Thank you so much for your prayers for Saturday’s performance. We were so encouraged by the number of people who came out and the many NEW FACES we saw. Apparently, a lot of people went home from Friday and encouraged neighbors and friends to come. Please continue to pray for this Christmas season in Japan – that the true Christmas miracle would touch many hearts and lives. It is so exciting to be here and to watch what God is doing to build His Kingdom. Here are some more photos from Saturday night.
Here’s everyone from school who worked on the production:
Some more pictures of the little lambs… I thought they were the CUTEST!
The banner-bearers for the wise-men. 
Eric with some fans 
One of the school families with their two students
At the coffee house we had more live music.
Some friends warming up with coffee after being out in the cold to watch the play – believe me, it was pretty cold!
And Noa, seeing if the lamb outfit fits so she can practice for next year 
On another note, at church yesterday, we had the privilege of celebrating the baptism of 2 covenant babies in our congregation. We also got to see 2 middle school girls who were baptized and dedicated to the Lord as children profess their faith in front of the congregation and become communicant members. It was such a beautiful picture to hear testimony of God’s faithfulness to the second set of families as their daughters are walking with Jesus and claiming Him for their salvation. I pray that it was an incredible encouragement to the two families with little babies as they begin the journey shepherding these children, praying for them, and modeling a life dependent on Christ to them. It was such a joy to be there with these precious families and again, to witness how God is working here, especially among families.
I’ve been meaning to post this for a while now, and having just been to the OB again this morning, I am feeling particularly motivated to show your some photos of our younger daughter, now 29 weeks old! One thing that I am loving about Japan OB care is the ultrasound at every visit. Every time so far, she has been moving all over the place and showing us that she is very “genki” (healthy). Here is an older ultrasound of her profile, on the day we found out she’s a girl, already 10 weeks ago!
And here she is from this morning, a face shot. You can see her right eye clearly and the shape of her face looks just like Noa’s! I think she looks like a cutie already 
We’ve named her Martha Evangeline Noll, after two of our sisters. My little sister Martha was named after my Mom’s little sister Martha, so we are keeping the tradition going. Maybe Noa will want to name one of her daughters after her little sister Martha I will post more about the meaning of her name another time (because all names need beautiful explanations, right?). For right now, suffice it to say her name is a celebration of sisters: the sisters that we love and enjoy so much and the sister that she and Noa are so blessed to have in each other.
On another note, I haven’t stopped smiling this morning thinking of the blessings of COUSINS for our girls. Noa and Martha will have two girl cousins (Trinity and Annie) between them: meaning 4 girl cousins separated by only 17 monthes! How fun is that? If you add in Daniel Josiah, these kiddos are 5 cousins in a little over 2 years. I am thankful that even though our family is big, and we will most likely be separated by great distances, as we are now, that our kids will have instant commonalities with their cousins when we do get them together, like being so close in age and grades! I think that is such a gift from God. Hopefully the next “batch” will be similar.
Noa would like to tell everyone that she is blessed with ANOTHER girl cousin. Anne Oliver Iverson was born on Sunday and we are so thankful that she and her Mama are doing well. We are so excited that the Lord has blessed this family with so many little ladies and Noa is especially excited to have some girl time with her two girl cousins, Trinity and Annie next month here in Japan. Praise the Lord with us! I’ll post pictures when we get some.
Tonight we had our first Christmas performance with the school. The Lord really blessed all of the logistics of it and everything went off pretty much problem-free. Whe are doing a living nativity, where there is music and narration (pre-recorded) and the cast just acts, without saying anything. We did two performances tonight and will do two more tomorrow night. It was very exciting to see all the people that came out tonight to watch, especially to see some of my English students from the community. Things went so well, and there was such a great response, that we are really praying that even more people will come out tomorrow evening. The narration gives an awesome Gospel presentation, and it was very clear tonight what a great outreach opportunity this really is. Please pray with us that the Lord would bring many people tomorrow night to hear the good, true news of Christ coming to save sinners. Please pray that he would prepare hearts for the message and that he would use this outreach greatly for his Kingdom work here in Japan.
