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. 

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.