Friday Phone Dump (Saturday Edition).

I've wanted to do something that would give our readers a look into our life every week here in Japan. I thought it to be super boring to just write a play by play on the happenings of our week. But I couldn't figure out what else would work.

And then there was instagram.

If you can't already tell by most of the pictures on here, I LOVE instagram. It makes beautiful pictures out of ordinary photos with two simple clicks on the iphone. So I thought it would be perfect to drop our pictures in one collage that I had taken all week on instagram.

So, here we go...my first Friday (on Saturday this week) phone dump.

Left to Right: International Fair at Expo Park, Earth Display at Expo Park, International Fair Expo Park, Noah enjoying a play car at our local grocery store, Noah’s reaction to the fighting demonstrations, our local subway, our linimo stop, more International fair, snowy Nagakute, Noah stacking, what?, Grandpa flew in for a visit, play dates with friends, ICAN kiddos, fun with legos, Happy Birthday Sarah!, ICAN Secondary kids praying.

Christmas Ministry Highlights

Christmas is one of our favorite times of year here in Japan. It's fun to see all the Christmas lights and hear Christmas music and even more fun to experience Christmas in another culture. But that is only part of the reason why we love this time of the year. We love it because we get to share with our community the real meaning behind Christmas.


This year we once again participated in the Christmas program at the homeless ministry that Justin volunteers at with his students. Noah and I usually do not get to go for various reasons, but this time it worked out for us to join him. We also got to bring my family along and serve with them as well. It was a wonderful experience.


The homeless tend to be forgotten in Japan. It was a wonderful blessing to us to be apart of a church service that gave them hope and also gave them some physical needs as well too.


One of the homeless men at the service gave Noah a small red toy car. He had so much joy in his eyes watching our little man play with it at the small park we had the service at. He told me in broken English that it was nice to give something to someone and that he was happy to hear a child laughing. It brought tears to my eyes.

We were also able to participate in ICAN's musical this year. Justin had a part in one of the skits about the real meaning of Christmas and little Noah got to sing a Christmas carol on stage at the end of the presentation. It was so cute to watch him up there with a huge smile on his face. To say he was adorable would have been an understatement. I know, I am his mom and I'm a little biased, but hey when your kid is cute, he's cute! ;)

Another neat blessing that came our way was the chance to spend Christmas with my family. My mom and dad and one of my brothers came to Japan and spent Christmas with us. It was a Christmas with chicken instead of turkey or ham, Japanese candy and other new experiences. It was a very different Christmas, but one of the best I've had.


All and all it was a fantastic holiday season this year. I hope all of you have had a wonderful 2012 so far!

ICAN Year Two Update.

The school year has begun and it has already been a great year. Justin is enjoying being back in the classroom and I am enjoying being back in our home doing our daily routine.

Justin started the high school chapel this year with a bang. He spoke to the kids about getting rid of the old and starting new, and he came home with an *almost* shaved head. I am hoping the students enjoyed it and remembered the lesson because of it :)

I am really starting to meet a lot of women in the area and developing friendships with them. This is keeping me very busy as you can imagine. I have also been blessed already to share in chapel with Preschool through second grade and have enjoyed reading to the Kindergarteners as well.

Here is a couple of pictures of the staff this year at our school. Please remember to pray for all of us as we help the children here in Nagoya at our school grow not only academically, but spiritually as well:

We Made It Back!

We had a great summer.

We spend time with family. We spent time at the beach. We had some much needed rest.

But we are so glad to be back for year number two.

Please remember to pray for us, the school, the students and our city in Japan. We hope that through us God will touch many hearts this year.

I hope you all have a wonderful 2011-2012 school year!

The ICAN Spring Festival

ICAN had a spring festival a couple of Saturdays ago. It was a really fun way to fund raise for the school and have all the families of the students together. There was food, games, bake sales and so much more! Here are some pictures from the day!

Hearts for Christ.

Just wanted to post a video that one of the teachers at ICAN made during the 2008-2009 school year.

It's a couple of years old, but it still shows the heart of the school today.
We are so blessed to be part of a school so focused on sharing Christ with their students.

I hope you enjoy!