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. 

Samuel & Airi (from Facebook)

Standing on our Promised Land with the lovely couple Samuel Kan and Airi Suzuki after we lost the battle at the lunch register haha

It was such an encouraging time and we had so much fun chatting in English, Japanese, and Korean, talking about life, ministry, and missions. Can’t wait to see how God is going to use this new relationship to bless the people in our community!

Big Project Update #3

And here's another one! :) This one had a little update on the demolition work being done on the site, but the main purpose was to remind our readers to send us their prayers for the Ministry Center. We are looking forward to putting them all together and having them be part of the foundation!

Big Project Update #2

It hasn't been long since we sent out our last update, but exciting things are happening so we sent out another one! If you didn't get it in your inbox, click this link to read the full newsletter. 

We're collecting prayers for the foundation of our Ministry Center. Please send us one if you haven't already. The deadline is this Sunday. Sorry and thank you!

Groundbreaking Ceremony (from Facebook)

 Hello, world!

I haven’t posted anything in such a long time!

As many of you know, God did some pretty amazing things in our life last year. We received permanent residency in Japan and started the process to create a Ministry Center and “Free School” in Fukuoka. The journey to building a Ministry Center has been long and hard, but God has been faithful throughout. We found land at an amazing price and were able to go view it even though the property had been taken off the market, and finally got a loan that only God was able to make possible. We experienced so many miracles during the past year! Thank You, God!

The blessings and miracles continue. Yesterday, we had a prayer-filled Groundbreaking Ceremony. It was a simple one, but one filled with so much joy and love as we celebrated this momentous occasion with some of the people who have been such an encouragement to us and have helped us so much, especially my four mommy friends standing behind me/Jiyeon in the group photo. I love them so much and am so thankful for them! I wish I could tell you a little bit about all of the special people in that photo. There were more whom we invited but couldn’t come and many more whom we wanted to invite!

We are, of course, so thankful for the many of you who have been praying for this Big Project and have supported this cause financially too! My Facebook post has two objectives today – one is to give praise for God’s amazingness and the other is to ask for your written prayers. We’re collecting prayer cards to put in a jar and bury in the foundation of the Ministry Center and “Free School”. It is literally going to have a foundation built on prayer! We’ve created a Google Form for you to send us your prayers. The link is below. For those in Japan, send us your address and we’ll send you a card to write your prayer on, or you can use the link too. Please send us your prayers by February 20th. That’s less than one week! Sorry for the short notice. We look forward to praying with you as we collect your prayers!

Our friends at Showa Kensetsu (construction company) came to prepare for the ceremony and also greet our neighbors to let them know of the ceremony and the construction work that will be starting soon, to ask for their understanding, and apologize in advance for any disturbance or inconvenience this may cause. Juhee took the photo on the far right from about halfway up the steps to the Shinto shrine next to us. The kids went up and down the steps to the shrine many times before and after the ceremony! I have no clue why they would torture themselves like that

Left two: Peter welcomed everyone and Pastor Kim translated from English to Japanese. Right two: Kikumi-san prayed the opening prayer and Pastor Miyauchi prayed the closing prayer and benediction

Peter did the ceremonious weeding with the ritual scythe, I did the ceremonious digging with the ritual shovel, and then our friends from the construction company did the ceremonious hammering in of the cornerstone (per se).

Prayer cards! We prepared little goodie bags with prayer cards and chocolate. Jiyeon had written hers before the ceremony and I read it out to those in attendance while explaining the prayer cards. Jiyeon wrote, "God, please make no spiders or cockroaches come. Amen. Jiyeon" There are a lot in the old white house on the property  In the evening, she wrote another one, this time focused on the kids who will be coming, "God  help the kids to be healthy" My point was, prayers don’t have to fancy, they just have to be from the heart

Big Project Update #1

Here's our first Big Project update! It's so hard to believe that we are property owners and that construction will be starting soon on the property! It's all God. It can only all be God. God and you! There's no way we could have done this on our own.

2021 Christmas and New Years Greetings

It's hard to believe that 2021 has already come to a close and 2022 has started. 2021 was the year that many were hoping COVID would no longer disrupt our lives. Instead, the numbers rose to alarming highs around the time of the Tokyo Olympics. Thankfully the numbers dropped and people in Japan were able to start breathing easier again. 

For us, there will always be a few other things that we remember when we think of 2021; obtaining permanent residency at the end of April, starting to look for properties in May, having 3 wisdom teeth extracted in May while Peter was away in CA for 5 weeks to see his sister, going to see the Yokohama property at the end of June soon after Peter returned from quarantine and putting in an offer, signing many separate contracts in July for the land with the house and for the empty land, our loan pre-approvals being rejected by bank after bank, making endless decisions about the layout of the house while waiting, looking into what kind of organization we should register for, having meetings with a licensed tax accountant, administrative scrivener, and a judicial scrivener, finding 4 directors for our not-for-profit general incorporated association, and then finally receiving loan approval in Dec. Praise God!

We experienced so many miracles and yet, there was one that we prayed for but did not see answered the way we had wanted to. A few weeks after Peter returned to Japan, his family said farewell to his older sister in June. It was hard for him not being able to be there with his family, but we are thankful that God allowed the time we had with her while he was in the US and the assistance he was able to give while she was in the hospital. 

2022 is going to be an amazing year starting with us receiving the deeds to the properties on Jan. 7th and construction beginning in January. If we don't have too many details due to COVID, hopefully, the property will be completed in May. While we await the completion of the property, hopefully, we'll have everything in place to register our not-for-profit general incorporated association and be able to register it as soon as the building has been approved and registered. While we're waiting, we will also be working on our logo, website, PR materials, and some sort of registration and interview process for the Free School. We'll also be looking into what furniture we want for the ministry center as well as all of the electrical equipment we need too. It's going to take a long time for us to research and purchase all of the things we need!

Please pray for us as we'll be doing all this on top of all of our current ministries which keep us busy full-time. Please pray for God to send a like-minded coworker to work with us in our ministries.

Here's the link to the newsletter sent out recently. I wish we could have written everything I've written here on there too, but they're always too long with other news :P Maybe one day this summary will make it into a newsletter. You read it here first! :)

Fall 2021 Update

Spring turned into Summer, Summer into Fall, and now Fall has turned into Winter. Here's our Fall update with a few of the things, people, and events that are big on our hearts and minds right now. 

We really appreciate your love and prayers!

Big News, Big Project!

It took us a long time to get this special e-newsletter out as we waited and waited for our loan to be approved. We started the process in May and here we are in October, still without a loan! Our loan may change the amount we need to raise - actually we hope it does! We'll know in about 3 weeks for sure (we think, but we've thought that a few times already), but we didn't want to keep waiting to let you in on the news and get your prayers for this big project!

We also went through many different versions of this newsletter, from super short ones with just the facts to long creative ones with amazing stories and (probably too much) details (for most).

Here's the Big News, Big Project newsletter. It's the biggest fundraising email we've sent out in over ten  years, since the time we were raising funds to come to Japan. As we wrote in our newsletter, this project is outside of our comfort zones! It's definitely a God-sized project. Please keep us, this project, and the people in our community in your prayers!

VBS Praise Report

Thank you for your prayers for our VBS! We had a wonderful time and it was so amazing to see the kids working so hard to memorize the 26 Japanese verses, one for each letter of the alphabet. Some even memorized some of the English ones, too! Praise God! :D

Please continue praying for the students and their families. Please pray that the Bible verses and the words of the songs will take root deep in their hearts.

Click here to read our full newsletter.