English Time - I am Special

The March English Time was the last time I got to teach English to the oldest grade level kids in the 3 classrooms I go to at Juhee's preschool. Was that sentence a bit confusing? Let me explain a bit. Juhee's preschool is Montessori style so there's a mixture of three age groups in each class. 3-4 yr olds, 4-5 yr olds, and 5-6 yr olds. Elementary school starts at 6 years of age. Japanese public preschools only have the upper two classes. Private schools have all three. Juhee's preschool is a private Christian school, or what they call here a "Mission" school. It's still wa~~~y cheaper than anything that we could find in the San Jose for preschools. Praise God!

I started out by reviewing "I love you" (lesson from Feb) with them. I was happy that most of them remembered. :) We then reviewed 1-10, which is easy, and then 10-0, which is not so easy. I then counted for them from 1-10 in Korean, German, and Spanish and they repeated after me. It was fun seeing the kids and teachers do the typical Japanese "eh~?!" thing as I mentioned which language we were going to do next. =D I spoke about how there are lots of different languages in the world and asked them to name a few too.

This month's Bible verse was, I thought, from 1 Cor. 3:6 "I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow". Bit unusual, right? I didn't find out till my first lesson that the verse written on the monthly letter for the parents was a typo! Oops! Well, I'd already planned my lesson around the "but God has been making it grow" part and the kids had memorized it too 'cause the teachers didn't even find out till later in the month. So I kept with my lesson plan. :)

As I was praying about which book to read to the kids, God lead me to a book that we used to read to Juhee when she was just one. A short, simple book that has one picture on the left and one sentence about that picture on the right, but in FIVE different languages - English, Spanish, Japanese, Italian, and Hebrew! Kinda random, right? One of the pictures is of a doll lamb and the words that go with it are "I love you, lamb" so it was good for them to see "I love you" in use. But, most importantly, the last page is a "mirror" that you look into and say "My name is ..." a very useful phrase to know. That last page was my link to the Bible verse...

God not only makes everyone grow, He also made everyone. Everyone is special and unique. I asked if any of them were the same. I asked if two people who had the same name were the same. I asked if two people from the same family were the same. I asked if twins who looked the same, were the same. No, no, no, no. I told them that's it's because God thought hard about how to make each and every person on earth and so everyone is special and unique.

I asked them if they knew what "special" (in English) meant. I knew that most of them would have heard the word before because they actually use it a lot in Japanese (just pronounced slightly differently and stretched out to FOUR syllables!). Their answers ranged from anything from cheap to pretty. :) After a few more hints, a kid in each class eventually said the word for special in Japanese - yay! After establishing the meaning of the word, I taught them "I am special" and "You are special".

One funny thing was that I read the first page in all 5 languages and then the rest in just English and Japanese. When reading the first page, I read the first line then told them that that was English. Then I read the second line and told them that that was Spanish. I read the third line and asked them what language I just read in. It was so cute watching their faces think really hard about it when I'd just read them a sentence in Japanese! Was SO cute. The teacher's were smiling too. :)

I am so grateful to God for this lesson. In a country where so many suffer from a lack of self-confidence and lack of hope, but is made to comply and to suffer on one's own due to a culture of self-reliance and not knowing where or to whom to turn to, knowing that one is special, unique, and was purposefully made, is I think really important. In Japan, someone commits suicide every fifteen MINUTES. That's a crazy statistic. It's an unacceptable statistic.

For the kids that have now moved on to Elementary School, my lesson might have been too little too late, but hopefully combined with all of the Bible verses and head knowledge that they've acquired during 3 years at Samuel Yochien, seeds were planted on good soil and it'll stir up something in their hearts someday and will them to find out more about this God that made them special.  For the kids that are still there, you can bet your bottom dollar that I'll be reviewing this lesson now and again! :)

My name is Jenny.
I am special.
You are special.

"I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful. I know that full well." Psalm 139:14 (NIV)

You and I are special because God made me and you. He sent His son on the cross to die for me and you so that we can be reconciled to him.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16 (NIV)

<3

One more on Triple Disaster...

Very early on Monday morning, we had another earthquake here in Hiroshima. I think it was my fourth during the past year. It wasn't strong enough to wake up the kids or Peter, not even the friend we had visiting from back home. Earthquakes used to be fairly rare in Hiroshima. Apparently not any more. I can't imagine what it must be like to experience a 9.0 earthquake, and many more aftershocks, multiple times per day, everyday, for months... To live through the trauma that comes from such an earthquake which created a tsunami and so so so much devastation.

