Beautiful days in Okinawa

Candles and ice

Heidi and I took a trip to Otaru, a city in Hokkaido with a beautiful winter candlelight festival every year. Cold and beautiful! Otaru is situated on the sea, so it gets lots of snow. It's also considered to be one of Japan's most beautiful cities, and the Japanese film "Love Letter" (an old popular favorite) was filmed there.

The canal runs right through the center of town and is a site for photographers and visiters. The cold was palpable; the icy wind off the sea made our noses and hands (even through gloves) sting.



Heidi and I walked up a side street to take a photo of the gate to the canal (below), and we passed a beautiful old building with a strange, rustic charm I had never seen before. As I was standing outside in the snow-filled street wondering what kind of building it was, a white man in a funny hat came out and spoke in a language I had never heard. I was so taken aback I just stared, and he smiled and repeated his sentence (showing a gold tooth). At about that moment I realized the building was a pub, and the man was probably one of the Russian sailors that frequent the area. They're known for drunken carousing and have caused foreigners to be banned from certain places (according to the reports). Needless to say, Heidi and I hastened up the street and back to the canal walk full of people!


We walked through the town and found beautiful fresh crabs for sale along the street. Hokkaido is famous for a famous kind of hairy crab (kegani) that has tender, succulent meat and is supposedly not found anywhere else.


This is an old-style street lantern you see on shops advertising ramen (noodle soup)shops, pubs, or other restaurant-like establishments.




At night the canal glitters with hundreds upon hundreds of ice and snow candles! The candles are shaped from water or snow in molds and then left out to freeze. Then the mold is cut away, leaving a perfect cylinder with a hollow for a candle. The candles are placed inside and sparkle on the ice as they burn, shimmering all along the side of the canal and reflecting into the water. The sight of so many candles and water was just breathtaking - and extremely cold! I thought I would freeze right there on the spot. After we had taken all the cold we could, Heidi and I made our way back to the train station and took a train (packed with other Sapporo travelers) back home.

Conference in Amagi

My favorite part of all... MOUNT FUJI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Kathy said she's been to Amagi several times, and it's very unusual to see Mount Fuji so clearly - and BOTH times on the way there and back. Usually Mount Fuji is hard to see because of the clouds and smog, and if you can see it, there is often a ring of clouds that obscures the top. But not this time. God was so gracious! I saw beautiful Mount Fuji, much more beautiful and clear than I ever imagined, BOTH times. I love Japan!!!!!!!!!!!!



This is the famous Shinkansen, or "bullet train," that I've always dreamed of riding!! The picture looks like it's coming in from right to left, but actually it's pulling out of the station in Tokyo from left to right. It's so fast - up to 200 miles an hour, Ronny said - but as smooth as riding a Cadillac. I actually had no perception of how fast I was going, but it was so much fun!!!





Gorgeous morning in Amagi, nestled in the mountains. It was warmer there, so it felt like we got to experience fall all over again, since it was already winter up in the north.







We journeymen visited a little gift shop down the street one evening, and the owner and his wife gave us each a rose. Such a sweet welcome to Amagi!

Friends in Amagi

Heidi, all ready to go before the long trip to Amagi - by plane, train, and car.


Traveling together with the Cookseys, our fellow missionaries, and their five children is alawys fun. The kids draw lots of attention in the airports with their blue eyes and light-colored hair, and even the most serious Japanese businessman will stop and crack a smile. We play games with the kids, draw pictures, hold hands along busy subway lines, and make it to Amagi tired but happy.


Kathy, the mother of a missionary family in Sapporo - my co-worker and friend, on the way to Amagi. We ate honey toast in a little shop in the airport en route to Tokyo.


Naomi and the gorgeous fall leaves in Amagi.


A missionary couple in southern Japan. He plays a unique Okinawan instrument in a band and knows some college students in my city who used to go to his church... Pray for possible connections here! You know how much I love college students! P.S. - isn't the sink great?


This is the owner of the shop whose wife gave us roses in Amagi. You can see the owner and his dad(?) in the middle, his wife and little girl to the left. You can also see Heidi in the back, plus other journeymen. Naomi, a Japanese Christian from Tokyo Baptist Church, is in the front to the right. She was one of the people I interviewed several weeks ago in Tokyo for an article about the IOJ (Internationalized and Overseas Japanese) team.


The journeyman of Japan gathered around the dinner table in the conference room, all with our roses from the gift shop.


Our treat on the way back through Tokyo - Wendy's!!! I had a cheeseburger, Wendy's fries (with ketchup and napkins) and, of course, a Frosty. What could be better?

Special assignment - Tokyo

Ferdie, a Filipino Christian, was one of the first people with a Japanese ministry group I met in Australia. The first night we met he sat up almost all night with me, talking about ministry among the Japanese and my questions about going. I was so moved that I remember tears as we prayed. My life has never been the same.



The missionary couple who asked me to come to Tokyo and do the article and interviews. They are so much fun! If you ever get to meet them you'll come away smiling (and full of Tokyo Mexican food)! :)



The Japanese Christians I interviewed who became Christians either in the U.S. or as a result of their time in the U.S. Such an awesome bunch! I am so incredibly blessed to have met them.

The Year of Jubilee

The Year of Jubilee

I just got up from a long, long night sleep after traveling Saturday and Sunday to and from Tokyo. What an incredible time! I got to meet the missionary family who wanted me to do a story about internationalized Japanese accepting Christ, and I met again with the family who showed me around Tokyo the first time I arrived in Japan. I'm writing news article again! Praise God!!

Not only that, but I wound up going with the Millers to an awesome church in Tokyo where some of the Japanese Christians (and other nationalities living in Japan) that I met during the Olympics in Australia go. They have prayed for me, kept in contact with me and encouraged me so much to come to Japan as a missionary. Now I'm here! It was like a dream to see them again.

Watching the nations come through the doors and standing together singing praises to God was one of the most powerful and beautiful experiences I've ever had.

Praise God that heaven will be like this!! I saw Africans with headwraps, Japanese playing the guitar, Filipinos, Australians, red-haired Americans, Indians. I was beside myself.

Together we sang, filling the church to the rafters with these words:

"Behold He comes riding on the clouds
Shining like the sun at the trumpet call
Lift your voice it's
Year of Jubilee
Out of Zion's hill salvation comes!"

Praise God, praise God - He CAME! He is HERE! And He is COMING SOON! Because of the cross all of this is possible. Because of the cross I can live again, I can sleep at night without fear. Because of the cross I am free. Because of the cross I am no longer a slave to myself but have a new heart and a new purpose in life.

Because of the cross I can live in a city thousands of miles from the U.S. and call it "home" because HE is here.

Because of the cross I can claim the verse God gave me on my first days in Tokyo: "The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has annointed me preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release the prisoners from darkness, to PROCLAIM THE YEAR OF THE LORD'S FAVOR..." (Isaiah 61:1-2).

So lift your voice - it's the Year of Jubilee!
And out of Zion's hill salvation comes!!