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.