Kindergarten fun, youth mexican night and visit from Trudy

Hey there, here's a little insight into what we've been getting up to recently over here. 

1) Volunteering at a local kindergarten

Lots of fun and a great way for us to get involved in the community. 

Abbie helping the 6 year old girls in their cooking class.

 How cute are those chef hats and aprons.

Tim making sure those boys stay on task.

The whole kindergarten (and it's big!) went on a one 

day excursion to a big park. We joined them:)  

Gotta love the matching kindy bags and orange hats 

(each class has a different coloured hat)

 that they get to make their own with a snazzy patch sewn on. 

Can you spot Tim....?

he's the big kid in the middle just started 

the massive leaf fight which is to follow.

The attack of the pink hats...

Man, autumn is fun! 

One of the sweet young girls picks the leaves from

 Abbie's hair. 

The kids just chilling out in their leaf 

swimming pool they made. 

I can't spot any kids around, can you?

Oh, there they are! They were hiding. 

'

The kids just love Tim.

 He's such a natural with them.

Shoulder rides with Tim. They were lining up for them. 

2) Second youth event at our place

Plenty of mexican food, chatter and games resulted in an awesome evening. 

The girls suss out this slightly strange cuisine. 

The smile says it all!

The array of food

Tim and Taechan

3) A visit from a very good friend - Trudy

Trudy and her family were travelling around Japan and so we were lucky enough

 to spend some quality time with her over 3 days! We lapped it up. 

P.S. Random other bonus pics

The biggest Nashi pear I have ever seen! 

Reflections - What relationships are really about!

"For now I only know in part...

We all have relationships of some sort in our lives. We have family members, work-mates, bosses, friends....and each relationship is a bit different. At times, these connections are what hold us together, what encourage us and what brings us much joy. Other times, they can cause great frustration, hurt and confusion. 

But there's one thing for sure about relationships. They are an opportunity to give to others, not to get from others. To give our hearts and worship to Jesus is the greatest place to start. And then to be continuous and extravagant in the way we give of ourselves to others. And I believe that it tests and strengthens our hearts, and the love we have, when we are able to continue to give  like this when we really don't feel like it. Maybe we feel spent, or we feel like others don't deserve it, or it's not appreciated. But it's very important.   

There's two things in life at the moment that God is sharing with me. First of all is my attitude of thankfulness. Am I appreciating all that I have and what's around me? In fact, I get to do this crazy adventure called life only because of grace in the first place. God's grace. And it's enough to be thankful for every day! 

Second, is this stirring in me of what it means to be a good friend, a great friend. So recently  I've discovered this awesome friendship between David and Jonathon in the book of 1 Samuel. They weren't always in the same location but Jonathon was dedicated and loyal, without fail, to his friend David. In chapter 23 verse 16 Jonathon shows up again and helps David "find strength in God". I'm thinking, do I show up when others are in need and help them to find strength in God? Am I even able to recognise when my friends are in a place where they could do with some extra support? You know, it seems that David didn't have to FB or text Jonathon and ask for some man love. Nope, Jonathon just knew when to turn up. I wanna be that kind of friend (except not so much man love from me I'm afraid). One that is there at the right time, and one that leads others to the strength that only God can give.  

... but then I shall know fully."

(1 Cor 13:12)

Some more pics of life here....including the recent JF Youth Event.

This is what happens when you park your bike
 in the wrong spot, the repo team comes.

One of the more busy trips on the underground.

One of the spots in Nagai park where they go to dance,
using the big glass windows as mirrors.

Jesus Family had a bless the children day,
so here we are praying for the kids.

Abs and I recently organised a sport and burgers afternoon at Nagai Park and our place. It was a fun time and we've received lots of thanks. Thinking we'll do something like that again soon!

Tim explaining the ins and outs of Touch rugby

Haruka and Manami watching on.
(It started raining, reasonably heavy, but we didn't let that stop us)

My team had one tactic, pass it to Kota and let him run.

After Touch we played a little soccer.

Followed by some Ultimate Frisbee.
(Sure you'll like this Jono, Trudy and others)

Playing a game of Doodle Dice as we dry off.
Followed by Pass the Pigs, they loved both games!

The burgers, Hachun taking a photo of mine,
 while Ken shows his off.

Followed by another round of Doodle Dice.

A montage of recent events

Hey all, been a bit long since we've hit you with some photos, so here's a barrage for you :-)

Yoshi and Yukari performing at their combined
Rap/Hip-Hop and Gospel gig. Outstanding couple with an
outstanding passion to share the Good News.

We recently went to Akame 48 waterfalls with our Japanese parents,
we had so much fun the Mitarai's are lovely people and treated us
to a day of being surrounded by bush. We both loved it!

An amphibious lizard at the Akame 48 Waterfalls park.

A different variety of the amphibious lizards.

One of the bigger waterfalls

Okaasan modelling for Otoosan

Probably the steepest and longest waterfall. 

Us modelling :-) 

Lunch by the river side.

On the way back we stopped at a near by park with
many flower gardens.

Tim teaching Okaasan how to say "Bloom", when
she tried to show Otoosan it came out "Balloon".

