Hello Friends and Family!
Be full of joy in the Lord always. I will say again, be full of joy.
Let everyone see that you are gentle and kind.
The Lord is coming soon.
Do not worry about anything, but pray and ask God for everything you need,
always giving thanks.
Philippians 4:4-6
Our Daily Lives
It's been a while. How are you all? We had our 3rd year anniversary on July 12th, this past Tuesday. Yeah! Wow, it's amazing that it's already been three years. Time really goes fast. It's been a busy and adventurous three years too. We've lived in Japan for almost 2 1/2 years now. God has blessed us with a lot of great relationships here.
We're surviving through a very hot and humid summer. Granted it's not as hot as Oklahoma right now (over 100 F). It's been like 34 C and very humid, like 60% humidity, which means everyone is just wet with sweat. After a while you get used to it, especially when we have to live with it outside and inside. I was so happy when my vice principle decided to turn on the air conditioner in the teacher's room today at about 4:00 pm. The Japanese people think it's unhealthy to go from hot to cold or vice versa, so they like to keep the outside and inside about the same temperature. Which, I do see the truth in it - going from one extreme to the other, but surely there's a happy medium... But most places, including people's homes, do have air conditioners, but they are only for one room. They don't have central air and heating like in the states. The schools have windows for every room, which they keep open in the summer and run fans in each room, so that does help a lot.
We have our AET summer training the last week of this month and another 3 days in August. This first term's classes are almost finished. Most of us have finished teaching English for this term, so next week and anytime that we're at work during August, we'll be preparing for the fall term.
We are planning to visit a few places in Japan this Summer break - Osaka, and possibly Kyoto and Hiroshima. We also plan to help with the August camp session for Hitachi Bible Camp. And we will get together with one of my co-workers at her house. She's going to show me how to cook some Japanese food. I went to her house once before and we had tea and talked (using English and Japanese). She's very kind to me at school. She's a teacher's assistant for one of the 2nd grade teachers.
Recent Happenings
Two special ed students got lost at Allen's school and Allen found them by himself! They had wondered off the school grounds and Allen found them across the street. All the other teachers were looking farther away, but Allen decided to look around the school grounds. One of the boys popped out from a bush or something and cried out to Allen, so Allen jumped the fence and calmed the boys. Then he called his school, and they sent another teacher to go pick them up in a car. I was so proud of Allen, and when I saw the boys reunite and cry with a teacher, it made me cry too! I had gone to meet Allen to go out for our anniversary, and there he was, my man, rescuing people. That's just what he's good at. :)
I (Laura) got an intestine/stomach infection and had a high temperature this past Monday. The doctor said it's been going around. I got medicine and I'm ok now, but now I have a cold, which is making my asthma act up, so I'm struggling to breathe a little, which is really irritating. So please pray that it won't lead to anything bad, but that it will pass. I'm trying to just trust God with my health and not worry, but I tend to get paranoid and worry too much! It's better to be safe than sorry: I've been to the doctor twice this week! Maybe I'll go again tomorrow just to say "hi." :)
Disaster Relief Work in Ishinomaki
Allen has been to Ishinomaki two times now - once for a week and then another time for a weekend. I've (Laura) been once so far (for the weekend trip). The church as sent out several groups on relief work starting in June. There's a team of 4 people who are leading the groups out each time - usually one or two of them go with the group. They know all the information for who we need to visit and where to meet for the next work site and how to get there. And this team of 4 also organizes the donations given to the church. Volunteers also help them with organizing and packing those donations. They've taken food, clothes, toilettries, vitamins, and things like that.
My (Laura's) experience for that weekend was really amazing. Allen was with me too. There was 9 of us - some of us AETs and some of us Japanese people from the Mito church. We met up with a relief team living in Ishinomaki, and we all went to this apartment complex to clean out all the stuff that got destroyed from the tsunami. The upper rooms looked like they had been cleared out already and maybe not as bad as the ones below. But this apartment complex was right there by the water, so it really got plowed into by that tidal wave. The building was not leveled, but it was destroyed enough that everything was a complete mess - dead fish, sea weed everywhere, furnature and refrigerators filled up with sea water, tons of broken glass everywhere.
So, we shoveled everything out - into organized piles of glass, wood, clothes, and trying to save valuable things like pictures and children's school certificates and things that were still in tact. It was really sad to see some of those things - the pictures of who lived there. I wondered if they were still alive, if they were able to escape, or happend to be in a safer place at the time. I sure hoped so. The apartment owner needed everything cleared out so that he could clean up his property and give valuables back to the people who lived there. He really looked overwhelmed and sad as he walked around to watch us and help keep the valuables organized. We ended up finishing the job in one day, which really surprized us! We thought we wouldn't finish that fast. The owner seemed really appreciative. The two teams circled up and we prayed together after we were finished. By that point though, some of our people had gone to another place to do a barbeque in a town where everything was pretty much leveled and completely destroyed. Allen went to help and socialize with people at the barbeque, and I stayed to finish the job at the aparment complex.
At the end of the day, we had dinner and went to wash up at an onsen - which is a bath house. Those are everywhere in Japan. It felt really good on my muscles after all the hard physical work.
We spent two nights at the Sendai Church of Christ building, and we had Sunday morning worship with the team that we had worked with on that Saturday. There's a family that lives across the street from the church, who the relief teams have made friends with. I was so glad I got to meet the mother and her 3 adorable children. They are not Christians. They are a kind and beautiful family. The children actually go to the church Bible class/worship sometimes. I think they will become Christians one day - I just feel it.
Also, speaking of people I met there, I also met an older woman named Suzuki. She lives near those apartments we cleaned up. She was so kind to us - serving us food and drinks when we went to visit her. She's a widow and a woman who our church has made a relationship with. I think it's really interesting our our teams have made relationships with at least a couple widows from Ishinomaki, that I know of. God tells us it's very, very important that we take care of the widows and the orphans. God's been telling us that since Moses' time. There's something about it that really shows God's love. People who are so vulnerable and don't have anyone to care for them.
The day after we got back - that Monday, June 27th, I had a break down after school and just cried and felt down. I talked with Allen about how I just felt strange and exhausted. But after that day, I started feeling back to my normal self again.
Prayer Requests
*Please pray hard for the orphans and widows who live in Ishinomaki and other close by cities and that they will recieve love and care.
* Please pray that Allen and I continue going back to that area to encourage our new friends there and help in the way God leads us.
*Please pray that we will also be open to God showing us how to reach out to the people at our schools, at church, our friends, and to our own community.
Thank you for reading our blog. May you all be filled with God's richest blessings of peace, joy, and love, the greatest being love.
Love,
Allen and Laura
