East Tokyo Presbytery Worship & Picnic

We had a gathering of the 14 churches in our East Tokyo Presbytery at Honda Chapel.
You can see the Oyumino Gospel Choir singing, while the more traidional Choir in on deck in the front. We also had a message from a Japanese pastor encourageing us in evangelism and church-planting in our region.
We also had fun playing volleyball ... or just playing with balls in Calvin's case. :)

We wrapped up the evening with a BIG Japanese style barbecue for ~100 people.

Can you spot Calvin and I in the back, behind the smoke?
We had fun hanging out with our friends working the BBQ.

Many lingered, both inside and out, and it was a great fellowship time for our Presbytery.
Please pray that our Presbytery would continue to grow and be an influence in the East Tokyo area - for His Glory!

Oyumino Christ Church - Joint Worship

Our Church, Oyumino Christ Church (おゆみ野キリスト教会) currently meets in 3 different locations on Sunday mornings. Quarterly, we all meet together for worship (200+ people). This time we all squished together to take a photo for the church Christmas card.


Does this church seem small to you? Well, the average congregation in Japan has only 32 people, so this church is actually "quite huge" in Japan!

This photo primarily includes Japanese Christians, plus some missionaries and a number of not-yet-believing Japanese who regularly attend.

Please join us in praying for our Church.
- Pray for each location (Oyumnio, Honda, Toke) to continue to grow through conversions in each area.
- Pray for the depth and number of cell groups in the church to grow.
- Pray for more men to be raised up as Elders in the Church.
- Pray for the many members whose spouses do not yet believe.
- Pray that young families would be able to raise their children to follow the Lord, when it is so 'against the grain' of the culture.
- Pray for the one missionary and 2 Japanese pastors who are leading these 3 congregations.

Family Pictures

So our family was due for a photoshoot, trying to get a good one for our new MTW Prayer Card. Enjoy!








Olivia's pained expression here is priceless ... after an afternoon full of so many poses and smiles.

Yukata day at Oyumino Alive

Yukata are a lighter version of the traditional japanese kimono. On this particular Sunday, a whole group of us came to Sunday morning worship in our yukata! Even the kids wore theirs :)

Time at the park with my new camera

We felt like we just had to take Chris and Leanne to this park
about 20 minutes from our house. This spider web looking climbing structure
would never be found in America, yet our girls just love it!

This slide is seriously the longest slide I have ever seen!
It is hard to really show you how long it really is.
The first time we went with the kids, Annabella,
ended up having a burn from the rollers. It was that long!

The rest are fun pictures that I took with my new camera.
I am just having too much fun! I had to share them....enjoy!

A day at the beach (actually 45 minutes at the beach)

We decided to all go to the beach before a typhoon that was coming.

Bad idea! The wind was blowing sand in our faces
and it was very cool out (not a good combination with the cold water).
Oh, well. We ended up spending more time cleaning up
from the beach than actually on the beach.
The kids still had fun splashing in the waves and playing a little bit in the sand.
Some pictures from our adventures...

Mark's first time in an ocean and it was the Pacific!

Annabella and Calvin loved splashing in the waves. Olivia preferred the sand.

I loved this picture of Mark's sweet baby toes with the sand all in between them.
So sweet!!!

Meeting cousin Mark

We were so blessed to have Uncle Chris, Aunt Leanne
and baby Mark come for a visit at the end of August.

Chris and Leanne were so brave to travel across the world with their new baby.
Such a great blessing to us!!!
This is them after 24 hours of travel.

Our girls were so very excited to meet Mark.
Mark is also interested in checking out the girls!
He seems like he did very well considering all of the travel!

Calvin enjoyed being the "Big" cousin and showing Mark how to work the exersaucer.

Annabella seems especially interested in playing with Mark.
She was always trying to get him to smile.

Uncle Jon and Mark

Mark is such a sweet baby.
He didn't seem fussy even with all of the jet lag!

Calvin checking him out

So sweet!!!

Annabella with her live baby doll!

Another big cousin

An attempt at a Harrington cousins picture! The first!!!