Tim loves turtles so was excited to see some at the park.

We then headed to probably the best Chinese
restaurant we've been too. A very special day indeed!

The small crowd that watched the AB's win the world cup.
Great fun and good food too.

The importance of grace/being gracious

So Abs and I have picked up some English teaching here. The work I've picked up is with a company called Aim. Aim have three divisionsm Onsite classes (called Tink), apartment building based classes and private lessons. I work Apartments on Wednesdays, Tink on Thursdays and am likely to pick up some private lessons too, so a great place to be connected with. Anyway that's just all back ground to what I wanna say.


Part of being on this adventure we call being a Christian/following Jesus is believing that God will provide. Check out Phil 4:19. I'm in the process of changing location (from Miyakojima[M] to Nakamozu[N]), length and timing of my Wednesday classes, to somewhere closer and longer hours, so more pay :-) It was sposed to all happen last week, I'd intro'd the new teacher and said goodbye to the students, but then on the day the teacher who was taking over at M, had something come up and couldn't do it. So I got a call from Aim they asked me to cover the lesson at M. My immediate reaction was one of annoyance and frustration, how dare they dick me around like that! It meant I would earn less and have to travel further. Besides, I was watching a movie and I had to leave right then and still would be late. After some resistance, I said yes and raced there and it went well.


Anyway all that to bring me to this, I was praying yesterday, specifically about forgiveness and setting my mind to forgive whatever might come my way for the day. In that moment Jesus challenged me about my attitude when I got the phone call. Our attitude and actions are a strong testimony of our God working in us. In that case my action might have been right, but my initial attitude was wrong and the employee from Aim wore it. It wasn't his fault the new teacher couldn't make it. And the loss of the extra income didn't matter if my faith was really in God to provide.


When we encounter trouble do we have a sense of indignation rise up in us, thinking "how dare you do this to me?". Or is our response one of rolling with the punches and extending grace to the one who communicates the inconvenience (they often are not the cause). In Western society we so often demand our way, we know our rights and dammit we'll let you know. How powerful is it when we display grace to others. I don't mean that we should be walkovers or anything like that. But sometimes we sweat the small stuff far too much and damage relationships because of it. As Christians we have Good News to share with the world, they way we treat people will have a big influence on if they care about what we have to say.


I challenge us to pray as often as we can, like I did yesterday, that God would help us have an attitude of forgiveness and grace for people who make us aware of challenges.

Reflections - Much more to discover!

"For now I only know in part...


It's amazing how even after 8 weeks here in Osaka I'm just noticing things in our neighbourhood that I pass everyday and haven't noticed before now. When we first arrived we took a few days to get our bearings and figure things out. Then it felt like we had the area where we lived, and around about it, worked out. But there is just too much to take in at once. As humans we just can't comprehend everything at once. All the new sights, buildings, people, sounds, smells ... I notice a little more each day. Like recently I just noticed the cross that lights up on top of our church building. It seems obvious now. 


And it made me think... it's a bit like that for us with God. He is just so dynamic and multi-faceted that we can only really see and take in parts of who God is at the beginning. And that for the rest of our lives, as we journey with Jesus and time goes by, we start to see a bit more and understand more of God's character. How exciting is that! And then we realise how much we didn't know before and have faith and excitement because there is still so much more to discover about God. He really is incredible. 


Just as there is still so much more to discover here in Nagai, Osaka for us I am reminded that there's so much to God that I am yet to discover. And that excites me! 

... but then I shall know fully."

(1 Cor 13:12)

The last few days.....ok maybe a week or so :-)

So since our last update we've been quite busy!


Last week we went off to the Jesus Family Kids Camp. It was fantastic to get out into nature! The first time us kiwis had been in the bush since leaving NZ. Here's some photos for you....

Preparing to cook our own food

Cooking over fire....I enjoyed this.

On the final night of camp, we had a camp fire. I got to act :-) One of the leaders at camp is a art teacher and had made a big Goliath drawing. He gave me some lines in Japanese to practise. Pretty much straight from David versus Goliath, it was fun!

Goliath 

After I said my lines, this kids were given a small shovel and a flaming ball to throw in the hole. This represented the fire of God. After a few attempts one of them got a ball in the hole and Goliath burned!

Goliath burning!

Yesterday was fun and quite full! We started by collecting our alien registration cards (Yes, I know you always thought there was something strange about us). Then went to mumma's gospel, where Abs ran a game and I sung a duet (I still don't believe they asked me) and even sounded good! Then we headed to Mitarai Sama's house for dinner. Finally we enjoyed a late supper at Cafe Joy (near church, ran by a member) where Abs met her first English student and I practised Japanese with some new friends.


Interesting picture for you....Japan is renown for having vending machines for everything, cans, meals, cellphones, etc, but I still did not expect this:

Cigarette Vending Machine!

Some more words for you:

Shu - Lord, chief, master - One of the terms we use in church to refer to God

Tanoshikata - That was fun!

Kara & Made (Ma-De) - from and to e.g. 1:00pm kara - 5:00pm made

That's all for now....til next time (don't live too safe)