Aunt Molly with us for 6 weeks

We were so blessed to have Aunt Molly stay with us for six weeks this spring. Here are a few pictures from her trip.

The excited nieces and nephew

Molly even mastered the art of holding a baby and eating with chopsticks!

Molly was so brave...she was always willing to try new foods!

Fun at the Chiba zoo

This was by far Calvin's favorite position! He definitely misses this!

Silly girls

So Sweet!

This was Molly's sixteenth birthday cake.
It was such fun to make it together!

Molly made many friends here. Many people were sad to see her go.

Molly actually was the first in our family to meet a Sumo wrestler!
Go Molly!


Molly, thank you for coming to Japan. Thank you for serving our family in such amazing ways...getting up with the girls in the morning, washing dishes, holding a fussy Calvin, and the list could go on and on.
We love you! The Pfeil clan

Baby Calvin - growing up!

Here's Calvin, all grown up at almost 3 months old! He is such a sweet little man, and we are so blessed to have him in our family. He has been a good sleeper, and pretty flexible with all that we have going on. Oh, and he just laughed out loud for the first time today! We all love him so much. It is really cute to hear Annabella say to him in the morning, "Heh-woah shun-shine boy"! :)



Here is Calvin showing of his dance moves, with a little jig ...

Summer Teams: PCPC

Our final team from America this summer was the 20+ group from Park Cities Presbyterian Church (PCPC) in Dallas. Five people returned from last year's trip, plus four more, made quite a big group this year!
They had a running commentary of their trip on their blog, 20PlusJapan08. Check it out for some interesting stories.

The members of the PCPC team did a great job of engaging students in a personal way, helping us establish current relationships as well as make new student contacts.

Their big event of the week was a "Texas Night" party at Oyumino Chapel. We had a mix of students, church friends, and PCPC team members adding up to 32 people. We ate taco salad, played "chubby bunnies", heard a testimony from a PCPC member, and learned some line dancing. It was quite a festive night, and capped off a week of lots of contact time with college students.


The day the PCPC team was leaving for the airport, three Japanese college students showed up and presented each of them with personal gifts to take home. I have never seen this level of gratitude for a short-term team before, and clearly showed how much love the PCPC team shared with the students all week. God definitely uses short-term teams for His glory!

Summer Teams: NCCC

Our church from Cincinnati, Ohio - North Cincinnati Community Church - sent a team of four guys on a vision trip to check out our life and ministry here in Japan.

They kept track of their trip on their blog NCCCinJapan. Check it out to get much more detail of their adventures!

Here is a photo of the team with the Uchida family and 2 of the girls who went on a homestay to Cincinnati in February. Some you friends from Cincy will recognize them. :)

The climax of their week was an outreach event we titled "Oyumino AliveHouse & English Cafe" - which was an open mic/coffeehouse atmosphere where NCCC team played some music, and Japanese students also performed. We interspersed musical performances with English conversation games and activities. It was our biggest gathering of the year (since school started in April) with 12 Japanese students - 7 whom came for the first time!

We were so thankful for NCCC's involvement this week, and their faithful support of us over many years.

Summer Teams: Music Ministry

April-June are busy months this year with visiting short-term teams. In April, a group of teens from the Philippines called 180 Degrees came and did a number of outreach concerts and events.

In May, a Gospel choir from Mississippi called "Gospel Voices of Jackson" came and sang in a number of pre-evangelistic contact making concerts to hundreds of Japanese.

Black Gospel music is actually quite popular in Japan, and has been a good way to meet new people, and introduce them to the real "good news" that the music is all about!

You can see a joint concert with Gospel Voices of Jackson and Midoridai Church Gospel Choir. It was fun to see this "integrated" choir of African Americans and Japanese!

College Ministry "Homeparty" Style

Over this last month since the schoolyear started, we've tried some new ways to gather and get to know students - including ホームパーティー　(home-parties). Several College Ministry staff and friends from Church along with around 4-6 new students each Thursday night makes a great atmosphere.

