The Girl's First Dance Performance

Olivia & Annabella recently performed at the local Oyumino Aeon Mall with their Rhythmic Gymnastic Dance Class. It was a special performance to attract attention, so they were set-up right in middle of the mall!
They are currently specializing with the balls, but soon will move on to ribbons.
Of course Olivia has yellow and Annabella has pink. :)Here is a 4 min video of their choreographed dance that they do at the end of every class. They both love it (although their attention spans are not created equal!!!)

Pepsi & Coke anyone?

Shiso Pepsi and Diet Coke - Green Tea flavor (catachin). Adding green leaves to cola? Never saw it coming ...

Crossway - "Texas Night"

Later that week we held our BIG Texas Night Party at Oyumino Chapel for Crossway - our university outreach ministry. We had students from 7 different schools in the Tokyo/Chiba area attend.
Check out Calvin in this picture. He has no fear and loves hanging out with the "Big Boys".
We had 4 students attend for the first time, as well as several students we had not seen for awhile. It was a great welcoming atmosphere.
We had our largest gathering of Japanese college students in several years with a 19 students and a total of 43 people in the room. What a night!
Please pray for us that we can get to know these new students well, and love them through both our words and our actions. May they come to know the joy of Jesus in their lives!

Japanese Baseball Game

We attended a Chiba Marines Baseball Game with a good Japanese student friend of ours.
Check out the bowl of hot Ramen I had for dinner at the stadium! If only they had Ramen at Red's games ...What was most impressive about the game was the continuous, unified, cheering from the fans in the outfield section!
They had a cheer for every batter, and kept singing, changing, and jumping the whole time the Marines were up to bat. Check out these videos!



Interesting insight into Japanese life and culture. A "little" more group consciousness and unity than you see in the States, don't you think?

Summer Team from Park Cities PCA Church

The annual Park Cities Presbyterian Church (Dallas, Texas) summer short-term mission trip took place the second week of June. We welcomed 7 from their young adult group for a week jam packed with activities and outreach events. As part of their "welcome party" we had a chopstick challenge, where two teams faced-off head to head!
That Sunday night we had our first major event of the week. It was held at Honda Chapel focused on the young adults of Oyumino Church, as well as college students that we know in the area.
We broke up into small groups for games ...

We then all lined up for some serious Texas Line-Dancing!!! Everyone had a great time, and it was encouraging to see such a mixture of church members, students from the Chiba city area, as well as missionaries. :)

Our Growing Children

Olivia Grace 5 years old

Annabella Joy 4 years old

Calvin Jonathan 14 months old

Boy's Day/Children's Day

This was a special warrior that was set up in our friend's house.
We took this picture of our "boys" in front of the warrior.

These are the koinobori fish flags that are flown
a few weeks before boy's day.
The kids loved watching these big flags....too bad it was kind of rainy!

Our boys on boy's day!

"Crossway Student Community" - Spring 2009

Let me catch you up on the past 5 weeks since the new college school year started. We have a new name, "Crossway Student Community". The dictionary definition of the word is "intersection" which is a great way for us to introduce ourselves to new people.
There is also an obvious second level of spiritual meaning that allow us to express our hope for students to find a "new way"
- the way to the cross of Jesus!
This is Jon on Chiba University campus in April for "Circle day". This is the day when all the incoming freshman check out the "circles" (clubs) that they might join (i.e. volleyball club, guitar club, etc...). We are not an officially recognized club, but it was a great day to just hang out and see students we knew, meet new people, and enjoy the beautiful cherry blossoms!

One of our weekly Thursday Crossway events at Oyumino Chapel.
We had a buffett dinner together and played games after....always fun. :)
(Notice how we aranged the tables as a crossway!)

This was a fun grill out night, yes you heard me right...that little thing is a grill!
We grilled hotdogs...and later we roasted marshmallows on the end of chopsticks
(it really was a great idea...when you are finished, you throw them away).

After the cook-out dinner we had our weekly Sunday night Bible study.
We continue to be so thankful for this time with students!

A handsome knight and his princesses!

Calvin loves wearing his new knight costume.

We don't have any swords, but a fairy wand will work.

This video captures what normally happens at our house with such royalty!

Easter Celebration

My sweet kids! Thank you Papa and Mimi for these Easter outfits!

Oyumino Kid's - Sunday school
Our kids love coming here, the Bible story,
memory verse and songs are all bilingual.
This is a more natural way for the girls to learn Japanese.

Easter egg hunt - Japanese style!
First, the boys hid the eggs and the girls found them.
Then the girls hid the same number of eggs and the boys found them.
After they were all found, the adults opened all of the eggs and divided
the candy up equally among the kids and passed out the candy.
Even egg hunting is a group activity!

Calvin loved the eggs!

Our sweet friends, William and Isabel.
They left for America at the end of the week. We will miss you!

I loved hearing these ladies sing, "Thine be the glory!"