Mom's Cancer Treatment Update

Jon's Mom, Liz Pfeil, had an excellent recoverery from her surgury, and now has clarity from her oncologist on the next steps of treatment. She will have 4 chemo treatments, 3 weeks apart. She will get the port implanted July 11, then begin full chemotherapy on July 20.

In God's great providence, our family of 4 will be back in the States this July, visiting for Sarah's bother's wedding. We will actually get to be with Mom & Dad for several days before and after her first chemotherapy treatment. What a blessing to be right there with them in the middle of it all, even though we usually live on the other side of the world!

Please pray for Mom's body, that she would be strong during the treatments. Pray that she and Dad would clearly know God's pressence during this difficult time. Pray also that we would be a blessing to them during our July visit. Thanks!

1/8th of the way to Literacy! .... Maybe :)

Sarah and I have been working hard on learning our Kanji (pictoral characters used in Japanese writing). We have just learned our 244th character!!! Only 1701 more to go to reach the standard 1945 daily use Kanji known by 9th graders in Japan. (But alas, knowing them is just the beginning. Reading them in context is a whole other challange!) This Kanji above has the root meaning of "parch", as in to dry something out. This morning, we were looking at our de-humidifier, and saw this character written amongst several others on one of the buttons. WOW! Makes sense, huh? It is always exciting to see real life application for the characters we are learning.
Here is another character with an intersting story. The character means "swim", and is made up of two componants - for water (the 3 dashes on the left), and for eternity (the part on the right). We found it easy to remember the meaning and writing of the character by remembering Sarah's youngest brother Ross. We are sure that his vision of heaven is swimming for eternity in an endless pool of water. Thanks Ross, that's one kanji we'll not easily forget!

The Dragon Slide

Check out this picture of this incredible slide. We found this park while exploring with a fellow missionary friend. This park is called the Dragon Park (though I can't quite remember the Japanese name for it). The slides and equipment all had "dragon-like" shapes. Anyway, it was a great park. Olivia was actually brave enough to climb all the way to the top, following the other Japanse kids, and then ride down it by herself. We were amazed. As her mother, I wasn't quite so brave! I rode down with her the first few time and then prayed from down below the whole time she rode it herself. This was one of the few nice days we have had here in Karuizawa. We are now into the rainy season. It is supposed to rain the whole month of June. But, I guess that is OK because we are studying a lot anyway. Enjoy these few pictures from our fun day in the park!

NIHONGO NO BENKYOU (Japanese Studies)

Our major pastime here in Karuizawa is not watching monkeys or having picnics with friends, but is studying Japanese! We realized that most of our previous blog posts show these 'more exciting' activities ... it just isn't so fun to take pictures of us doing homework! Actually, spending time with Japanese friends, IS a great way to praftice our Japanese, but we have to learn new words and sentences before we can use them. :)

I am currently studying a course called Minna No Nihongo "Japanese for Everyone", a Shukyou course (Biblical & spiritual terminology and useage), and an independant study Kanji course (Chinese Characters used in Japanese writing). Sarah is about halfway through an intro course called Hajime no Ippo "First Steps in Japanese" and will soon begin the Minna No Nihongo course. She is also studying the Kanji along with me.

Here's a little of my Kanji practice:


Please pray for us in our studies. Pray that we would have energy, dilligence, and enthusiasm. Pray that God would continually strengthen our vision for the future, along with a clear sense of how our studies will be crucial to our future work.

Visit to the Uenoyama's House

The Uenoyamas are a wonderful and gracious couple from our church here in Karuizawa. They used to live in Chiba, and I actually had met them during my first term here in Japan (2001). Amazing to meet them again, now living in Karuizawa!

Mr. Uenoyama is a Christian who actually came to faith through the ministry of our MTW team in Chiba several years ago. Mrs. Uenoyama is not yet a believer. (This is a difficult reality in the Japanese church, having individuals come to faith within a family that still follows traditional Buddhist and/or Shinto beliefs.)

They had us over for a delicious Japanese style dinner on Saturday night. It was especially interesting to hear Mr. Uenoyama tell a little about his testimony of coming to Christ. To him, the biggest influence in turning from a life of a typical nominal Buddhist was the JOY that he saw on the faces of Christians. This was something that he didn't have, and something that we wanted. This led his search to the Bible, and to missionaries & Japanese Christians who could help him understand.

Speaking of JOY, Olivia couldn't contain her joy as she played all night long with the Uenoyama's cat named Rascal. :)

A new baby cousin

Olivia & Annabella have a new cousin. Jon's sister Sara had her first baby on May 22. His name is Ezra. We love that name!

Olivia has been praying for "baby Ebaas" for months now, and she and Annabella clapped when they heard the news that he was born. :)

Night Drive through Tokyo (in the rain)

Sarah took this cool photo of Tokyo as she and Lisa (an MTW teammate) were driving back to Karuizawa after spending the weekend in Chiba. They atteded a baby shower for the pastor's wife of Chiharadai Church. The pastor, Tokuhiro, was my roommate 6 years ago when I first lived in Japan.

Here's a photo of the Baby Shower for Chiho. Japanese don't do baby showers, so this was a new concept for everyone. Notice the two guys in the photo. They came with their wives because they didn't really know what kind of a party this was. They stayed and had fun, though! (Chiho & Tokuhiro are sitting in the front middle.)

"Anime style" drawing of the girls

Our 8 year old friend Noeru (Noel) from church drew these pictures of the girls. Their names are written in Japanese (Katakana script). On the left is Olivia (O-ri-bi-a) and then Annabella (A-na-be-ra) on the right is winking. ;)

Update on Jon's Mom

Mom & Dad met with the oncologist recently. The doctor advised that the slides and pathology results should be sent to California for an Oncotype DX Breast Cancer Assay to determine if her situation is a "low risk"; "intermediate risk" or "high risk" on the recurrence of cancer --- both with and without chemo. It is possible that Mom may not need to have chemo. She is asking that we pray that the test result analysis would lead toward a decisive answer as to what course to follow. Thank you for your continuing prayers!

So where exactly are we?

Here is a nice map I found showing eactly where we are in Japan.

We live in a small town named Karuizawa up in the mountains of Nagano Prefecture. Our altitude is almost exactly 1000m (3280 ft).