The kids (our 3 plus sometimes 2 from the Noll family) also help put everyone at ease.
One night we had the theme of "Taste & See", where we did blind taste testing of various sports drinks, green teas, colas, etc. We also asked everyone to bring their favorite drink or snack to introduce to each other. I then made a simple connection at the end of the party, with how it is so natural for us to want to share with others what we ourselves love. For us as Christians, it is not a cultural identity, or an obligation, but because we love Jesus, we want to tell others about Him. I then encouraged them to "taste & see that the Lord is good (Psalm 34:8 ).

Sarah's sister has been staying with us, and has been fun to have her engage with students and experience first hand our life and ministry here in Japan. :)

We're still here

Hello everyone, it's been a long time. Ohisashiburi (literally means, it's been a long time, in Japanese) We are still alive and just trying to figure out what it means to have three children. Here are a few pictures of our growing little ones.

As you can tell Calvin is really loving being held by his big sister Olivia.

We have had wonderful times with Calvin's Grandmothers. We first had Grandma Pfeil come for a visit and to help us. She was in an airplane coming over when Calvin was born.


She actually ended up really helping us with sick Annabella. Annabella had the rotavirus for the first week Grandma Pfeil was here. We were so thankful that Calvin didn't get sick!

Mimi Harrington came over next. I had such fun being able to show off my little boy to my mom! Mom did tea parties with the girl s and had fun just snuggling with Calvin.

Aunt Molly is here now. Calvin has a special place in his heart for her. He usually falls asleep as soon as she holds him!

Yes, our little boy is six weeks old and smiling. Too cute!!! He is now 12 pounds and such a joy to be around. God has blessed us with such a sweet little guy.

Hospital visit to see Calvin!

Calvin was born ~4am on Wednesday, and that afternoon I left the hospital to drive to the airport to pick up my Mom. We then went to pick up the girls from our friends who were watching them and spent the night at home in Chiba. Thursday mid-morning we all drove out together to see baby Calvin for the first time at the hospital in Tokyo. Olivia and Annabella were so excited to see their little brother. After Olivia held him, Annabella said, "I hold it! I hold it!"
Grandma was blessed to hold her 6th grandson, though she had a hard time keeping the girls away! They are very proud big sisters. :)
Even loving sisters, though, tire of holding their brother, and moved on to exploring the other exciting features of the room - like the cool bed!

Here is our first ever Pfeil Pfamily of Pfive Pfoto.

Baby Calvin is here ... a week early!

Calvin surprised us on Tuesday night (a week before his due date) and we found ourselves running around packing the suitcase, getting the map to the hospital, setting up childcare, etc. Jon's Mom was scheduled to arrive Wednesday night, early enough to get settled before helping with the baby - but it turned out that Calvin was born while she was over the Pacific Ocean!
The whole delivery experience wasn't quite what we expected, but are pleased with the end result! What a beautiful gift from God. Calvin weighed in at 51 cm (20 in) and 3992 g (8lb 13oz) and is very healthy. Everyone kept "Oohing, and Aahing" at our 4 kilo baby - since most Japanese babies are around 3 kg.

Soon after birth, they dressed Calvin in this cool yukata bath robe with a tie around his waist. He looked like a young Jedi Knight, ready for nursing!

His ID bracelet shows he was born at 3:57 the morning of the 19th day, 3rd month, 20th year of the current Emperor Akihito (i.e. March 19, 2008).

We were also given this little wooden box soon after birth. Upon further examination we discovered that it contained part of Calvin's umbilical cord. Hmmm... I wonder where one keeps something like this? :)

We are so blessed to have Calvin with us and finally see his little face. Thank you all for praying for us during the pregnancy. Many more photos to follow! :)

Looooong Subway Station Name

I have a new addition to my Coolest Japanese Name List: Itabashikuyakushomae. It is a subway stop on the Toei Mita line. It literally means "In front of the Itabashi Ward office." I haven't added to my list of very long city names in a while, and was exited to take this photo when Sarah and I went to see her doctor in Tokyo.
Previously, I had blogged about Kawanakajimakosenjou, a town near Nagano city. Both these names top my list with 20 characters each (when written in romanized form).