Five Years Later

May 8, 2004 at Oarai Beach, Ibaraki, Japan

July 31, 2004 was our last day in Japan as alien residents, assistant english teachers, and vocational missionaries. It's hard to believe that it's already been 5 years, and that it's been 8 years since we first packed our bags and headed overseas just 6 weeks after we had tied the knot. Shawn always says that he just took the "leave" part of the leave and cleave verse in Matthew literally. We definitely started our marriage off in a very memorable way and we feel that we truly benefited from our shared experiences in the beautiful culture and land of Japan. And we are still blessed today by many friends that we made during our time in Japan. (And I'm really thankful for blogs to keep up with many of you. I know, I know. I need to join facebook too.)

For the past couple of weeks, I've been thinking a lot about our upcoming Japan anniversary and reminiscing about the things we did and the people we met. One person I thought about was Christian Hancock. We haven't heard much from his family since we left Japan, but we were pretty close with them when we lived there. (We spent lots of evenings/nights at their house watching basketball, football, and baseball games of American teams. His father, Mark is American and was an athlete at OC.) Anyway, Christian was in junior high school when left and I just realized that he's alredy in college now. Wow, time sure flies.
This is a picture of Christian helping Shawn tell the Bible story at the Mito church of Christ during children's Bible hour a few months before we moved back to America. It was our turn to teach the class and Christian was our translator--yep, that's right a 13 year old was translating for grown adults. Occaisionally, his 10 year old brother, Charlie, would translate too.
Another person I've thought of lately is Seiya Sasaki. He's the boy on the left. His brother, Tomoya, is next to him and getting his fingers stuck in glue. This was another picture from the same Sunday in children's Bible hour. When we moved from Japan, Seiya was a little older than Carly is now. (I think he had just started kindergarten, but maybe it was preK.) I remember thinking before we moved back how much Seiya had changed from when we had first met him. So it seems even more strange to think how much older he is now. Memories are wonderful and I'm so glad we have such rich ones from our time in Japan.

Airport Amazement

We went out for a walk along the airport wetlands trail yesterday and were pleasantly surprised with all the air traffic that we saw. I hadn't thought about it until we got there right around noon, but it was the jackpot for plane viewing. There were float plane and other smaller planes coming in bringing back the morning tourists and then taking off with the afternoon tourists. I seriously lost count of how many planes we saw in about an hour.
Isaac loved it! I knew he liked planes, but boy howdy he was in 7th heaven.
I can't decide between the above two photos, so I guess they are both my favorites from the day.

The fireweed are everywhere along the trail, but they are almost done blooming.

They did this all on their own, I just snapped the pic.
They're watching a plane off in the distance.

Also yesterday was a record high for us, 82 at the airport. (So of course it was warmer at our house. I think it got up to about 86 for us.) It was nothing like 107 in Portland, but at least we could still enjoy the heat.

Whale Watching Tour

We went out intending to salmon fish the other night, and were surprised and thrilled to have a fantastic humpback whale show. I actually saw one do a full breach, but unfortunately I didn't have the camera ready. Later in the evening, I also saw one do a half breach with just the back half of the body.
Every time any fin, tail, back or even a puff of breath was visible, we all had open, awed eyes out on the water. I really didn't know what Shawn was doing with his fishing, because I was constantly watching the water. There were at least three humpback whales in the area, and one got about 150 yards from us. It was truly amazing. Unfortunately we didn't get any salmon (Shawn did catch a bottom fish that he threw back), but it was still a fantastic night. Beautiful weather, water, and creations of God.




This one is a little bit small and hard to see. You can click on the picture to make it bigger to see it better. It shows the fin from one of the whales sticking straight up, ready to slap the water.

The whale watching crew.

Like Father, Like Son

The other day, I caught Isaac checking out one of Shawn's catalogs. I promise that I didn't set this up. He did this all by himself. But I will admit that I encouraged him to continue to look at the catalog a little more, so I could get the perfect shot. Just in case you can't read the title, he's reading the current Cabela's Shooting catalog.

VBS Day 4

The last day was once again the biggest in attendance--47 kiddos. I'd say all the kids seemed to have a great time. And I also thought the week's theme and nightly lesson points made better sense to them than I thought they would. Before VBS started, I was afraid the themes were a bit too abstract for kids to really get their minds around. But I think the station leaders did a great job of explaining the points and why they were offering the activity, snack, craft or story that they did. Everything fit together better than I had even anticipated.





Tonight's lesson was a review of Moses' life and how God blessed him with a heavenly reward for living a faithful life and choosing God's way.
For tonight's snack, the kids put a treasure/reward (hershey's chocolate piece) inside a crescent roll and baked them. I was sure that the kids would like them, but I was surprised at how BIG of a hit it was. They each made two, but I think they all wanted more.


Jeannie was helping Michael blow his off to cool it so he could eat it. I noticed Michael double checking his roll to make sure she hadn't eaten any.
The game for the night was an obstacle course with lots of twists, turns, crawls, and a few decisions. All to represent the Christian life.

Getting their reward--a chocolate coin.
Carly was just amazed

Trying to say the memory verse and earn a prize.

Decorating a crown at the craft station to represent a reward.

It's a good thing this was the last night, because Isaac figured out how to get into the puppet stage area. He followed one of the puppeteers back their before the night began and then I guess he felt comfortable sneaking back during the closing session. Fortunately they weren't doing a performance, just singing along with the kids.
A lot of work by many, definitely not "perfect", but truly a success.

VBS Day 3

Tonight we had 40 kids at VBS. The same at night #2 and four more than night #1. Especially since the baptist church a few streets down is having their VBS at the same time, I think we've had a pretty good turn out.
Tonight's lesson was a review of Joseph's life. The main point was that he persevered through some tough times in his life. Through it all Joseph remained faithful to God and he was blessed. So a lot of the activities tonight dealt with persevering.
For crafts, they had to persevere through the tedious job of stringing beads to make a bracelet.

At the lesson station, Mrs. Joseph stopped by to tell the kids about all the tough things her husband went through. And of course how proud she was of his faithfulness to God.
And in the snack station, the kids had to persevere as they shook ziplock bags filled with ice, rock salt, and an inner bag that had milk, sugar, and vanilla. After a few minutes of chilly shaking, they were rewarded with sweet ice cream for their snack. I think they all agreed that it was worth the work of shaking and holding the cold bags.




At the game station, they had several perseverance games. In this one, they had to jump from one end of the room to the other in burlap sacks, and then without their hands, dig out a peice of gum hidden under whip cream. They all thought it was pretty funny. A couple of them could barely participate because they were laughing so hard.




A fun and sweet night for all. Tomorrow is the last night! I can't believe how fast the week is going.