We are really really excited that we will have Lydia Smith, from our home church in VA staying with us for the next several months while she serves on the team here. Lydia is an amazing girl, from an awesome family, and we are thrilled to get to know her better and see what God will do in her and through her in her time here.
Lydia came for about 10 days for CPI in November of 2007. Here’s a photo of us with the team from our church (Lydia is standing to the left of Eric).
I am not quite sure what Eric is doing in this photo...
Ah man, I really miss these guys! I wish they were all coming back to live with us with Lydia… 
Anyway, would you all join us in praying for her as she is flying even now and will be here shortly? Pray that her time here would be fruitful personally and for God’s work in Japan. Pray that God would lead her for the future as she has college ahead of her after this. Pray that God would give her good friends, and that he would use us in even a small way to be a comfort to her as I am sure she will miss her big, fun family. And pray for her parents as they have just sent their oldest across the world for several months. I can imagine that must be hard but exhilarating (you know, being excited for her and for how God has led her and been faithful to them as parents). Thank you!
I am sure you will hear a lot about Lydia on here from now on. We’ve been working on her room this last week (the room that used to be our “office/throw-everything-that-doesn’t-have-a-place-room”) so Noa has been showing everyone who comes over “Leeeya’s” room. I know we will all love having her around!
Eric shared in our prayer requests that the church plant we’ve been attending, in the next town over from ours, has just rented a building after meeting in a home for the last six years. How exciting is that?!?! It has been thrilling this last month and a half as the members of this body have seen years of prayers and hope and waiting on God’s timing come to fruition.
While it has been awesome to worship together in the Tomita’s home, in recent months there have been some space issues. Also, as a cultural thing, Japanese are not as comfortable coming into a stranger’s home as they are to a meeting place. So, we are hoping this will be a more comfortable location for seekers and friends/family of church members to come.
In the last several weeks there has been a buzz of excitement among Christ’s body in Toke. Members have stayed for hours after worship to talk and plan and pray together. People have met to pray at the new building, and work on it, or plan for new ministries. It is an exciting time for these faithful saints, who are the only church in this town of 15,000 people. I am so excited as we physically move to a new building, and also, I pray, move closer to Christ and further out in reaching the people of Toke for his kingdom.
I am particularly excited to partner with two other dear women in this body to start a moms and kids’ club. As a stay-at-home mom myself I know how important it is to get out of the house to be with other moms, and for my kids to be with other kids. I am praying that this group, which will meet twice a month at first, will become a community for moms and place to talk deeply about the joys and struggles of parenting. I pray that there will be many opportunities to share with these women the great hope for them and their families found in Christ. I pray that as they come for a big ‘ol play day, they will leave having seen Christ.
Would you praise the Lord with us for this great blessing of a new place of worship and work? Would you also pray with us for His Word to go out from this place into the homes and lives of the lost? Pray that his people would continue to trust God to lead, guide, and provide for this church? Pray for the many new programs and ministries that are starting now with a new place, that many would step foot into Toke Chapel and encounter Christ (most for the first time in their lives!). Pray for our first Moms and Kids’ on the 25th of this month. I will post a little bit more about this later
Thank you for your prayers and, through them, your very real partnership in the Gospel here in Japan.
First worship service at Toke Chapel on November 2, 2008
Our last two and half days in the States were spent in Virginia. It was so great to be back “home” and get to see so many wonderful and dear friends. It was a whirlwind, and of course, not long enough, but still such a joy to our hearts to be with so many who have been such a blessing in our lives. My pictures don’t do the time justice, as I am missing many faces in this post, but here are a few fun ones:
Aunt Martha and Uncle Mark were along for most of our visit, which always makes life super fun. We are so thankful for the excitement that the Lord has ahead of them… Mark beginning his first semester of college at UVA in August, and Martha becoming a wife in September!
Our visit was just in time for Liam and Phoebe’s One Year Birthday Party. It was the perfect chance to celebrate these two precious children who we love so much and have watched grow from afar. Here is Liam with his Mom and Dad and his birthday cake.
It was also a great chance to meet new friends and reconnect with old ones. Martha was happy to meet Canon Reid for the first time. Look at those two sets of blue eyes!
And Noa got to meet her almost-birthday-buddy, Jude Lookabill for the first time. Another fun friend who we can’t wait to see again. We’re praying that Jude and his parents will be here in Japan real soon, and the kiddos can be MK buddies together too! 
