Yea!! Halleluya! Praise to God! Allen's tumor is benign! The operation to remove the tumor and supposedly leave him pain free is on May 7th from 1:00 or 1:30 to about 3:30 (one hour surgery but longer time with the anesthesia). So, Allen and I and our church family here and coworkers are very relieved about this news. Please pray that the surgery is successful and that Allen can live pain free after it's all over with.
Thank you for your friendship and prayers.
Hope you all are doing well.
Love,
Allen and Laura
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
Finally Getting Answers about Allen's Pain
Hello Everyone,
Sorry again that it's been a long time. Hope you all are having a good year so far. We're enjoying starting up a new school year, which starts in April for Japan. A lot of changes happen in March and April. People get switched to different positions in their jobs, including teachers. Teachers may not know if they'll be at a different school even until the beginning of April. It's kind of chaotic, but it's how they do things here. I've asked some teachers if they wish they could stay at the same school for many years with the same grade, but they replied, "no." They just have a different way.
So, we found out like a month ago that Allen has a tumor and that's what's been causing his pain in his lower back for the last 6 years or so. After the biopsy, we still haven't found out the final results. The doctor has even had a conference with other doctors. It's been a difficult thing to figure out. We have a lot of hope and confidence that it's benign. We'll find out hopefully next week. We'll update our blog again as soon as we find out what the doctor says.
Please pray for us and for the doctors.
Love you all.
Love,
Allen and Laura
P.S. We picked up the new AETs last night. Eleven AETs went back to America and now we have 10 new ones and 1 more coming in June. Laura's mom is still here until June to help cover for the AET who doesn't get here until then. Lots of changes happening, keeping us busy and on our toes, but God is good and things are working out well and we are staying positive. :)
Sorry again that it's been a long time. Hope you all are having a good year so far. We're enjoying starting up a new school year, which starts in April for Japan. A lot of changes happen in March and April. People get switched to different positions in their jobs, including teachers. Teachers may not know if they'll be at a different school even until the beginning of April. It's kind of chaotic, but it's how they do things here. I've asked some teachers if they wish they could stay at the same school for many years with the same grade, but they replied, "no." They just have a different way.
So, we found out like a month ago that Allen has a tumor and that's what's been causing his pain in his lower back for the last 6 years or so. After the biopsy, we still haven't found out the final results. The doctor has even had a conference with other doctors. It's been a difficult thing to figure out. We have a lot of hope and confidence that it's benign. We'll find out hopefully next week. We'll update our blog again as soon as we find out what the doctor says.
Please pray for us and for the doctors.
Love you all.
Love,
Allen and Laura
P.S. We picked up the new AETs last night. Eleven AETs went back to America and now we have 10 new ones and 1 more coming in June. Laura's mom is still here until June to help cover for the AET who doesn't get here until then. Lots of changes happening, keeping us busy and on our toes, but God is good and things are working out well and we are staying positive. :)
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Wow, it's already February!
Hello Friends and Family,
Thank you to friends Kent and Sammie for posting your comments - it was good to hear from you both. We miss you all too! And hope to stay in better contact this year. One of our goals this year is to keep better in touch with our friends and family back home. Skype is really helping us to do that! :)
Hope you all are doing well. Life here in Mito, Japan, is going just fine for us. The start of the new year has been pretty good so far. We enjoyed the holidays and hearing from friends and family. Laura's dad came and visited Japan for a month and that was really nice. Allen went to America to be in our friends' wedding and saw his family. Allen's birthday was December 4th and Laura's was January 31st, so now we're both 25! Wow, we're a quarter of a century old!!
Laura got her Japanese drivers license at the end of January and will be able to start driving to school in March when we get a car from an AET who's returning to America. That will be really nice that she won't have to ride her bike everywhere. Allen has more energy and doesn't mind riding his bicycle everyday. :)
Good news...Allen had a good observation at his school last week. He and one of his 6th grade teachers had worked hard to prepare for it and it turned out well. It was an all school observation, so the Mito educational board members were walking through each class and Allen was observed team teaching with one of his teachers in a class that he says is his most challenging class, because the students tend to act up a lot and they don't seem to care that much for English. They did skits covering different lessons they've learned over the past years in elementary school. Afterwards the educational board member who is in charge of us AETs spoke with Allen about his good and bad points. He said he was really glad to hear the good she had to say and was relieved that it went well.
We still have our challenges everyday and we're still adjusting, but it's almost been a year now and we'll be here at least another year. God is good and He's taking care of us even with the little things as we strive to put Him first everyday. We'll sure miss Mom when she leaves at the end of next month. She's looking forward to being back with Dad and Drew and she misses home, but we've sure had a good experience together here in Japan. God is so good to have blessed us with this special time together.
If you are reading this and want to pray for us, you can pray that in this new year we will be used by God to cultivate our relationships here in a way that we can share God's love and help meet people's needs. This past year we've focused so much on our own needs as foreigners in a strange land, but in this new year we need to start trying to focus more on the needs of the new AETs who will be coming and on the needs of the Japanese people and our friends here.
