A day in the Park with the Tokutake family

We had a fun day today with the Tokutake family. We recently met them at Karuizawa Christ Church, where we have been attending. They have an 8 year old daughter named Noeru (Japanese pronuciation of the name Noel). She just loves our two little girls, and was a great playmate for Olivia today. We walked about 45 minutes(!) to get to Yagasaki park, since the roads are really busy this week (it is "Golden Week", the biggest vactaion week for all of Japan). It was a beautiful day, and we enjoyed talking with them along the way. We are thankful that God is providing some young Japanese families for us to develop friendships with - to learn and share with each other our faith, our languages and our cultures.

The Sakura (cherry blossoms) are finally in bloom here in Karuizawa and are very beautiful. Most of Japan blooms in early April, but Karuizawa is late because of it's high altitude.

At Yagasaki Park, we found ducks and large carp fish to feed in the small lake. Olivia loved it! You can see the delight on here face in the photo.

Kawanakajimakosenjou

I just had to tell you about a new city name that has been added to my "Coolest Japanese Name List". Kawanakajimakosenjou is a little town outside of Nagano city. We passed it on our way to get our re-entry permits (so we can leave and come back to Japan for Sarah's brother's wedding this summer).

I could only partially read the kanji (Japanese characters), and I could hardly read the romaized version either! It took driving by about 6 signs before we could even pronounce the name! After much practice, it just rolls off the tongue. Give it a try ... it is easier if you break it down: Kawa (river) -naka (middle) -jima (island) -ko (ancient) -sen (battle) -jou (place). I looked it up and discovered that it was a very famous ancient Samurai battlefield in 1561, where over 2/3 of all the warriors (more than 25,000) died in the battle!!!!

If you're curious, some other entries on my favorite city names in Japan include: Kokubunjidai, Bakurochou, Suidoubashi, ...

Dinner with the Kawamura family

We had a great evening with Mitsuya & Junko Kawamura and their two girls Miu (6) and Iroha (2) on Saturday night. Mitsuya works for Honda in their R&D department in the design of motorcycles, and will actually be moving to Marsville, OH to work at that Honda plant for 5 years. When we first met at church, several weeks ago, he was amazed to hear that we were from Ohio. Cool how God has given us a chance to serve them as they prepare to move in the next few months.

We decided to introduce them to Cincinnati style chili at our home (see skylinechili.com if you don't know what we're talking about). We were not sure what they would think, but they all had seconds - so we think they were more than just being polite. :) It was fun to play with the kids, and we all had a good time talking. We all used our best Japanese and English , respectively, and were able to communicate quite well. The picture below shows all four girls playing with the farm set on our little Japanese table.

Thanks for your prayers!

Thanks for prayer fror my Mom. Her surgury went well, and she is home resting. The pathology report did come back indicating no cancer in the lymph nodes (yeah!), but there was a tiny 2mm cluster of cancer cells near the sentinal lymph nodes. The doctors feel that the chemotherapy will take care of them and that another surgery will not be necessary. The surgeon, oncologist and pathologist will meet on May 1st to discuss the best treatment.

Please continnue in your prayers - May this all be for His Glory!

Pray for Jon's Mom

My mother, Liz Pfeil, is undergoing surgery at ~2pm on Tuesday April 18th for her recently discovered breast cancer. The news of the cancer came as a shock to us all, but we are thankful it was caught pretty early. It is still serious, though, and further tests will reveal the nature of her upcoming treatment.

Pray with us that God would heal her of her cancer for His glory. Pray that God would use this experience for His Kingdom purposes in their lives and the lives of those around them. Pray also that God would give Mom and Dad strength and perseverance for this journey ahead, and that He would give our whole family much grace and love to share with each other during this time.

Easter Morning in Karuizawa

KIRISUTO GA YOMIGAERARETA!
(CHRIST IS RISEN!)

Today was a special day to celebrate Easter with our new Japanese friends at Karuizawa Christ Church. Here are some pictures from this morning.


Olivia is standing by her new little friend Iroha (age 2)


Annabella is being held by her new friend Rina (age 6)

The worship service was meaningful – in spite of us not understanding much of the Japanese. They had a little play/ reenactment of the visitation of the women by the angel at the tomb, and we sang tunes we knew including “Because He Lives” and “Lo, In the Grave He Lay”. The words were a little different, though. ☺

"Good Friday" Dinner with MTW Teammates

We had a fun Easter Dinner with two other families from our MTW team who are also here in Karuizawa Language School with us. (*NOTE: Click any picture to enlarge*)

Robert & Lisa Stewart (behind couch) work with missionary kid education and a new Christian school for Japanese kids that our team has started. They have a son William (2.5) and daughter Isabel (9 mo).

Roger & Abi Lowther (sitting to left of us) are professional musicians, and will be working to support and extend our team’s ministries in new and creative ways. They have two sons, Aiden (2.5) and Easton (6 mo).

They fit in nicely with our Olivia (2) and Annabella (10 mo). We look forward to them growing up together here in Japan.

Up Close and Personal

Well, I'm sure some of you were wondering abot this whole "monkey business" we've been talking about. Well, yesterday, we decided to go take a family walk in search of the monkeys, since it was a nice day. We found them again - and have proof that we were there!
Olivia loves it. Unfortunataley, we're afraid tht she will be dissapointed with any other place we live in the future. How many other places will have wild monkeys! She has become an excellent imitator of the monkeys, walking around on "all fours" and pretending to eat off the ground like the monkeys.

Oh, yes, and we are taking Japanese classes now, too. This isn't just a nature safari after all! :) Classes are going well, and we're begininng to get the hang of our schedule. Sarah takes classes from 8-10 then studies until lunch. Jon's classes are from 1-3, then studies until ~5. We then have time after the girls go to bed to continue with our studies. It has taken a little getting used to, but has been a good chance for both of us to have special time with the girls each day.

Thanks again for praying for us.

Our Mailing Address in Karuizawa, JAPAN

Here is a nice shot of our friendly neighborhood active volcano. Yes, it is active. Not a “lava spewing” kind, but a “smoke and ash” kind. It actually erupted about 2 years ago. The good news is, it only goes off every 18 years or so. ☺

By the way, several of you have asked about our mailing address:

Jon & Sarah Pfeil
1190-4 Karuizawa Machi
Kitasaku Gun, Nagano Ken
389-0102 JAPAN

We saw Monkeys!!!

We took a walk this evening with the girls, and we saw monkeys up close for the first time!!! We had seen them from afar, and heard many stories, but this was so fun to see them up close and personal. Olivia loved watching them. We probably watched them for over half an hour. They are actually quite fast and we found ourselves chasing after them to get a better look. (Does this make us “Monkey Chasers” … kind of like “Storm Chasers” …?)

The monkeys are actually bigger than we expected. Some were bigger than Olivia! They seemed to be somewhat used to humans, because they came up pretty close to us. Our parental instincts kicked in, and we put ourselves between the monkeys and our babies. We’ve also heard of people spotting wild boars in our area. They only come out at night. We think we've heard them, and we've seen their scratchings in the dirt, but no live sightings … yet.

So, the adventure continues! Oh yes, and we've decided to start our Japanese classes this next Tuesday. Please pray for yet another big transition ahead.