Crossway Thanksgiving Dinner

We hosted a Thanksgiving Dinner for 12 Japanese and 7 English speaking friends. Adding my family (including my parents who were visiting) and kids, we had 28 people in our home! We were jam-packed in (it was quite hard for some people to get out for seconds!) and we eventually took down the folding tables and spread out on the floor for games and fellowship.
9 of those attending are not yet believers, and it was good to share about what we each were thankful for. It was a meaningful time, and several people became emotional. It was encouraging to see the growing trust level in our community
Here is most of the group from that night. Please be praying for the many students who had been exposed to the truth of the Gospel, but do not yet believe.

Crossway "Overnight"

We had 5 Japanese students and several other friends spend the night. We watched the Christian movie "Fireproof"　(which you can rent in any Japanese video store under the name "Firestorm"). We had a good discussion about relationships, and then stayed up late playing games and playing the Wii (you can see it projected against a white sheet in the background!)


The next moring, our kids had fun waking up some of the students who overslept! We enjoyed panckes and eggs for breakfast.

Jon Translating at Oyumino Alive

It has been a great blessing to work together with Dedachi-san, our Japanese Pastor. When I lead the worship service in English, he translates into Japanese, and when he leads in Japanese, I usually translate for him into English.Translating sermons takes more preparation on my part (working through the sermon script in advance) but has been good language learning and good ministry experience for me. I've done it 4 or 5 times now and each time I've felt more and more comfortable and had to rely on my notes less and less. Language learning is a life-long process!

East Tokyo Presbytery Worship & Picnic

We had a gathering of the 14 churches in our East Tokyo Presbytery at Honda Chapel.
You can see the Oyumino Gospel Choir singing, while the more traidional Choir in on deck in the front. We also had a message from a Japanese pastor encourageing us in evangelism and church-planting in our region.
We also had fun playing volleyball ... or just playing with balls in Calvin's case. :)

We wrapped up the evening with a BIG Japanese style barbecue for ~100 people.

Can you spot Calvin and I in the back, behind the smoke?
We had fun hanging out with our friends working the BBQ.

Many lingered, both inside and out, and it was a great fellowship time for our Presbytery.
Please pray that our Presbytery would continue to grow and be an influence in the East Tokyo area - for His Glory!

Oyumino Christ Church - Joint Worship

Our Church, Oyumino Christ Church (おゆみ野キリスト教会) currently meets in 3 different locations on Sunday mornings. Quarterly, we all meet together for worship (200+ people). This time we all squished together to take a photo for the church Christmas card.


Does this church seem small to you? Well, the average congregation in Japan has only 32 people, so this church is actually "quite huge" in Japan!

This photo primarily includes Japanese Christians, plus some missionaries and a number of not-yet-believing Japanese who regularly attend.

Please join us in praying for our Church.
- Pray for each location (Oyumnio, Honda, Toke) to continue to grow through conversions in each area.
- Pray for the depth and number of cell groups in the church to grow.
- Pray for more men to be raised up as Elders in the Church.
- Pray for the many members whose spouses do not yet believe.
- Pray that young families would be able to raise their children to follow the Lord, when it is so 'against the grain' of the culture.
- Pray for the one missionary and 2 Japanese pastors who are leading these 3 congregations.

Family Pictures

So our family was due for a photoshoot, trying to get a good one for our new MTW Prayer Card. Enjoy!








Olivia's pained expression here is priceless ... after an afternoon full of so many poses and smiles.

Yukata day at Oyumino Alive

Yukata are a lighter version of the traditional japanese kimono. On this particular Sunday, a whole group of us came to Sunday morning worship in our yukata! Even the kids wore theirs :)

Time at the park with my new camera

We felt like we just had to take Chris and Leanne to this park
about 20 minutes from our house. This spider web looking climbing structure
would never be found in America, yet our girls just love it!

This slide is seriously the longest slide I have ever seen!
It is hard to really show you how long it really is.
The first time we went with the kids, Annabella,
ended up having a burn from the rollers. It was that long!

The rest are fun pictures that I took with my new camera.
I am just having too much fun! I had to share them....enjoy!

A day at the beach (actually 45 minutes at the beach)

We decided to all go to the beach before a typhoon that was coming.

Bad idea! The wind was blowing sand in our faces
and it was very cool out (not a good combination with the cold water).
Oh, well. We ended up spending more time cleaning up
from the beach than actually on the beach.
The kids still had fun splashing in the waves and playing a little bit in the sand.
Some pictures from our adventures...

Mark's first time in an ocean and it was the Pacific!

Annabella and Calvin loved splashing in the waves. Olivia preferred the sand.

I loved this picture of Mark's sweet baby toes with the sand all in between them.
So sweet!!!