Thank you and may God bless you all!
Love,
Allen and Laura
Thank you to friends Kent and Sammie for posting your comments - it was good to hear from you both. We miss you all too! And hope to stay in better contact this year. One of our goals this year is to keep better in touch with our friends and family back home. Skype is really helping us to do that! :)
Hope you all are doing well. Life here in Mito, Japan, is going just fine for us. The start of the new year has been pretty good so far. We enjoyed the holidays and hearing from friends and family. Laura's dad came and visited Japan for a month and that was really nice. Allen went to America to be in our friends' wedding and saw his family. Allen's birthday was December 4th and Laura's was January 31st, so now we're both 25! Wow, we're a quarter of a century old!!
Laura got her Japanese drivers license at the end of January and will be able to start driving to school in March when we get a car from an AET who's returning to America. That will be really nice that she won't have to ride her bike everywhere. Allen has more energy and doesn't mind riding his bicycle everyday. :)
Good news...Allen had a good observation at his school last week. He and one of his 6th grade teachers had worked hard to prepare for it and it turned out well. It was an all school observation, so the Mito educational board members were walking through each class and Allen was observed team teaching with one of his teachers in a class that he says is his most challenging class, because the students tend to act up a lot and they don't seem to care that much for English. They did skits covering different lessons they've learned over the past years in elementary school. Afterwards the educational board member who is in charge of us AETs spoke with Allen about his good and bad points. He said he was really glad to hear the good she had to say and was relieved that it went well.
We still have our challenges everyday and we're still adjusting, but it's almost been a year now and we'll be here at least another year. God is good and He's taking care of us even with the little things as we strive to put Him first everyday. We'll sure miss Mom when she leaves at the end of next month. She's looking forward to being back with Dad and Drew and she misses home, but we've sure had a good experience together here in Japan. God is so good to have blessed us with this special time together.
If you are reading this and want to pray for us, you can pray that in this new year we will be used by God to cultivate our relationships here in a way that we can share God's love and help meet people's needs. This past year we've focused so much on our own needs as foreigners in a strange land, but in this new year we need to start trying to focus more on the needs of the new AETs who will be coming and on the needs of the Japanese people and our friends here.
Thank you and may God bless you all!
Love,
Allen and Laura
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Merry Christmas! Sayonara 2009!
Hello Friends and Family,
Wow, can you believe that 2009 is going to be over soon?! We are about to finish another decade. Time just flies!
We just finished the 2nd term of school and now we both have 2 weeks of vacation. We had an early Christmas together at our apartment with Laura's parents and a friend of ours who also teaches English in Japan and he is from Australia. We had a really nice time opening presents together, snacking, talking, playing with Allen's new miniature pool table (or rather, watching him play with it!) and listening to Christmas music.
Allen left for Houston yesterday. He will be in our good friends' wedding and visit his family. I'm so glad my parents are here. We all went to Disney Sea together in Tokyo last weekend. It was a lot of fun! We went with our Japanese friend who teaches with my mom.
Tonight, that same Japanese friend, named Kanaco, is coming with us to the Mito Church to sing Christmas carols and fellowship. Tomorrow, we will cook and eat Christmas dinner with a couple women friends from church.
We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas season and a Happy New Year!
Please keep us in your prayers as we start our 3rd term in January. Our goals are to keep up good relationships with the teachers and students, to build on the relationships we're making inside and outside of the Church, to get our Japan driver's liscenses, etc, etc. So, we just want to keep stress to a minimum as we try to accomplish many things while keeping Christ at the center of everything. God is good. This must be basically the goal of all Christians in this coming new year. To accomplish good things while keeping Christ at the center of everything. What would we do without Him. He is the reason why we are even alive or worthy to be called God's children. Thank you Jesus, for living and for dying and then living again for all of us!
Love to you all!
~Allen and Laura
Wow, can you believe that 2009 is going to be over soon?! We are about to finish another decade. Time just flies!
We just finished the 2nd term of school and now we both have 2 weeks of vacation. We had an early Christmas together at our apartment with Laura's parents and a friend of ours who also teaches English in Japan and he is from Australia. We had a really nice time opening presents together, snacking, talking, playing with Allen's new miniature pool table (or rather, watching him play with it!) and listening to Christmas music.
Allen left for Houston yesterday. He will be in our good friends' wedding and visit his family. I'm so glad my parents are here. We all went to Disney Sea together in Tokyo last weekend. It was a lot of fun! We went with our Japanese friend who teaches with my mom.
Tonight, that same Japanese friend, named Kanaco, is coming with us to the Mito Church to sing Christmas carols and fellowship. Tomorrow, we will cook and eat Christmas dinner with a couple women friends from church.
We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas season and a Happy New Year!