I’m posting some pictures from tonight’s performance, maybe we will be able to get a video on here sometime soon, too.
Inside the school building, there was a really neat coffee house set up for people to warm up and sit and enjoy music. The kids have been preparing Christmas carolls to sing and they did great!
Hello Everyone!
Sorry its been a while since we posted. It has been a crazy week for us and things are still pretty crazy. But it is generally happy chaos
Thank you so much for your prayers for Noa. Her hand is healing great, though she still holds it up and says “ow” now and then. It doesn’t seem to bother her, though, and so far none of her blisters are infected or anything, so we are very thankful.
Last Friday night we were in charge of putting on a Thanksgiving dinner for IMPACT, the college ministry that we help out with. So that took up a lot of time last week, preparing and then gettitng all the food made on Friday. We had hoped that it would be a big outreach, and were told by the Japanese staff to plan on about 20 students coming. Needless to say, it was disappointing when only 3 students showed up. Please pray for IMPACT, that the Lord would give guidance and clarity as to how to reach students. There is a lot of fear of religious groups on campus becaus of recent cult activities (and atrocities). In fact, we are not even allowed to go on campus at all without being accompanied by a student, so its hard to meet people. Because of our busy schedule with school and English classes, we haven’t been able to give as much time to college ministry as we would like. As of right now, the only staff for IMPACT are part time and so not much more goes on as far as student ministry thoughout the week, besides our Friday night meetings. Please pray that the Lord would provide for the full-time staff workers to raise theirs support, finish language school, and get here soon! All in all, though, it was a really fun night together with the students and other staff members, as well as a good experience for me making my first ever ENTIRE Thanksgiving dinner.
Another big event for us this week was Sunday night. I hosted “No-Boys-Allowed 2007 All-School-Girls Sleepover”. Noa and I had 10 of the 12 girl students from the school over to play games, do manicures, and just have fun together. When I was a missionary kid, it was an incredible blessing to me when older girls who were short-termers would take time to hang out with us, and for several years the sleepovers were pretty frequent. I decided to renew the tradition and I think it was a big hit. I’m hoping that times like these will help to build community among the girls at the school (their ages range from 7 to 16, and there and English and Japanese native speakers) as well as give me opportunities to share the love of Jesus with them and support them in their important roles as missionary kids in Japan. It was also fun because the Japanese track teacher, Ai, came too, and as always, it was great fun spending time with her and getting to know her better.
This week is the school Chrsitmas program, “A Living Nativity.” We have been busy busy busy the last few weeks preparing for the program, and are excited about this great outreach opportunity. There has never been anything like it in this area before, and a lot of time has been given to advertising. We will perform twice on Friday night, and twice Saturday night, as well as singing carolls for a “coffee house” at the school in the in-between times. Eric and I are Joseph and Mary in the play, which will be fun.
Please pray for this outreach, as it is a great opportunity to reach out to the community where the school and church buildings are located. Because the play is outside, it isn’t as intimidating for people to come, since they don’t actually have to go INTO the church. Christmastime is also a great opportunity for meeting new people because so many are interested in this “western” holiday and the traditions that surround it. Pray mostly that God would be glorified in this endeavor and that his people would be faithful stewards of the resources he’s given us to do this.
On another note, Noa has really become a little Japanese girl. She started bowing when she sees Japanese people and when we ask her to say “konnichiwa”, “arigato”, or “sayonara” (hello, thank you, and goodbye). Its so funny, because she only really does it with Japanese people, and still does her typical “hi” with a wave to other Americans.
Sorry I don’t have any pictures. The camera died a few weeks ago, after many good year of use. Haven’t had any time to look into getting it fixed.
As always, thanks for checking in with us and thank you so much for your prayers on our behalf. We see the Lord’s goodness to us so clearly, especially in the love and support that we feel from many of you. May God bless you as the Christmas season begins!