It was also a special time of reconnecting with old friends. Eric had fun catching up with some of our fun friends, the Reid family! In our time in Harrisonburg, we loved getting the chance to babysit these guys, or just come over to hang out.
Noa loved seeing a very handsome and grown-up Paul Tongen once again. I love this photo of them checking each other out.
We love the Tongen family and it was such a joy to see them, along with many other families from our home group while we were back. What a treat!
Here is Noa connecting with BF Kathryn Sink. We have so many pictures of these two since they were babies and it was fun to watch them play together again. Here’s a big hug!
And of course, splashing around in the pool with Liam made the time even more fun!
And finally, a Noll-Cole trio! How fun to have these three, Noa and Phoebe and Martha, all just about 9 months apart from each other, get to hang out. 
Although we wish we could have played longer, it was such a blessing to get to see her for just a bit. Phoebe and her parents will move to California in a few weeks. We are so excited for where the Lord is taking them, but sad that they won’t be in Harrisonburg anymore when we go back. We pray, though, that no matter where the Lord leads our families, he will only strengthen our friendships and let these little cuties always enjoy whatever time they get to be together.
Well, Eric finished up school on Friday for the next two weeks, and we have had a great Christmas season so far, celebrating in many new ways with many new friends. However, we are realizing that we need to pace ourselves a bit, as there is so much to do and so many great opportunities at this time of year. All three of us are quite sick and our house sounds like a coughing chorus. I took Noa to the doctor on Thursday morning because she was running a pretty high fever and was not herself. She is doing significantly better now, though she’s still coughing a lot, like Eric and I.
Tomorrow is a big day for the congregation at Toke (the church plant we’ve been attending) as we will have our first ever candle-light service in that town. I am particularly hoping that some of my English students who live there will attend. Please pray for this service, that God would be glorified as we celebrate Christ’s birth in a town where there has never been such a celebration. Also, we would ask for you to pray for our family. We are pretty worn out physically but are longing to be involved in several events over the next few days. Pray for strength when we need it, and discernment for when to stay home and get well. Here is a picture of our sick girl who has been quite the cuddler these last few days. Pretty much all she’s wanted to do is read books and snuggle. 
Right now (hoping that we will all be feeling much better), we plan on spending Christmas morning as a family at home, joined for a late brunch by two guys on our team and two Japanese girls who are good friends. In the afternoon we will head over to my parents’ house to spend the rest of the day and have our Christmas feast. We are excited as this is our first Christmas as a family to be in our own house on Christmas Eve and Morning, and to have some time with just the 3 of us on this holiday. We will so miss our family far away! But we’re so thankful for the gift of each other and that my parents and several siblings are close by to join for part of the day.
I probably won’t get around to posting again til after Christmas, but be sure to check in for pictures late in the week.
We so appreciate you keeping up with us and especially for your prayers for our family and Japan. May you have a very Merry Christmas, as there is so much to be joyful about! May the miracle of Christmas – God becoming man to save sinners, Light finally coming to a dark and waiting world – truly bring merriment in your hearts and homes.
“God rest ye, merry gentlemen, let nothing ye dismay. REMEMBER, CHRIST, OUR SAVIOR WAS BORN ON CHRISTMAS DAY! To save us all from Satan’s power when we were gone astray. O tidings of comfort and joy!”
Merry Christmas!!
This actually wasn’t our Christmas party; this was Sunday morning at the once-a-month sunday school Christmas party at the church plant we’ve been attending. On Friday they asked us to come a bit early so Eric could dress up and surprise the kids. I didn’t know Santa visits Sunday Schools, but hey! I think the funniest part was how freaked out Noa got by the whole thing. She was crying so hard anytime she even looked at him. And when Eric came back out later in his normal clothes, she just clung to him as if she’d been through a nightmare. It was pretty cute.
Last night we hosted the young adult’s group Christmas party at our house. This house has a lot more space than we use and we were so thankful that the leadership took us up on our offer to use it for any events. I think it was a big success and lots of fun. It was great too, because we had a lot of new people, including several non-Christians. Enjoy the photos!
This is what 37 people leave in our “genkan” when they come in… makes for keeping the house so much cleaner at a party! I love Japanese culture!
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)
