I can’t believe it’s here. Tomorrow morning Eric and I will leave the girls in the loving and capable hands of my parents and siblings and fly to South Asia. We’ll be joined by two good friends: a Japanese church member, Keiko and a team member who works with Eric at school, Andrew. We’ll meet up with our MTW Asia director and one of our dearest friends from college, who just arrived on this mission field for a two year term.
There has been so much that has led up to this trip, and it has been truly amazing to watch the Lord lead and direct, and move in our hearts. This is a vision trip so we are going to explore the possibility of becoming long-term missionaries there after seminary. We’re praying for hears that are open to hearing God’s voice as we see and experience a life and ministry unlike anything we have ever even come remotely close to.
I would love to share more, but it is late and we have to leave early. Plus, my glasses are broken and I already took out my contacts, so I can’t see this screen to save my life. I have to pull the computer real close every few minutes to make sure I am typing what I want to type 
Anyway, please be praying specifically for these things:
~Our family as we are apart. I feel like I may stop breathing when I think about about saying goodbye to my babies tomorrow morning. I know they will have a fabulous time at Baba and Gigi’s house (Noa has been talking about it for weeks!), but It is literally painful for Eric and I to be leaving them. Pray that we would trust God with them and be able to focus on the purpose of this trip.
~Safety. We’re not going to the most politically stable country, and there are also significant risks for physical illness. We have taken a ton of precautions and will continue to do so, but please pray that ultimately the Hand of God would be our protection, especially for my body and little one inside.
~Vision. This is a vision trip so please pray that God would use this to broaden our scope of what he is doing worldwide, and that he would be gracious in revealing his specific will for each of the members of our group. Please pray that we would come back with much to share with our church family about how God is building his kingdom.
Thank you! Can’t wait to share with you what we sea and learn!
Our family at the park this evening having "Super Family Fun Night"
Ok, this is the last time I will blog about this, I promise! Well, actually, I probably can’t promise that. But oh well.
Here is Noa, singing her favorite part of her favorite song. A packing box is the perfect perch, don’t you think?
… when the resident one-year-old says, “Adieu Adieu” while nodding her head every time “So long Farewell” starts playing on the ipod. She also leans her body out sideways when they start saying “coo-coo coo-coo.”
Remember this?
Yea, we’re still going strong. We’ve upgraded, though, and now sing “Do-Re-Mi” almost as much as So Long, Farewell.
We made this little video for the mothers and grandmothers in our lives for Mothers’ Day this year. It’s also a fun way to see Martha’s new (ish) mobility in full glory.
Enjoy!
…an update on our plans:
I haven’t yet shared with the blogosphere how God has blessed and led us for after these two years in Japan are up (this summer). So, if you don’t get our monthly prayer update e-mails, this may be news to you.
God has definitely used this time in Japan to call our family to long-term overseas missions, and so we are pursuing that. The first step, in our specific calling, is seminary so that Eric can have the training he needs to be a church-planter. We have been amazed watching God open doors for him to go to school full-time starting this fall, at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida.
So, we have flights reserved to fly to Virginia on July 3rd. The girls and I will stay with my grandparents there, while Eric spends a week at the MTW home office debriefing and training for his new position as an MTW recruiter (his job for the next 3 years). We plan to spend a few more days with friends and family in VA, and then head up to PA for 2 weeks with our Noll family. We are really looking forward to this time to reconnect and just enjoy our precious families who we have missed so much. Then, around the end of July we will pack up everything that has been stored these last two years, and make our way down through VA and onto our new home in Florida. Eric will begin a four-week course of Pre-Greek on August 3rd.
Since we will continue working for MTW in this new capacity, we are still dependent on the support of individuals and churches for our cost of living. It is kind of a crazy place to be, support raising once again, and watching God provide for our needs for this next important stage of ministry for our family. It has also been a step of faith because we are required to commit 3 years of missionary service for every 1 year of seminary that we do through MTW. So, after much prayer and wisdom from others, and affirmation from the Lord, we have pretty must committed the next 12 years of our lives. We still don’t know where that will be after these first 3 years, but are praying and seeking God’s will to that end.
Which leads me to another exciting thing I don’t think I’ve shared yet. Eric and I are going on a vision trip at the end of this month to a country in South-East Asia with two other potential missionaries (one, a close Japanese friend) , and our MTW Asia director. MTW is just now starting a team in this country and we are going for a week to get a vision for what God is doing there, and to explore the possibility of perhaps pursuing long-term church-planting there. We are thrilled about this opportunity, and excited for another chance to see how God is building His church worldwide. We are also prayerful that He will be clear in His leading as we really have no idea right now if this is where He wants us or not. I will share a little bit more about prayer requests as the time gets closer.
All of that to say, we are in a very transitional time of life right now. I have begun packing boxes and recruiting summer mission teams to take them back to America for us to save on shipping. Eric is working on assessing our support needs and raising support for this next stage of ministry. We are looking for a place to live in Orlando, and trusting God will provide just the right home for us. We are figuring out the logistics of moving a household worth of stuff down the East Coast. We are trying to plan our short time in VA and PA so that we can see and share with so many who we love and who have prayed for and supported us, as Florida is a long way away from those “home states,” and we don’t know when our next opportunity will be. And amidst all of this, we still have a very busy and full life here in Japan. The school year, both at CCSI and for the college students, doesn’t end for a while yet, and so ministry and life continue in full-swing. It’s hard to think about saying goodbye, and yet we must start at some point in order to not overwhelm ourselves in the last few days of craziness.
