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Plum Blossom Season is here! Plum tree outside my house.
Japanese Word of the Day!
Ume - Plum blossom
Prayer Requests
 
~ Continued prayer for my Japanese language learning, that I would be bold to use what I am learning even if I make silly mistakes at times.
~ Continued prayer for my relationship with Mahoko, that we could get to know each other even though my language skills are beginner.
~ Prayer for the Cafe and Church as we end the state of emergency this month and can hopefully start doing more outreach.
Dear Friends,

Wow! March is already here! This marks a year for me since COVID-19 broke out in the nursing home back in Washington State. I was on a plane returning from my final TEAM training, innocently dreaming of filling out my visa paperwork! We all have similar stories like this and are still living them!
COVID restrictions are still in place here in Japan. This means we had very few customers at the café this past month and no extra outreaches since gatherings are discouraged in small spaces...and well...every space seems to be small here!
Even though this is discouraging, I keep finding myself thinking about the Israelites being led out of Egypt and the fear they had constantly saying, "It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!' in most of the later half of Exodus. Always looking back at what was familiar and failing to see the good God is doing now. I love Moses' response in Exodus 14:12 "The LORD will fight for you, you need only to be still." No, everything is not exactly the same as when I first signed on to work at SonRise Cafe, but I can see how this slow start to ministry has actually been a huge blessing. I have been able to work on my Japanese and seek out creative ways to try an use it. There is more downtime at the cafe, meaning I get to try to talk to Mahoko. We've had a few laugh, mostly at my horribly fragmented Japanese, but I am okay with that. I am getting used to daily life, talking to shop keepers, being willing to look silly, laugh with people at myself and hopefully make some new friends in the process. God is fighting for me. He knows how to build me up and prepare me to do good here. This has been the best start in a new country I have ever had and I can't wait to see what else He has planned!

Blessings, 

Elya
I was tasked with giving the cafe a "little" clean since we don't have as many customers and some days off. The plan is to be well prepared for when people start going out again.
I don't think 'little' and 'clean' go together in my vocabulary. I'm a more 'over-haul' and 'deep clean' kind of gal. I channeled my inner Cinderelya scrubbing everything down.
A triumphant pose as I made it to a new train station for the first time on the first try. I am even to the point now where I don't always need Google to help me find the right train to take home!
This is one of the things I prayed for before coming to Japan, a local plant nursery near my house. Here she is! Just 5 minutes walking from my house. God has blessed me so much in the little things. The ladies that work there are quite chatty. I'm not sure they realize I understand 0.00005% of what they are saying, but they do make me feel like I belong and am not a foreigner. I walk by everyday on my way to the train and they now say hello to me as I pass...probably because I'm always gawking at the trees for sale that I can't afford nor do I have a place to plant them!
I may not be able to bake for the cafe just yet, but I have certainly been able to bless my TEAM members with lots of goodies. I haven't had people to bake for in awhile, so I was a bit over excited to bake this past month. My TEAM members told me if I keep it up, I'd make them all fat...

These are my neighbors, we all live next to each other in TEAM's little apartment complex.
Fun Story
I get to have a post office bank account here in Japan. Japan is still very much a cash society, so this is a convenient way to get cash without all those foreign transactions fees that sneak up on you at ATMs.
As part of filling out official documents, like bank account papers, I needed my very own Hanko Stamp. This is a red circular stamp with my last name in it. Japanese people usually have the symbols for their last name on them, but since I'm a foreigner mine was a big PRICE in all caps.
I had to fill out 3 different forms, all in Japanese, without much explanation. I had another TEAM member come with me and between the two of us it only took an hour to fill out the forms. We were quite confident we'd done a good job. Took the forms up to the teller. She tilted her head to the side looking at the forms...not generally a good sign, this usually means confusion...and politely started going over line by line the errors we'd made. I had to cross out every error, write in the correct information, and them using my Hanko Stamp to stamp a big red PRICE over the error (like the way we initial errors on checks in the States). By the time we were done, my form had little angry PRICE stamps all over it like a bunch of blisters. Reminded me of something that was reduced price or about to expire with all the PRICE, PRICE, PRICE on it.
A few weeks later I received a note to go to the post office to pick up my ATM card, but they'd spelt my name wrong on the notice. We were a bit worried they wouldn't give me the card because the name they'd written didn't match my ID. "Just take your hanko stamp with you. If they have any issue, show them the stamp and they can match it to all the stamps on your application form!' said my TEAM member. Luckily, they just gave me the card without any problems.
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