Hello friends!
Sorry it has been so long since we last posted. We have been busy busy busy with the CPI conference and also a team from our home church (Covenant Presbyterian in Harrisonburg, VA) and just said good-bye to them yesterday 
Let me catch you up on what we’ve been up to:
The CPI (church planting institute) conference was wonderful. Nestled near the town of Hakone, the conference center allowed for a beautiful view of a very close Mt. Fuji on a clear day. Besides Fuji, though, being in the mountains again was such a refreshment as we miss the beauty of God’s untouched creation here in Chiba. We had glorious, crisp fall weather and it was definitely a highlight of our time. The CPI conference is a gathering of about 400 missionaries and Christian workers in Japan and is a time for mutual encouragement and renewal, as well as an awesome opportunity to see what God is doing all over this country. There’s also a lot of idea-swapping and region-specific prayer meetings. We were blessed to hear about how God is indeed moving here in Japan, even though its sometimes hard to see. I was particularly blessed by just seeing so many different denominations and missions and churches coming together to learn from each other and grow together. In a place like Japan, where fellow kingdom laborers are so few, its a blessing, not a discouragement, to work alongside people with different ministry styles and philosophies.
The highlight for us, though, were the 4 semiars that we attended. Scotty Smith, from Christ Community Pres. in Franklin, TN came and did 4 sessions on Gospel Renewal. It was altogether about 7 hours of just re-learning what it means to be a child of God. We were challenged again and again to throw out our deeply ingrained notions that tell us we can perform to earn God’s favor, and were reminded of the Father’s love and favor lavished on us as though we were his perfect Son, Christ. I came away so refreshed and re-inspired by this grace that truly is AMAZING. We are so thankful for that sweet time and for the things the Lord taught us. My prayer recently has been that the truths of the Gospel would not just make sense in my head, but that they would deeply touch my heart in new ways each day. Scotty used an analogy of the Lyrics, Music, and Dance of the Gospel. He showed how its important to have all three. The theology of the gospel is the lyrics, the words in Scripture that show what God in Christ has done for us. The music is when those Gospel truths sink deeper than our minds and touch our hearts. The dance is when we are moved by such a great love that our lives are lived in response to that, serving our Lord and Savior out of thanksgiving and joy. What a great analogy, huh?
So, CPI was a great time for us, and we’re so thankful to have been able to go. A huge bonus was getting to see our friends from home who came to help out at the conference, mostly through running the children’s program and helping out with tech-support. We returned to Chiba on Friday afternoon.
And Friday afternoon seems like 2 weeks ago! The team stayed til yesterday, Tuesday, so we’ve been good and busy running around with them and enjoying their company. We got to give some rides to them to different places, and even got to host Brian for a homestay (his Japanese homestay fell through at the last minute). We did our best to be as Japanese as possible, having a Japanese dinner together, bowing a lot, and speaking in only Japanese the whole night (NOT!). It was great fun. Sunday was full of events for them with our church here so we got to enjoy watching them make friends and reconnect with people who have come through Harrisonburg in the past. We even squeezed in some karaoke Japan-style and a run to the Sento, the public baths (both very good cultural experiences). On Monday we spent the day with them in Tokyo. It was neat because it was our first time into the city since we’ve been here. We had a great day being with these dear friends and showing them some of the city’s sights. It was also good for us, in many ways, to relearn things we already knew about Japanese culture. For instance, we went to one of the biggest temples in Japan, Asakusa. I have been there many times growing up, but I never go without being struck anew by the sadness of it. Watching people throw their money in and then pray to idols always jolts me to the reality that there is such a desperate need for the Gospel to wash over this land.
I am always convicted of the need for prayer on behalf of this country, that the Lord would, in his power, dismantle the physical and metaphysical idols in this place… and that he would start by constantly doing just that in my own heart! We may not see them, like we can at the Buddhist temple, but my heart is an “idol factory”, as John Calvin says, and I need the Holy Spirit to wipe them out.