Please keep us in your prayers as we start our 3rd term in January. Our goals are to keep up good relationships with the teachers and students, to build on the relationships we're making inside and outside of the Church, to get our Japan driver's liscenses, etc, etc. So, we just want to keep stress to a minimum as we try to accomplish many things while keeping Christ at the center of everything. God is good. This must be basically the goal of all Christians in this coming new year. To accomplish good things while keeping Christ at the center of everything. What would we do without Him. He is the reason why we are even alive or worthy to be called God's children. Thank you Jesus, for living and for dying and then living again for all of us!
Love to you all!
~Allen and Laura
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Shisashiburi!
That's Japanese for "Long time no see!" We have a computeer virus, so that's been making our lives a bit difficult, but at least we can still use the computer. I'm updating our blog on my mom's computer now, since our's won't let us into the blog website.
Our schools asked us if we want to stay for another year and our answer was yes! We feel really blessed to have this job and it's helping us pay our school loans off. We enjoy worshipping with the church on Sundays and meeting with the AET group on Wednesdays at the church building for dinner together and a devotional. It keeps us going each week to be able to look forward to those fellowship times. We've also been going to the church retreats, which have been great times to get to know each other.
Teaching has been going well as we've gotten more adjusted to the culture and how our schools work. We make an effort to learn the language by going to the Japanese class offered by church members once a week. We have a hard time making oursleves study on our own each week though. I (Laura) was proud of myself for studying at school after my classes a couple days ago.
Allen, my mom, and I will be cooking together tomorrow night and Saturday morning for the Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday.
Hope you all have a great Thanksgiving! We were recently challenged to be more active in our thankfulness, like doing something in return or using what we've been blessed with to help bless others. And we are all blessed in many ways. There are so many people who go without food, shelter, or transportation each day. Let's encourage each other to really be thankful for each little blessing we have and to realize that it's from God and that it's not just for our own pleasure but also for helping to bless others.
Take care and God bless!
Love,
Allen and Laura
Our schools asked us if we want to stay for another year and our answer was yes! We feel really blessed to have this job and it's helping us pay our school loans off. We enjoy worshipping with the church on Sundays and meeting with the AET group on Wednesdays at the church building for dinner together and a devotional. It keeps us going each week to be able to look forward to those fellowship times. We've also been going to the church retreats, which have been great times to get to know each other.
Teaching has been going well as we've gotten more adjusted to the culture and how our schools work. We make an effort to learn the language by going to the Japanese class offered by church members once a week. We have a hard time making oursleves study on our own each week though. I (Laura) was proud of myself for studying at school after my classes a couple days ago.
Allen, my mom, and I will be cooking together tomorrow night and Saturday morning for the Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday.
Hope you all have a great Thanksgiving! We were recently challenged to be more active in our thankfulness, like doing something in return or using what we've been blessed with to help bless others. And we are all blessed in many ways. There are so many people who go without food, shelter, or transportation each day. Let's encourage each other to really be thankful for each little blessing we have and to realize that it's from God and that it's not just for our own pleasure but also for helping to bless others.
Take care and God bless!
Love,
Allen and Laura
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Hello from Cambodia!
Hello Friends and Family,
We are in Cambodia right now and it is raining hard. We crossed over the border earlier this afternoon and took a taxi ride to our guest house. There are tot tots here which are motor bike taxis and you sit in back on a bench under a canopy. We also rode on a tot tot today. At the guesthouse we had some really good food - fish with coconut curry (served in a coconut shell) and green curry. We will go to a Cambodian Church of Christ in the morning and then visit the Angkor Wat area tomorrow and on Monday. There is a lot of interesting things to see here and some really cute kids. Keep us in your prayers for a safe trip.
Take care everyone and God bless!
Love,
Allen and Laura
We are in Cambodia right now and it is raining hard. We crossed over the border earlier this afternoon and took a taxi ride to our guest house. There are tot tots here which are motor bike taxis and you sit in back on a bench under a canopy. We also rode on a tot tot today. At the guesthouse we had some really good food - fish with coconut curry (served in a coconut shell) and green curry. We will go to a Cambodian Church of Christ in the morning and then visit the Angkor Wat area tomorrow and on Monday. There is a lot of interesting things to see here and some really cute kids. Keep us in your prayers for a safe trip.
Take care everyone and God bless!
Love,
Allen and Laura
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Thailand, Malaysia, and Cambodia
Hello Friends and Family,
Sorry we haven't posted for a while. We were busy with the end of the term and training for a week. Now we're on vacation with our AET friends, Kristin and Hanna. We arrived in Thailand yesterday and today we're heading out to Malaysia. Our flight was cancelled so we're waiting in the airport to board at 1:15 and then we'll arrive in Malaysia at about 4:30 pm. Our time is up on the computer, so we'll update again after our trip.
Love,
Allen and Laura
Sorry we haven't posted for a while. We were busy with the end of the term and training for a week. Now we're on vacation with our AET friends, Kristin and Hanna. We arrived in Thailand yesterday and today we're heading out to Malaysia. Our flight was cancelled so we're waiting in the airport to board at 1:15 and then we'll arrive in Malaysia at about 4:30 pm. Our time is up on the computer, so we'll update again after our trip.
Love,
Allen and Laura
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