March/April

“But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
whose confidence is in him.

” He will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit.”

Jeremiah 17:7-8

Jones and dad enjoying some juice and coffee.

Jones and his FIRST BIRTHDAY cake! He had a blast because of all the people at our house — he’s just like his daddy and feels better when surrounded.

The O’Donnells at Easter.

Two of Jones’s FAVORITE playmates — Brianne and Sarah — who live next door and are a fellow missionary family.

Hanging out on the floor — getting big!

Our car — a Suzuki Wagon R. A fun little (and I mean little!) thing!

Jones LOOOOOVES music and will dance on cue.

Jones also loves doing whatever I’m doing, even if that means washing dishes!

 

Home

I’m a little late in reporting, but our container has arrived! Last Wednesday, in fact. I wrote here about some of the homesickness that came with its delivery. We took before pictures of the house, but have yet to take the afters — when it’s all said and done, we’ll post them and you can see the transformation. This house is starting to feel a little bit like home! Right now, the only thing we are waiting on is a bed, which will be delivered on Saturday — we’ve been sleeping on futons on the floor, which are comfy for a while, but I’m ready for a Western-style bed!

Right now, Bryan is away in Tokyo, taking our friend Chris’s boxes to his eventual home. Jones and I are chillin’ at home by ourselves and learning the roads of Shizuoka a little better without our human map (B) around — when I ride in the car, I don’t pay attention, and I sort of feel like I know the whole city because Bryan knows the whole city, and I am part of a “we.” Now that he’s gone, I realize that I do NOT know the whole city.

We are still scheduled to start language in April. We are both really looking forward to it, especially after days like this past Sunday, where there are women at church I’d like to speak to and get to know, but can’t say anything beyond “hello” to — its difficult, and though we know God can work apart from our language ability, we are both eager to be able to begin and/or deepen friendships with the Japanese — language seems like the most obvious way for this to occur. Please pray for our learning — that we would retain and that our hearts would remain eager. We will not learn anything if God is not behind our efforts. Please also pray that God woud work apart from our ability to speak, and that we would be humbled by such working.

Despite our excitement for language, we are both a little nervous about managing “class” with our tutor, study times, family time, date nights, and our various household responsibilities (learning trash/recycling schedules, cooking, shopping, cleaning, laundry, keeping up finances and bills, etc).   There are more household responsibilities than we were imagining — the trash and recycling system is quite strict, as to what you can recycle, how it must be packaged/folded/tied, where you must take it, and on what days.  And it seems like somebody is stopping by every other day to get our information for another kind of bill! Gas bills, water bills, water waste bills, cell phone bills, internet bills, etc etc etc.  Perhaps, on my part, the lack of understanding of all these transactions makes them seem more ominous.  Anyway, we are not certain what this season will look like — we both feel it will be busy and stressful, and my preference is to avoid stress by cutting out the things that cause it, which is not always applicable or good. We are trusting that God will continue to sit on the throne throughout our stress, frustrations, and time schedules. We tell ourselves that He will guide us.

 

Kitchen appliance wonder

As an update, we are now living in our place, for about two days now.  We have only the basics that we bought about a week ago.  Today, I’ve been marveling at my kitchen appliances.

Friends, this is my washer. (It’s in the kitchen, separated by a little baker’s rack).

These are my washer buttons.

As you can see, its a Toshiba washer, and according to my U.S. knowledge, Toshiba only made really complicated things, like computers. Here, Toshiba makes ANYTHING: rice cookers, denki pots (hot water pots), heaters, and apparently, washers. I think you need a closer look at these buttons.

I have no idea what these buttons are for. Only after several (maybe 12) wrong choices did I find the one that turns the washer ON. This one in particular really baffled me today.

When it was lit, the washer only filled for 30 seconds, and as the light blinked, the washer moved around inside until I pushed the button again. Who knows.

This is my fridge. High tech, eh? (Naturally, its Toshiba.  They make fridges, too, I guess.)

I’ve never seen a fridge with so many compartments.  The bottom is a freezer.

Complete with Coffee Roaster Panama roast and pepperoni. :)  The second drawer is a crisper with a removable tray.

The third and fourth compartments are made up of an ice maker and another little freezer.

These are the buttons I push to get my fridge to pop open.  There was another “eco-friendly,” high-tech fridge were the doors would close and seal themselves with a light tap.

This is the inside.  As you can see, its a little sparse, as we just moved in.

..and this is where you put the ice maker water.. and eggs.

And — perhaps my favorite part of the kitchen — a DISHWASHER!  We didn’t even have one in the States, so I am really excited about this tiny little thing.  It’s so cute.

The entire top rack folds up and away if I want to put anything “big” in the bottom (not American standards, here — think small).

 

Gourmet Pizza?

 Like I said in the last post, hot dogs are sort of a gourmet item here.  Here are some pictures of the flier I saw the other day, advertising this pizza with all sorts of things on top (I’m pretty sure the piece toward the bottom has curry and bacon on top).

The kicker, however, is the hot dog rolled up into the crust.

Yes, that is a HOT DOG.  I think I’ll be making most of our pizza at home.

 

“Everything is so small!”