Right before the first anniversary of March 11th, a teammate down in Fukuoka, wrote one of the best March 11th specific newsletters I've received. Click here to read. Shortly after the anniversary, Hiroshima teammate Jess, wrote about it on her blog (click here).

After I posted the last one about the Triple Disaster, I was thinking about what I posted and realized that the teammates that I had mentioned that had already served up in the Tohoku region all had one thing in common: they are not moms. :) My time will come. And in the meantime, I will pray, and hopefully post update now and again on our blog so that we will not forget them and definitely not forget to pray.

Thank you for joining us. :)

More Triple Disaster Media

Here's a few more...

My heart is so full of sorrow. But also joy that hearts are being opened and that so much is being done. One thing that really touched me and has stayed with me is a sentence from the Franklin Graham Tohoku Celebration interview in my previous blog post. When the tsunami happened, the military and Christians "came". The Christians "stayed".

We're not part of the IMB, but we are part of a Southern Baptist church back home and I thank God for big organizations that can coordinate so much and provide so much relief. Here's an article and a video from the IMB's AsiaStories.com website.

For those of you in the San Jose area, here's a movie that you can go to watch in selected AMC theaters only on Wednesday, March 14th.

Missions agency SEND has a ten year plan for church planting up in the Tohoku region. Asian Access has a Disaster Relief Network which will focus on house/organic churches, creating a network that will both equip people in Japan, and provide a contact point for international relief to enter Japan. Pioneers has given approx $30,000 to a single church, Uchigo Christ Gospel Church in Iwaki City, to help them rebuild on the land that their church was on, right outside of Fukushima's radiation "no-go" zone. CRASH, Samaritan's Purse, the list of Christian organizations that have not left and continue to pour in human and material resources, love, and lots and lots of prayer is amazing.

Unlike Peter, Jess, Scott, and most other Japan-based missionaries that I know, I haven't been up there yet. But God has given me a small link at Juhee's preschool. There is a 4 year old child, same grade as Juhee, who has autism and is a survivor. He and his parents moved from Sendai to Fukuoka and after being in Fukuoka for 6 months, moved to Hiroshima. Two days after they arrived in Hiroshima, the boy started at Juhee's preschool. That same Monday, there just so happened to be a meeting with all of the mom's of Juhee's class that the mom was able to attend for a short while. She stood up front and gave a bit of background, most of which I could not understand. In typical Japanese fashion, she apologized and asked for understanding.

Despite our language barrier, she's very open to me and always tries very hard to communicate with me, and even to try to assist in my communication with other moms. I think one thing that opened her up to me is when I told her that my brother also has autism.

I pray that someday (preferably soon!!!), I will be able to connect with her on a more deeper level and find out more about her and her family, to be able to share with her the hope and joy I have in Jesus.

I also pray that someday, God willing, I will be able to go up to Tohoku myself.

In the meantime, I ask that you keep checking in on the progress and definitely definitely definitely keep praying, and giving too... <3

Pray for Japan

The first anniversary of March 11th, 2011 is near.

As the time nears, there are many events taking place in and outside of Japan, many articles being written, documentaries being aired...

Of those that I've seen so far, I would like to guide you to two.

1. This one is a youtube video from Prayercast.  It's actually from last May, but it's resurfacing again as the anniversary draws near.  The blurb under the video quotes the Christian percentage of Japan as 1.56%.  Usually, the percentage quoted for "Christians" (including Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Catholics, etc) is 1.5-2%.  That of Evangelical or Protestant Christians is usually 0.5%.

2. This one is an article written about two men who attended the Billy Graham Evangelical Association's Tohoku Celebration of Hope 3-day event last weekend.  Click here for the article and here to find out more about the who, what, where, when of the event.  The line-up was apparently amazing!  1,800 came on the first evening despite snow.  The number approximately doubled the second night.  The third night, more than 5,000 people came, again, despite snow.  The article moved me to tears.  Tears of pure joy and thankfulness at the awesome way in which God is so obviously moving in this country.  Awesomeness!!!

