Dear Friends,
March is the time of the cherry blossom here in Japan. Rows of trees blooming with pink or white flowers. It's truly an incredible sight to see. Reminds me how incredibly amazing our creator is in His design and how much joy His creation gives us!
Cherry blossom viewing, known as Hanami in Japan, is a very important time for Japanese people. They usually get together with friends and have a picnic under the cherry blossom trees to enjoy their beauty. Unfortunately, due to COVID, the government discouraged any Hanami celebrations. However, that didn't stop
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everyone. There were still many picnic or campsites set up to enjoy celebration. The flowers only last about a week. It is a gentle reminder of how fleeting life is and to enjoy the moments of rare beauty.
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One of the high school girls we were friends with when I was in Viet.nam is now an adult and working in Tokyo! We were able to get together. It was like we had never been apart. God always amazes me in who he chooses to bring back into my life and when. I never really know what kind of impression I have left on someone's life. Please continue to pray for us as we intend on getting together more frequently since we are both here.
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Mahoko has been teaching me how to make some of her cakes and the café menu items like herb chicken. She is a very patient master and I the humble bumbling apprentice. I removed tendons from 3 chicken tenders to her 15 tenders...mine also looked like they'd been mutilated.
I decided to return the favor and taught her how to make pumpkin bread since she likes pumpkin. We are getting to know eat other little by little. I really enjoy our time together and I hope that I can be encouraging to her.
Please continue to pray for our relationship and the effectiveness of our outreach through the café.
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SonRise Church was finally able to meet in person this past Sunday. Not everyone came, but it was good to see some of the people in person who I had only met over Zoom.
Please continue to pray that we will be able to resume some of our other ministries in the month to come.
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SonRise Cafe is located on an outdoor shopping mall strip. I walk almost the entire strip twice a day when coming and going to the cafe. There are a lot of shops. A new women's only gym opened up on the corner I turn off to to go home. They had a lot of recruiters out trying to get ladies in for a free trial. I got stopped, which is unusual because most Japanese assume as a foreigner that I do not speak Japanese and most of them don't speak English or are too shy to speak English. Well, I do not really speak Japanese and this recruiter did not really speak English. She used Google translate to tell me all about the gym and asked if I wanted a free trial. I decided to go ahead with it because she had actually taken a great deal of effort to talk to me.
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My free trial was supposed to be 30 minutes of talking about my weight, my exercise habits, and showing me the equipment they use. It turned into an hour and a half trial because no one inside spoke English and my Japanese lessons have not covered "Going to the Gym" as one of the topics. We used Google translate, which is not very good. At one point the Japanese coach was trying to asked me about what kind of exercises I liked to do...none really...and Google translated the question to one word "Cookies". Kukki is cookie in Japanese, they sound similar. So I said in Japanese, "Cookies, yes please!" Like she was offering me a cookie, because eating cookies is my favorite form of exercise.
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We laughed through most of it and in the end I joined the gym. Not because I like to exercise, but because they were so nice and so willing to work hard to try talk to me in Japanese. Technically, I think it is a gym for elderly ladies, everyone is at least twice my age if not more, but the coaches are around my age. The ladies are always calling me 'kawaii' meaning cute, probably because my eyes are always huge like Bambi since I rarely understand what they are saying to me.
I get a chance to practice Japanese while getting to know the Japanese coaches. I pray for friendships as I am working out. It's not always easy to meet new people, but I am hoping this will be a good opportunity for some friends!
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