Jon's "Debut" - at Jidokan Christmas Party

I had the great opportunity to join in as a "special guest" at our local Kyu-Karuizawa Jidokan Christmas party. It actually didn't seem much like a Christmas party, with main event being a strange masked magician (Olivia was scared!) It was up to me to bring a bit of light - Jesus' Light - into a rather dark party.

I had been practicing what I wanted to say for days, and I think it went pretty well. Before we sang Jingle Bells "Jinguru Beru", I tried to open with a little interaction with the 60+ kids in the room. A slightly scary prospect, since I couldn't predict what they would say!!!

After playing a few songs (in English and Japanese) we ended with Silent Night - probably the most well known Christmas song in Japan. I asked if anyone knew what the song was about. I shared that it was about the first Christmas, and the birth ~2000 years ago of Jesus Christ. (A fact most do not know.) I said that Jesus also has another name - Emmanuel - which the wonderful meaning "The True God is with us". (I wanted to distinguish the term "God" from the normal usage in Shinto context.)

This may not seem like much, but I was very pleased to have the time and vocab (!) to say it. This is evangelism in Japan - laying single bricks at a time, building a foundation of understanding upon which the Gospel can stand. There are so many critical concepts in Christianity we take for granted in America, that Japanese have no idea about.
Here with are with Hasegawa-san, one of the Jodoukan leaders, dressed in a only moderately convincing Santa suit. :) The cute little blond girl is our new neighbor, Meg. Her parents, Kevin & Rebecca Dingle, are MTW teammates studying at our same language school.

Here is a picture of the girls at another party at Megumi Chalet (a Christian conference center nearby). Olivia and Meg have become good friends, although they don't always see "eye to eye" :)

Going to the Doctor

Sarah's Post....

Thank you all for your prayers and ideas on how to help my hands. Here is a picture of what it looks like. Please continue to pray! We seem to start one thing that helps for about a week and then my body fights back.

We have all been to the doctor recently (except Jon). Going to the doctor is always an adventure, when you are doing it in another language. The other day I took Olivia to the doctor (her first time). It was kind of funny because the receptionist kept asking me something and finally I realized that she wanted to know if I had insurance or not. Always an adventure! Here is a picture of the medicine you get in Japan. Nothing is in a child-safe container and a lot of medicines are powders.

We are all starting to feel better...Olivia is recovering from her ear/throat (maybe) infection, Jon has a cold which is getting better, Annabella's cold is better and my shoulder and sinus infection is better (although my hands are not). Anyway, tis the season for sickness!

Christmas Cookies

Sarah's Post....

Hey everyone! I wanted to introduce you to some of my friends. The lady in purple behind Olivia is Miwa-san and her daughter is in front of her, Yuzuki-chan. Next to me is Minako-san and her daughter, Sawa-chan. We had a wonderful day baking, decorating, and eating Christmas cookies! I feel that this was an encouraging moment in my language study, because we actually communicated and had fun together! They both speak less English than I speak Japanese. We laughed a lot and just had fun together. Please pray for these ladies as I build relationships with them.

First (of many) Christmas Outreach Events

Christmas is truly the best time of year to share the gospel in Japan, and we're already into the thick of it! Japanese love the songs, decorations, and overall festive atmosphere, but have no idea that this all relates to the birth of Christ, the savior for the world!

We spent Sunday afternoon with Nagahata Sensei (one of our teachers) and his wife, helping them reach out to about 20 people in the music community in Karuizawa. I played guitar and helped lead singing, and Sarah and I both shared about what Christmas back in America was like with our families. I wrote out a page of notes in Japanese, and I think it went well - though for all my preparation and practice, it went by rather quickly!


Here Olivia is seeing her first snow in Japan (plus you get to see her cute Christmas outfit!)