When March 11th happened, we were at a "home center" buying stuff for our house.  We'd arrived in Hiroshima, Japan just a few months earlier.  When we found out what happened, we felt quite helpless and wondered why God sent us to Japan at a time when it looked like all foreigners were thinking about evacuating.  But during the past year, God has shown us how much He loves the people here, how much He's longing for the people of Japan to turn to Him, and that He's got the Holy Spirit working hard in this country.  He's also shown us that we're needed here and that He sent us here to Hiroshima intentionally, in November of 2010 intentionally.

Pray for Japan.  Pray for the missionaries, pastors, all of the Christians in Japan.  Pray that we will be salt and light.  Pray that we will be able to share the Good News.  Pray that those without hope will receive hope.  Pray for healing - physical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual.

Pray, pray, and pray again as we share of the Risen Son in the Land of the Rising Sun.

Jan-Feb 2012 Newsletter

Yay! We finally got one out! Phew!

Here's a little preview... Let us know if you would like to receive the full e-newsletter and we'll gladly send it to you. :)

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Thank You!

We can't say thank you enough for all your thoughts and prayers, your emails, care packages, and encouraging notes that we've received during the past few months. We are here as an extension of you and would not be here without you. Thank you for your support and for your partnership in this ministry to those in Hiroshima, Japan.

God bless,
Peter, Jenny, Juhee, and Sungjae

Asaminami Church Plant

Construction of the church building is almost complete (click here to see pictures), and the first worship service is slated for Easter Sunday. We're all very excited for the start of this church, and have been praying for many to come to know the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ through this new church. Please pray for the various outreaches we are planning, and that many would come and see, and spread the word. One of the outreaches that we have planned is an after-school English lesson for Elementary School kids (church is right next to one!). Peter will be teaching two classes every week.

Praise God for raising up generous givers toward the Hiroshima Cross Project! We are happy to announce that as of Feb. 29th, 68% of the needed $10,500 has been provided for. The Japanese Yen to US Dollar rate has also greatly improved which will add value to your contributions. Praise God! Thank you for your prayers and support. If you would like to help shine the light in Hiroshima through the purchase of an LED cross for Asaminami Chapel, and help meet the financial need of the remaining 30%, please click here to go to the "Global Projects" section of the Pioneers website (type in project name "Hiroshima Cross Project" and account number "150599") and give online, or click here to download a form that you can print out and send in with a check to Pioneers. Thank you!

The picture above is the LED cross on top of Kabe Chapel. Asaminami Chapel will have a very similar one. It's really bright!

English Time - I Love You

February's theme was "I Love You". Perfect for February, don't you think? :)

The Bible verse for the month was "Love your neighbor as yourself." Juhee's class had memorized it in English and Japanese and another one of the classes memorized half of it in English - "Love your neighbor". =D

I taught them, "I love you" using hand motions - "I" point at oneself, "love" make heart shape with hands, "you" point at someone. We did that a few times and the kids loved it when I pointed to them. They would give me a shy smile. They were so cute! :)

The book I'd prepared to read to them was "Snuggle Puppy! A Little Love Song" which was sent to us by Pathway Bible Fellowship, the English Ministry of our home church in Milpitas, as part of our Christmas care package. I'd sent my Amazon wishlist and they delivered! The wishlist was made up of books that I wanted for our kids that I thought might also be able to come in handy for English teaching. I'd been reading this one to Juhee at home and had come up with a cool rhythm (wouldn't go so far as to call it a rap... =D) to kinda read / sing it in.

Before reading the book, I had them practice "Oooo~" and "I love you" a few times as it comes out in the book and I wanted their participation. I told them to look out for lots of "o"s together and that that's when they had to say "Oooo~". I cued them in on the "I love you"s by saying "I" and pointing to myself and pausing so we could say the rest together. There were big "Oooo~"s and small ones so we said them in big voices and small voices. We had so much fun! :)

I'd also taken with me the singing dog that teammate Jess's parents had sent to Sungjae as his Christmas present (and the super soft scarf that I'm wearing for me!). We had one that had been handed down to us while we were in San Jose, but it got mold on it during the rainy season so we'd had to throw it away. :( But God provided us with a new one! The dog also just so happens to say "I love you" so I had the dog say it a couple of times which fascinated the kids. The kids were even more surprised when they found out that not only does the dog speak English, it sings in English too! :) They were very impressed. ;) I taught them the vocab for "Head, shoulders, knees, and toes" and we sang together with the dog. It's a song that they're already familiar with so they had a great time doing the motions and singing along.

Thank you Pathway and Jess's parents for providing ministry tools! :)

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. :)