Oh dear, I am realizing that this post is getitng a bit longer than I intended. Anyway, our friends left yesterday to go back home to America. Eric started school again and I had English classes after having the week before off (because of CPI). BUT, things won’t stay normal for long. My parents leave this afternoon to go to Atlanta for the MTW Global Missions Conference so we get to stay with my four youngest siblings for a week. We are excited, as Noa will have a blast having her uncles and aunt around so much. It will add some more chaos to our lives, though, so please pray for us as we’re already worn out. Also, Noa has had a quite a cough these last 2 days so please pray that she gets better quickly, and that all this change of environment doesn’t throw her for too much of a loop. Please also pray for this conference in Atlanta, that the Lord would use it to grow his Kingdom work world-wide. We are particularly praying that the Lord would call many to be laborors in the harvest fields of Japan. To find out anymore information about the conference, you can go to www.mtw.org.
Hopefully we’ll get some pictures and videos up soon for you to enjoy. Hope that God is blessing and keeping each of you.
If you’re still reading this, thanks! 
I’m done now…
Continue reading about update on our lives (watch out… its quite long)
We are really excited that a short-term team from our home church in Virginia has come to help and serve. I never knew as a person who has spent almost all my time in the states, what a thrill it is to have a missions team from your home church come and serve!!!
They will mainly be working and helping with CPI (Japan’s Church Planting Institute). Pray that God would bless their time here!
Below is a picture of part of the team during their Sunday evening panel discussion on church unity.
A few links that go with this post -
Covenant Presbyterian Church in Harrisonburg, Virginia
I have a precious friend who has been taking time each week to get together and pray with me. This is a blessing in two big ways: first, I desperately need that time of fellowship, companionship, and accountability with another sister in Christ. Truly, our times together have been so sweet as we usually make each other a meal, spend a good bit of time catching up and playing with Noa, and then coming before our Father together in prayer for one another. Secondly, this time has been really good for my Japanese practice. The first few times I chickened out when it actually came time to pray and told her I would just pray in English. But this last time, I swallowed my pride (funny how I have to swallow pride when coming before the God of the universe…shouldn’t I be doing that EVERY time??) and stumbled through a long and choppy prayer, trying to convey the things on my heart but doing a very poor job indeed. Chizuka was very encouraging when we were done and said that she understood what I was saying. And of course, I know God understands the prayers of our heart, no matter what language or even if they’re said verbally or silently. But still, this whole idea of God and language has stuck with me this week and these are some things I’ve thought about.
First off, Japan is a country of proper language. There is a polite form and a casual form of most words, and sometimes there is the very very very polite form. It is important to use the form apropos for the person with whom you are talking. Naturally, when talking to God in prayers, we should use the most polite form always. Well, even when talking to my elders and superiors, I know I must offend because I am terrible at remembering (a) to try to speak in the polite form and (b) to actually remember what the polite form is that I should be using. I know that many people here have shown me grace because I’m American and they give me the benefit of the doubt that I don’t mean disrespect (at least I hope that’s what they’re doing…). I’ve been thinking how much more that is so with God. Not just in my lousy attempt to pray in Japanese, but always, my language is so far from what it should be in the honor and respect I give to God when I approach Him. I am so thankful that God’s is a language of grace. No matter how I communicate to him, no matter how I neglect to communicate to him, he never fails to pour grace upon grace into my life. Reading his Word each day he opens my heart to pick out nuggets of grace. But not only in his written Word, though, but in the words of his people, and in the blessings he pours into our lives, and even in the big and small wonders of creation, grace is shouted and whispered to us constantly. I am so thankful that though my greatest attempt to honor God with words or actions is feeble, he never fails in his ability to communicate his message of love, faithfulness, mercy, and goodness to me. How I pray that his church, worldwide, would be more and more like him as we “hold out the word of life” (Philippians 2).
You can pray for me in language study, that I would get better at praying in Japanese, ? not so that God hears and understands better, but that he would be honored and that he would use that ability to bless the Japanese Christians and non-Christians around me. Thanks!
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