sharing! :)

A few months ago, we had someone unsubscribe from our newsletters saying that we send them out too often...  I was kinda surprised... =D  A couple of months ago, we had a friend visit and she confessed that she didn't read the ministry parts of our email and skipped straight down to the Family Update section! =DDD

Anyway, we're very grateful for everyone who keeps up with us on our blog, newsletters, Facebook, email, KakaoTalk, iMessage, etc. :)

Hoping to get two newsletters our within the next week... :/  Pray for me please!!! :)

Random photo collage for you...

Juhee's new haircut.  She goes to get her haircut 1-2 times a year but she hasn't had her hair cut this short since her first ever haircut when she was just 2 and a 1/2.  She wanted to get it cut short so it wouldn't take so long to dry it in the evenings after bath time.  Very practical. :)

November Focus

Hey! Thanks for keeping up with us on our blog. :)

For some reason, I couldn't update this little mini side section last month, but I'm going to try again this month.

Let's see... For November, could you just pray for wisdom, endurance, lots of energy, and health please? I also want to thank you for your prayers. As I was "reviewing" last month's Focus post (while fixing the spacing problem ^^;), I realized how your prayers really sustained us were such a blessing to us, that God really answered your prayers. Thank you!!!

November marked a few milestones for us - I turned a year older, our 3-year anniversary since arriving in Japan, 5 years since our Vision Trip to Japan and our first ever outreach event in Hiroshima, and 7 years since Peter and I got to know each other... :) Praise God for His leading, every step of the way! :) 

Juhee had her 2nd ever ballet performance at the beginning of this month and she and her little friends were so cute! It was stressful with all of the extra lessons & rehearsals, sewing, hair, and make-up, but they did a great job and she's loving ballet more and more. This time, prep started at 12:30 for a 2pm performance, and was at a location within walking distance from Asaminami Chapel, so we were able to go easily after church. 

The day after the performance was a national holiday so we invited the ballet families over for dinner. 2 out of the 5 families couldn't make it, but it was just right. It was great to have them over for dinner, to just sit and chill, for the kids to have so much fun playing together, and for the dads to get to know each other too! One super-shy dad didn't say a word most of the time, but finally opened up towards the end... About 3 hours after he and his family arrived at our house! We prayed before the meal and talked about God during the time too. I haven't been able to host in a long time so I was super glad that God somehow made this happen. Thank you God! 

This month, we have Bonnie visiting us again for a weekend. Her third visit in three years! Next month, we have the Chu family visiting us and it's their third time in three years too! Both are helping us with our ministry here. Bonnie's bringing over a guitar that Peter will be using while leading praise at the Asaminami Bilingual Chapel + a suitcase full of items for 7 of our Christmas events this winter. The Chu's will be bringing over some stuff too and helping us during 3 of the events. We're looking forward to their visits! 

Asaminami Bilingual Chapel (no longer Asaminami Bilingual Service) has now started! The official start is the 23rd, but as of the 9th, prayer meetings have begun taking place at 4pm on Saturdays. Pray for the PI Hiroshima Team as they lead this new adventure that God has laid before them. 

 Asaminami Chapel will be holding their annual Kids' Christmas Party on the 30th. Last year they did one but it was packed, so this time they're having two - one in the morning for 0-6 year olds + moms and one in the afternoon for the elementary school kids. Pray for all of the prep that's taking place, pray that we'll be able to get enough people together to pass out flyers at all four gates of the elementary school adjacent to the church, and that we'll have enough people to help out at the event. Pray that the kids will have a great time, will want to come to church again, and that most importantly, that they'll learn the real meaning of Christmas. 

There are Christmas events that I am a part of at the kids' preschool too (like reading to the kids and singing in Handel's Messiah as part of the "Hallelujah Chorus"!) so pray that God will use me.. for something, somehow. :) 

There are lots of other things going on too, but those are probably the big ones. :) Thank you so much for your constant prayers and encouragement. :)