Yes, We're Still Studying !

In case you're wondering what occupies most of our time, it is still Japanese study! Here are a few snapshots that my Mom took while she sat in on one of my classes. We have one-on-one classes with a Japanese teacher. We then rotate teachers every two weeks.

These photos show me in class with one of the teachers, Baba Sensei.

Karuizawa Language School is rather small, with only 7 students right now. In the late 1980's when the founding members of our MTW Church-Planting Team attended the same school, they had ~50 students. This speaks of the declining missionary investment in Japan in recent years ... yet there is still so much need! Please pray with us the Lord of the Harvest would send workers to these fields - For His Glory.

Support Need for Japanese College Workers

I spent Tuesday and Wednesday of this week in Chiba, taking a little break from language study to touch base with our MTW Church Planting Team, as well as the Japanese led College Ministry team we will be a part of.

This picture shows me with Nagata-san, Numakami-san, and Yukko-chan, the current Japanese College Ministry Staff. It was a great time to fellowship, get to know each other better, dream, and pray about the future. All in Japanese, of course! It was a little challenging, but we were definitely able to communicate. I was encouraged. :)

Yukko-chan and Uchida-san (not pictured) are leading a home-stay trip with 11 students to America starting on Feb 15th. A great opportunity to expose students to Christianity applied in the context of loving families. Pray for the students.

Pray also for the current Japanese staff, facing some tough financial decisions. Currently, half of their salary comes from supporters within Japan, and half from the US. Unfortunately, US based support has been steadily decreasing.

Would you and/or your Church consider REGULARLY supporting these local Japanese leaders in the strategic ministry to young Japanese - reaching the future leaders for the Church in Japan?

Checks made payable and sent to:

Mission to the World
PO Box 116284
Atlanta, GA 30368-6284
Indicate on Check for Account #092864 "JPN: Tokyo College Ministry"

Here is link to Financial Donor FAQ on the MTW.org website, with all the details and answers to donation questions: MTW Financial Partners FAQ

Curling is Cooler than you think!

Our town, Karuizawa, was host to the 1998 Winter Olympics Curling Competition. Every year since, they have hosted the Karuizawa International Curling Championship.


Since we live in a town with an Olympic venue, we thought we should go and check it out. We had no idea of the rules of curling, but found it to be rather fascinating. Especially after meeting the US Women's Curling Team captain (known as a "Skip" in curling lingo), we got excited in cheering the US women on to 2nd place! They lost in a close final against Canada.

Our girls were quickly "scooped up" my members of the China Women's Curling team. They loved their blond hair. :) They even gave the girls Chinese treats to eat. Yet again, Olivia and Annabella opened cross-cultural doors for us!

Karuizawa Ice Festival

Every January our town Karuizawa hosts an Ice Festival. Lots of ice sculptures, a long ice slide, and various fun things to see, eat, and do. An interesting way to participate in our town's life - practicing Japanese, meeting people, and observing culture.

Grandma was with us, and had fun with the girls. Olivia had fun on the long slide made of ice, though one time was enough for her!

The Church in Japan - a Snapshot in 2006

These statistics above are for all Protestant Churches in Japan (taken from a Japanese publication "CIS News".) So a little over 1/2 million Christians in a country of 128 million gives ~0.4% Christian in Japan. The average worship attendance for a Japanese Church is 36 people.

For reference, there are roughly 130 million Evangelical Christians in the US (depending on definition of Evangelical) out of 300 million Americans. This puts America at ~43% Christian.

The denomination we work the most closely with, the Presbyterian Church in Japan (PCJ), has a total of 2,214 people attending worship in 68 churches. Some of you come from single churches bigger than the whole PCJ!

Yet, in spite of many challenges, worship attendance in the PCJ grew by 6% last year (a growth rate to make our sister denomination in the US a little "jealous"!)

Please be praying for Japan. So many challenges and barriers to the gospel, yet we see the Spirit moving, the Kingdom being established, and worshipers of the true and living God being raised up in places where none may ever have existed. All for HIS Glory!

Pfeils on Japanese TV!

This Tuesday, our language school was visited by a filming crew from NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation). They were doing a special on our town, Karuizawa, and wanted to get some of the foreign flavor from some missionaries. The clip aired this morning on 'Ohayo Shutoken' - seen in Tokyo, and surrounding areas!


There is a brief clip showing Sarah and I practicing New Years greetings and bowing to each other, as well as a wonderful closeup of Annabella. The end of the clip shows Ray & Georgia Landis - director of Karuizawa Language School.


The main television personality, Emiko Komatsu, actually interview me - but none of it made it to TV... Here is a picture of Komatsu-san with Olivia.

New Years - Japanese Style

For Japanese, New Years or "Shogatsu" is the biggest holiday of the year. [Click on the Shogatsu link for another foreigner's webpage (who we don't know), with great photos that we wish we would have taken!]

On January 1st, we went to Sarah's friend Miwa's house, and enjoyed (well, at least tried) traditional new years food Oseichi Ryouri. It was a fun evening, sitting on the floor and applying our Japanese. They have a little girl, Yuzuki, who is Olivia's age.


On Jan 2nd, we went to our friends Manabu & Minako's house for Okonomiyaki lunch. A fun food to make together, mixing egg, flour, pork, mochi, shrimp, and various other things. Manabu and Minako are probably our best "couple" friends, and they have a daughter about the same age as Olivia. (They came to the church Christmas party with us in December.)

Things we are thankful for this year

Sarah's Post ...

We wanted to show you all, through pictures, some big things we are thankful for from this past year:

We are so thankful that we are now in our new house in Japan, after almost a year of traveling for support raising! We were sad to leave our friends and family, yet very thankful to be settled with all of our belongings and be our own family of 4 again.


We are also so thankful to God for Grandma Pfeil's (Jon's mom) health. God has been so gracious to her, and us, this past year. She is now done with all of her cancer treatments and is doing very well. We were also thankful that we were able to see her this past summer, and look forward to seeing her in Japan at the end of January!

The last thing we are thankful for is that Mimi Harrington (my mom) was able to come visit us this fall. It was such a blessing to be able to show her our world over here. Olivia had such fun doing tea parties with her Mimi. What a wonderful year this has been!

Joining in Christmas Plays - Dec 24th

Sarah's Post...

We're catching up on some old posts that needed to be posted! Sorry for the delay!


Jon had the privilege of being a wiseman in an outdoor live nativity. It was very cold and only two people came, but hey, he looked good!


Olivia was a little angel, last minute in the Christmas play at church. She was a little nervous throughout the play and when I told her to walk out on stage, she ran to Daddy! She eventually came back out. Everyone thought that she was so cute. Enjoy these pictures!






This is Meg Dingle (our neighbor and team member's daughter) and Olivia (while she was excited about being an angel.













This is Olivia after the performance. Hey, it was pretty hard!

Video Clip from Dec 21 Party

A Japanese friend of ours took video of our presentation on Dec 21 (click to see previous post) at the Child Development Center in Naka Karuizawa. See below for a short clip of us singing "Away in a Manger" in Japanese. We also read the Christmas Story in Japanese using a Japanese picture book. It was a great opportunity to share the real meaning of Christmas to many of Olivia's and Annabella's friends.


Here is another posting of the same video though a different video hosting site. Please compare and comment!