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Last Friday, we had to go to the property because the on-site manager wanted to check something with us. The floor plan for the loft already had a wall to the right of the stairwell, but the carpenter and on-site manager had different ideas as to how high they thought the wall should be. So us two + the on-site manager climbed up the ladders to the little loft and sat there crouched in the dark discussing the best option for that one wall

Jiyeon really wanted to go see the progress, so I picked her up from school by car (which you’re not supposed to do) and drove straight to the property. Almost all of the exterior and the flooring is now done! The carpenter said we got really nice floor boards Unfortunately only about 1/3 of the property will have the nicer floor boards, but at least it’s in 1/3 of the property, right? I also told him today that is possible, we would like to use some of the leftover floorboards to fix the floor of the corridor in the old house and he smiled and said he understood. It’s so nice to have a good relationship with your head carpenter

While Jiyeon and I were there, our carpenter said, ”Oh, btw, your older brother dropped by the other day to look around” I was like, um, I don’t have an older brother and I don’t have any family members in Japan. The junior carpenter burst out laughing. Head carpenter said, “What? Really? Maybe he’s your husband’s?” I said, “No, he doesn’t have any family members here in Japan either” He said, “But he said he’s family and we even stood outside chatting and smoking together. He’s from Saga and Korean-Japanese. He looked about 70, so I guess that would make him too old to be your older brother.” We all had a good laugh

We have NO IDEA who this mystery man is. If you know, please let us know

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Today was our 2nd monthly Korean outreach and we had over 20 come today too. We reviewed some things from last time and learned a lot of new things! The kids song for today’s lesson was 곰 세 마리가 Despite having spent most of my life outside Korea I’ve probably sung this song complete with motions thousands of times. Even our kids know this song and the motions too because I’ve sung it with them so often since they were little. It was so fun teaching it to everyone there today!

Also posting Jiyeon’s sermon notes from tonight and last Saturday I tell her what she needs to write and explain the words and story to her. I help her write everything correctly and then she draws while I finish dinner prep in the kitchen while listening to the sermon. She did such a great job tonight and last week. Really hoping she’ll continue doing this!

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We had our first meeting yesterday! Kikumi -san who is on our BoD and Nao, our one and only staff member, came to our house to discuss the topics we want to cover with the staff when we go to visit and learn from a few different free schools during the next few weeks. We also talked about how we’re going to do some things at our school too.

Exciting beginnings! Still a lot to pray about, research, discuss, decide, create, buy, put together, etc, but it’s great to have made an actual start! It’s not just an idea on paper anymore - eek and yay!

Next month, we’ll be having a bigger meeting with all of the friends who have offered to volunteer too. I’m sure not everyone will be able to make it, but it’ll be exciting to have most everyone together and to share more about the vision and specifics of the school.

Heart feels like it’s going to burst when I think about how amazing and exciting this is! So humbling too, to think that God would use us for something so big and so awesome!

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I WALKED to the property today! Big round of applause please! I walked slowly, taking photos of things that I hadn’t noticed before because I’m always rushing here and there in our car Even then, it only took me 15 minutes to get there

So… our ユニットバス “unit bath” is in! It took two workers a total of 4-5 hours to finish our bath/shower area. Apparently it’s a pretty standard size but it seems so small! We wanted a small one because it’s hardly ever going to be used and the only reason why we have one at all is because it was a stipulation for our loan, but I didn’t think it’d be this small! The ones in the showroom didn’t seem this small… Anyway, it’ll be fun seeing our guest’s reactions when they look inside The bathtub is the old type - small and deep. I hope guests don’t start feeling claustrophobic while showering

We also now kind of have a ceiling in almost all of the rooms! I don’t know what it’s called… It’s like the ceiling panel you put up before the actual ceiling panels… Our flooring has also arrived and is stacked inside the house. Yay! A few other things were delivered while I was there too. Trucks were going in and out all morning. So thankful that things are going smoothly now Praying that things will continue to go well!

 

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First, a few photos are from last Friday morning when I received a phone call asking if we could come to make a final decision on the ceiling of the chapel room. It’s still kind of hard to see how it’s going to end up when it’s all done so it’s been hard to decide, but Peter thought of a compromise between their two suggestions and we’ve decided to go with that.

The next few photos are from Saturday afternoon when I peeked in for just a few minutes. There were so many more wires and tubes everywhere and a new floor plan too.

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Hope you’re all enjoying the sound of frogs croaking in fields close to you too

Saturday morning, we went to the new property to review where all of the electrical outlets, lights & light switches, and AC units & outlets would be located. I thought it would be a quick 30-minute walk through the house, confirming everything would be as we’d planned while we were discussing this very thing during one of our many 2+ hour long meetings. Wrong! I should have known by now that these meetings always take much longer than I think they will This one took nearly two hours too

It’s definitely different when you’re walking through the house and seeing where things are going to be in relation to the actual doors and windows, etc. It was still hard to determine whether the location of the outlet was in the best location in some of the rooms as we don’t know what will be going where, but we were able to determine that some things needed to be moved

There are a few things we need to decide on soon like the oven(!!!) so they know whether the outlet needs to be a 110V or 220V one

Still have some other big decisions that need to be made soon with regards to the property too! Like whether or not we’re going to have a cross on the outside and its size if we do get one. The biggest problem is actually WHERE we’re going to get one

Less than two months left now for us to raise the remaining amount. Like He’s done so far, we know He will provide the rest (and maybe more, too)

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COVID brought about a lot of changes in our lives, one of which was the start of our Saturday evening English services at home. It’s usually our family + 1~3 others.

I recently asked Juhee and her friend who comes most weeks to start taking notes of Peter Oh’s sermons for us to discuss during my pre-Grade 1 Eiken English class with them. I decided to ask Sungjae to start taking notes too to help Sungjae to try to stay awake and to help improve his English too. Today, I asked Jiyeon to write something too! She can write in Japanese, but not really in English yet, so I just had her copy a title from the passage Peter preached on today and then had her draw something related to what she wrote. She did a great job!