We are finally here in Japan, and there are so many funny and different things I’d like blog about:

• All the appliances talk to the user in Japanese, which is especially funny when the microwave keeps chatting on when you have no idea what it’s saying.
• Though its 50-60F each day, the houses are FREEZING because of lack of insulation and central heat/air. The Japanese have found very creative ways to deal with the cold: heating one room at a time; owning heated toilet seats (a complete life-saver! No shock when you sit down); and using a kotatsu (koe-ta-tsu), a low-to-the-floor table that heats up — you put a blanket between the removable top and the kotatsu legs, and sit with your legs under the blanket while you eat.
• Hot dogs are a gourmet selection in these parts, as well as other funny “pastries”: tarts with curry and cheese, ketchup and corn, or anpan (ah-n-pah-n: sweet red bean paste). I even saw a picture in a “pizza” ad with hot dogs rolled into the crust. (!!!)
• Coffee, beer, cigarettes, and even eggs are sold in vending machines. The coffee is particularly interesting: there is heated compartment of the machine, popping out cans of hot coffee, either black or with cream and sugar. They also have milku-cohi (co-hee), which is a wonderfully sweet treat, sort of like a cold latte, in a bottle.
• And, as you can imagine, EVERYthing here is small: houses, cars, orange juice cartons, packaged eggs, phones, beds, washers, couches and benches (very low to the floor!), and streets.  However, all the prices are big.

We are still staying next door from our house with the Van Zantes, our Nav Staff neighbors, with our container due to arrive at our door March 11th. We’re still searching stores for the best appliance deals, but hope to move next door with the basics early this week. Jones is over his jet lag and almost over his ear infection, which means that mom and dad can finally start getting over it, too. :)All in all, I am ready to move in and have our own home again, even if we sleep on the floor.

 

100%

As of this morning (Monday), we are wholly, completely, fully funded.  Wow.  This season of raising support has been so good for our hearts, to begin to understand the tiniest bit more the faithfulness and provision of God — how neither have anything to do with how many phone calls we make, how many prayers we plead, how many appointments we have.  There is no give and take with Jesus, no direct proportions of work.  He gives.. and that’s all.

We have said most of our goodbyes, as well, and they were awful.  I didn’t sleep much last night because my mind was racing, going over all the faces I saw yesterday and wondering if the words I said were adequate enough to express my love and thankfulness for them.  I’m still firm in my conviction that goodbyes are among the strangest experiences of life.   Its good, as a friend said, that these goodbyes are hard, though — its a testament to the worth and depth of friendships.  Its likewise good to remember that these friendships aren’t ending but are simply entering a new season.

Thanks for keeping up with us.

 

Funding update

As of Sunday, our one-time budget has been fulfilled — we have 100%+!!!  For monthly, we have $350 left to raise, which means that we are definitely getting on a plane Tuesday.

Our shipment has finally been picked up.  It should meet us in Japan at the end of this month, providing that the ship doesn’t sink.. but we aren’t thinking about that right now.

If you’re able, you can join us at our going away open house THIS SUNDAY, February 10.

Zion Church, Lincoln, NE (27th & Old Cheney)
2:30-5:30
Cake, Coffee, and Tea

 

And there’s MORE!

God is so incredibly good to us!  Through an amazing blessing, we are now 82% of our one-time and 90% of our monthly!!  We are planning our shipment for the end of this month and will hopefully be able to buy plane tickets this week.  We are giddy with praise!!

 

Provision!

Rejoice with us that God has provided a house for us in Japan — both larger and cheaper (for what we’re getting) than we’d hoped!  We have seen floor plans and will hopefully see pictures within the next few days.  God knows what we need and certainly takes care of even the smallest detail — the staff member who’s been searching for us said that it has a lot of windows and great natural light, which is a BIG thing for me.

We can hardly believe there is an actual place waiting for us now. :)  We are so grateful and humbled to have a God who loves us deeply and friends who would do so much on our behalf, searching for the “perfect” place rather than just going with whatever came up first.  We are blessed.

 

Update

Whew!  The holidays are over!  I always really enjoy Christmas and New Years, but they are BUSY.  It’s strange to think that we had once planned to be packed up and living in someone’s basement by now, with our belongings sailing across the sea to Japan.  This has not yet come to pass.

Family update:  With all the unknowns at our doorstep, we are doing well.  We’ve made a sort of New Year’s resolution to get up in the morning.  Jones sleeps till 8 or 8:30 (Thank you, LORD!), and it’s all too easy to wait for his playful babbling to wake us up.  We felt like we were wasting precious time that God had given us by blessing us with a baby who sleeps late.  SO, we set the alarm for 6:30, snuggle in bed for a bit, and then one of us goes down to start the coffee.  We either read to ourselves, talk with each other about administrative stuff for the day, or pray.  It’s been lovely — and very good for our souls.  Every once in a while, we look at each other and grin, with one of us saying, “Someday, we’ll get there.  We’re going to live in Japan!”

Funding update:  We are currently 92% of our monthly budget (hooray!) and about 36% of our one-time.  In order to buy tickets and pay for shipping, our one-time needs to be about 85% — in total we have $26,000 left to raise.  Yep, it seems like a really big number to me, too.  We must be 100% of both in order to board the plane, which is a good policy.  So we will be here until that happens!  We’ve moved our date back a few weeks and hope to leave in early February, but much of this “planning” is rather fluid.  Good for my husband, bad for his planning wife.

If you visit here and have any questions about anything, please feel free to comment!  Also, if you’d like to visit the prayer request page, the password is pray.