Sarah's Brother's Wedding in NYC

We travelled back to the States to share in the celebration of Sarah's brother's wedding on July 29. Jon, Sarah, and Olivia were officially in the wedding party, while Annabella was 'officially cute' in matching dresses with Olivia.

The new couple: Chris & Leanne Harrington

Sarah and Annabella on way to the reception.

Jon and Olivia had fun blowing bubbles together!

Annabella & the Buddha

Not much to say here ... other than that Annabella seems to have taken a real "hands on" approach to engaging the Japanese culture.

(This was a little train set for kids to play with, complete with a plastic miniature of the giant Kamakura Buddha.)

Our First Visitor from the States

We had the priveldege to host Rebecca Sup from Cornerstone Church (my church in Milwaukee 1998-99) for a day recently. She was in Japan to visit her sister in Tokyo, and it worked out for her to come visit us in Karuizawa. She was very brave and took the Shinkansen (bullet train) by herself for about an hour to see us. What a pleasure to welcome her!

It was very encouraging and even 'validating' to have someone from a supporting church come and see first hand what our life is like here in language school. We had a lot of fun together showing her around, and telling funny stories, as well as recounting stories of God's faithfulness to us in these first 4 months.

We look forward to welcoming other friends in the future. :)
Please come and share in this vision God has given us for Japan!

Jidoukan Summer Festival

Here are some photos of a festival that we went to at the New Karuizawa Jidoukan (local play-place for kids). Can you spot Olivia and I in the crowd? (Enlarging the photo will help!) We all had lots of fun playing all the special games and singing songs - although Annabella took a nap during most of it. Actually, Sarah and I traded off watching Annabella sleep, and joining Olivia in the games.


Check out the genkan (entrance area where everyone takes their shoes off). All these shoes from so many kids made it tricky to find your own pair!

Fun with my new friends (by Olivia)

Hi, this is Olivia. I want to tell you a little bit about my life here in Japan.

I had a fun time a few days ago with 4 of my new Japanese friends from the nearby Jidoukan - a play place for kids like me! My friends invited me (and Momma) to come to a special place called Omocha Ookoku (Toy Kingdom). It is a fun little amusement park only 30 minutes from our house. They gave us free tickets too ... that made Daddy happy!

This is a photo of the 'Heart Princess' that we met. She was so beautiful and we wanted to take our picture with her. I was so sad when she had to leave, but Momma told me 'that the princess had to go take a nap'. I guess even princesses need nappy-naps too. :)

This place had so many fun things to do. Little cars to drive in, huge play stores with lots of play food, play shopping carts, and even little play rice cookers! For lunch we all ate lunches that we brought. Momma made me a peanut butter sandwich, but the rest of the kids all had obento lunches. They had little onigiri (rice balls wrapped in seaweed) which their mothers had made into happy little faces with little vegetables pieces. They were very cute.



This final photo is of all of us looking at the Merry-go-Round. It was so special! We could have watched it all day long. Our Momma's all let us ride on it, and it was so fun! My very own horsy ride!

Annabella's 1st Birthday!

Our little Annabella just turned one years old on June 16! We had a special birthday celebration at home in the morning, and then had a party later that day with friends.
Sarah made a cute elephant birthday cake, upon Olivia's request, and we had lots to share with everyone. Our Japanese friends couldn't believe it!
(By the way, Olivia has already decided that her next birthday cake will be a Zebra cake. We'll see if that holds up for the next 8 months!)
Annabella had fun openning gifts, and was so sweet, playing with the tissue paper.

Olivia's 1st Portrait Drawings

Well, Olivia is a talent in the making. At the ripe old age of 28 months, she has finally ventured beyond lines and circles, and into the world of quality portrait drawing. People do it on the street here in Karuizawa for ~ $20/ drawing, so we think this could be a real business opportunity for her.

The above drawing (please click on it to enlarge) of Grandma & Grandpa Pfeil is an excellent display of her 'almost' full body awareness. A large head with legs, arms, and a few well placed hairs sets the stage for a bold artistic statement - placing the nose below the lips. (No those are not beauty marks.) Picasso would be proud.

The small drawing above grandpa's head is of her sister, Annabella. Apparently she chose to portray her in the zygote stage of embryonic life. We'll have to get her thoughts on that one later.

This next piece includes a heartfelt drawing of her Mimi (Sarah's Mom) as well as a touching self-portrait. Upon completion of the drawing of herself, she literally hugged the paper and said "awwww ... My O-ia".

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!