To be quite honest, this is a hard place to be. I really am so excited about our future and so certain that God has led in every one of these details. Still, I feel “snuck-up-on”, like this move is all of sudden staring me in the face and I don’t know where it came from. Didn’t we just get here?? Of course the hardest part is thinking of leaving my parents and siblings. This time of living so near to them has been better and sweeter than I could have imagined (I never dreamed I would live with my husband and family close to my parents, as, hello, they live in Japan), and there is no small amount of ache in imagining them so far away once again, especially as they have become such a normal part of the girls’ day to day life. On top of that, there are so many precious people, both team members and Japanese, who have enriched our lives in so many ways and who we will miss dreadfully. Truly, this weight of sadness in leaving is only a testament of how good God has been in making our lives so full and sweet here.
Another whole dimension of my sadness is in the uprooting of our girls. I am reading a great book on “Re-entry” and learning about how important it is to help them through this incredible transition. Martha is still quite young to be greatly affected, or to remember more than a few days past, but I am anxious about Noa. I know she is still very flexible as she’s so young, but my anxiety mostly comes from wanting her to remember this special time in her life, and the people who have made it so. Noa knows that we are going to America, and often talks about the many people she will see there and going to “Grammy’s house” and “Grandma and Grandpa’s house” and, most recently, “Laura’s house” where she can “hold the puppy Taz”. She also thinks every plane we see is going to America. It is a hard balance because I want her to be excited about what’s ahead, but I want her to treasure and enjoy her last weeks here, as this trip to America will not be like our trips last year, where she got to return “home” at the end of them. This trip will entail a lot of transition, and I think it will be a while before any of us feel like we are at home again.
So there you have it. It wasn’t meant to be that long, and I certainly wasn’t going to try to explain how emotional all this wonderful change is making this 20wks prego-mama. Oh well. Now you know. If you think of it, please pray for all of us in the weeks ahead. And for that matter, the years ahead as we begin this new exciting journey as a family in seminary. It is sure to be an adventure!
It’s no new thing that our Noa talks up a storm. She speaks in complete sentences now and really only has trouble with speaking in the first and second person (she usually speaks in the third, as in, “Noa wants to sit on Mommy’s lap”, though she has gotten a TON better as we’ve worked on it). She also has trouble with he/him/his and she/her/hers, but she gets it right about 50% of the time.
One of the things I love and that I will miss terribly when we leave, is watching her learn Japanese and use it everyday. Some of my favorite things she says:
“Oh Mama! Sugoi!!!” (sugoi is Japanese meaning, that’s amazing! She says it when I do things like serve dinner, or fold laundry. She’s very encouraging.)
“Da-me, Martha. Abunai!” (Meaning, “No, Martha! That’s dangerous!” Hmm, you think she hears that sometimes?)
Last week, our friend Keiko was asking Noa about her sister. It went something like this:
Keiko: Who is your sister, Noa?
Noa: Baffa (she has, in the last few days, changed to saying, “Martha”).
Keiko: Oh really. Where is she?
Noa: She’s at home with Daddy. She’s WALKING NOW!!
Keiko: Wow! Martha can walk?!? Is she cute?
Noa: yea… NO. She’s KAWAI (which means “cute” in Japanese. We all laughed when she said it, knowing that Noa hears that word way too much when we go anywhere out of the house )
Noa has two songs that she can sing almost entirely in Japanese. Singing is her favorite part of Sunday School, though she is learning to listen and understand the message as well. On Easter Sunday the teacher asked three questions in a row in Japanese, and Noa raised her hand and answered them correctly in English. I am also so surprised when Chizuka is over, because she speaks mostly Japanese to Noa, but Noa completely understands and answers all of her questions in English.
One of Noa favorite friends here is Mikuni Nagata. We go to church with them, do Moms’ and Kids’ club with them, and have them over semi-regularly. Noa and Mikuni are constant companions from the moment they see each other and it’s hilarious to watch them talk in their native language to the other, but both seem to completely understand each other. It just shows that friendship goes beyond language barriers.
Noa and Mikuni dressing-up
It’s sad to me to think about her not having all of this Japanese around her and her losing all that she’s learned so far. I guess we’ll have to keep up a little game she likes to play. She starts using Japanese words with me, and then has me do everything in Japanese while she tries to figure out what I am saying and respond appropriately. Usually, she ends up just saying, “Hai” (which means “yes”), but it’s obvious she enjoys it and it’s fun to watch her little brain process.
There are other things Noa says in Japanese. She will often make up songs that are mostly jibberish but have Japanese tossed in here and there. She talks to her babies in the same way, only it’s English and Japanese mixed. I am sure I am missing several of her actual phrases, but I wanted to type this up for the memory of this special learning time in her life, and to give you, her family, friends, and fans far away a glimpse of her life as a missionary kid here and how it is shaping her. It really is such a treat to see, and I am trying to focus on being thankful for this unique opportunity that she has had to live here, rather than mourning all that I am afraid she will forget when we move in less than two months.
Speaking of which, I should probably do an update post on our future plans soon, as our time in Japan is quickly coming to a close. For now, I hope you enjoyed a glimpse of our “bilingual Noa.”