"Daddy Daughter Date"

This picture shows Olivia and I as we get ready to head out on a "Daddy-Daughter Date". There was a special musical concert for kids at the local concert hall, including classical music and a fun percussion trio. They did a great job exposing the kids to lots of new things, while also having fun. It was good Japanese practice for me, too! Olivia's favorite part was when they played a medley of songs from one of her favorite Japanese movies "Tonari no Totoro" (My Neighbor Totoro).
Here you can see the big marimba and some of the other percussion instruments. Olivia loved it, and didn't want to go home. I loved it too, because I got to hold her on my lap the whole time (except, of course for the 2 times we went to the bathroom!)

Largest Unreached People Group in World

We were listening to a John Piper sermon on missions (imagine that!), and he mentioned the Japanese people as the largest unreached people group in the world. I checked into it at the Joshua Project website:


Largest Unreached People Groups (click link or above chart for more info)

Top 3:
Japanese (Japan) 120,420,000 people
Bengali (Bangladesh) 96,400,000 people
Shaikh (India) 73,012,000 people

We certainly understand first-hand the real need for the gospel here in Japan, but I never realized that in terms of people group break-down, Japanese are the largest unreached people group!

The Japanese people being ranked first is in part due to the very homogeneous population of Japan vs. other unreached countries, which are splintered into various people groups, but still reveals the GREAT NEED OF JAPAN!
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Another interesting way to look at the statistics is to look at the largest countries in the world by population, and see which countries are most unreached. Within the top 10 largest countries by population, Japan is "tied" with Pakistan and Bangladesh as the most unreached country at only 0.4% evangelical Christian.


Please be praying for the whole world, but especially that by God's grace the Good News would be known in these most unreached places!

Leading Worship at Church

This is my second week of helping to lead worship at our church in Karuizawa. Last week I played along with another Japanese guy, but this week he called in Sunday morning saying he couldn't come. So it was up to me! Playing guitar was no problem, but introducing the songs and leading the Lord's Prayer in Japanese were a little daunting!

I did my best, and thankfully, Ide-san, who plays the piano, stepped up and lead the Lord's Prayer with me. (I've actually be working hard at saying the Lord's Prayer in Japanese, but I can't keep up with the speed of the congregation, yet!)

I'm now playing every week, and enjoying playing Christmas songs during worship.

Click on the photo to see a larger picture, and notice the words projected on the wall. This is one of the kids songs we do. It is verbatim from Heb 12:2 of the Japanese Bible, so now I know my first memory verse in Japanese!!!

Curious Food Discoveries in Japan

Wow! KitKat with sweet red azuki bean flavor. (Actually I love it in Japanese treats, but not so much in a KitKat!) They also sell apple flavor KitKats too. (Nagano prefecture is well known for apples.)


Banana Soda flavored Fanta was too unusual to pass up, but finding Cherry Coke was an unexpected blessing! A 7-11 on the way to Nagano city had them, so we bought 6 to save for later!

We got a Winnie the Pooh cereal for Olivia "Puu-san no Hachimitsu Daisuki", but laughed when it was dwarfed by the American sized "Froot Loops" we had received from a friend!
(*Note* Click on all photos to enlarge them.)

HS Ministry Outreach Postponed :(

Well, this is part of the reality of ministry in Japan. Our well laid plans have to be changed. Our English teacher contact said due to a big upcoming test, students were not able to come to the event. Grades are VERY important to Japanese high school students, as they are very competitive as they seek to enter the most prestigious universities.

Please pray that God would open new doors for us to connect with students. The teacher is still interested to do an event, probably in December sometime. Pray for our wisdom and patience, too.

Karuizawa High School

Here are two students from Karuizawa High School, in uniform. All high school students wear uniforms, so that only leaves footwear & socks as ways to express themselves!
Together with Mr. Sekiguchi of our church outreach committee, we went to speak with the Principal and English teacher at the Karuizawa High School. All of the flyers we passed out a month ago didn't result in any new students coming to our English outreach club, so we decided to try to build the relationship more strongly with the school leadership, hoping to open some new doors.

By God's grace, we were very blessed, and the Enligsh Teacher was very open to our ideas. She even offered to pass out our flyers directly to students from her classes, and come along with them to a special event we planned for this upcoming Thursday, Nov 16. Please be praying for this opportunity to build a strong relational bridge, both with the administration and the students!