The Pedro Juan Post, Part 2

Thursday, July 15

hello everyone. i think i will resort to using only lower case letters in the interest of saving time, and not typing japanese characters by mistake. we just arrived from the bus terminal in brazil, where we said goodbye to the jems shepherding team of pastor joe and nicole. we are launching them into campo grande where they will be meeting with tomio and his partner, steve. it is always sad to say goodbye to good friends who remind us of home, and who encourage our hearts with much needed words of love and affirmation.

last night we held our first youth group meeting in the yoshizaki home. our hosts are very warm and generous, their home serves as the hangout place for all of the young people on vacation this week. their home is divided between the front grocery store, the back living quarters, a patio and garden, and a small second home where we all share four rooms. we held the meeting in the open patio/living room last night, and it really felt like a church. though i was tired, it was good to transition into our new ministry here, and try to evaluate the needs and dynamics of this new group. the biggest challenge was communicating everything entirely in spanish, especially with my brain confused by the constant portugese i had been internalizing the week prior. i led an icebreaker in spanish, and though i struggled for vocab at times, it was good. leading worship with ken was difficullt because it was entirely in japanese, and he seems to always forget to translate for me on piano. it was good though, we were able to worship in three languages-- i know shout to the lord in four languages now!! it has been exciting watching God communicate cross- culturally and now cross-lingually. (is that a word?) :O)

our teammate, ken, is in his element. he loves speaking japanese, being crazy, and really warming up the group to us. he has already secured his japanese girl fan club, performing and entertaining them with his antics. i am thankful for his fluency in japanese, because he serves as the main translator and communicator for the team. i am still a little hesitant to use my spanish, so i pray that i can cultivate boldness and the desire to come out of my shell. i think i was tired from the long bus ride, the new culture, and the new environment, so it was difficult to really be social and reach out to the japanese speakers. thankfully though, i can communicate perfectly fine in one-on-one situations, and it was exciting to see the spanish flow off of my tongue with little mental thought and translation. gloria a dios!

today i feel better after sleep and time to adjust to our new time schedule. we rode in the back of the family pickup truck and that was quite an experience. we rode past dirt roads, mule drawn carts, little shops, and the laidback lifestye of paraguay. i feel like i have traveled back in time to a much simpler life. we wake to the sound of roosters crowing, the toilet flushing innumerous times, and the trickle of the water in the courtyard pond. it is very peaceful here, even though there are so many of us living in such close quarters. shivy and i are sharing a room next to the one bathroom, so we can hear everyone and their comings and goings early in the morning. last night was an experience brushing our teeth next to the one sink. . . all five us had to take turns to rinse in between brushes.

the weather here is beautiful, hard to believe that they are supposedly in their coldest season of winter. it is really pleasant, almost like staying at a bed and breakfast inn where you can sleep in, eat great food, and just hang out. the family is working so incredibly hard to host us and all of the youth group kids that come over. every meal is an extravagent multi-course feast, i know i am going to come back plumper and more huggable. we have decided to eat in two shifts to facilitate better communication and relationship building between the jems team and th japanese speaking kids. it is harder ministering without english as a common language, so this has been the most difficult part of transitioning. english basically never comes into the picture, and most of the conversations are in japanese or spanish.

i have been able to get to know the yoshizakis youngest son, sadato. he and i were able to joke around in spanish, relive some of my embarrassing moments in brazil, and get to know each other. he is really good to us, and i appreciate the beginnings of that friendship. the girls are harder to befriend because they are a very tight clique, and many are more hesitant to use their spanish. usually when we talk, it is usually with the aid of ken or linda to translate for us. i pray that i will make the extra effort to communicate with them, especially since this is one of our longest ministries.

other than that, i am slowly adjusting to life here in paraguay. .. enjoying the plentiful supplies of good brazilian chocolate and the wonderfully rich coffee in the mornings. it is always an adventure, waking up and wondering what the new day will hold for us. i am glad that God is continuing to teach me to be flexible, to make the most of what he brings into each day, no matter how scary or new it is. i have beneffitted from such risk taking, really seeing new angles of God and his provisions, and also experiencing a lot of really exciting things in these diverse countries.

thank you for your prayers as we transitioned to paraguay. so far everyone seems to be in good spirits, and we are all looking forward to what God will accomplish for the amambay church here. thank you for all of your emails, sadato is teasing me for my popularity, but i really think of them as the highlights of my day. it is always good to hear from all of you back home, and stay on top of your comings and goings all the way across the world. it still boggles my mind that i am so far away from home, watching my life change and stretch to meet the requirements of each new place.

love you all. . . sorry for the mass email, time is precious, and i am trying to type as fast as my mind can think! dean, the closest city is ponta pora, on the brazil side, other than that, we are living in pedro juan caballero in paraguay. . . we are right on the border, incredibly close to the no-tax zone on electronics. ken and elvin are thinking of buying md players, which go for only 150 u.s. pretty cool, eh? dean, wa ai ni, wa hun shong ni, and i am praying for your presentation at work. take care of miss meg. . . i have befriended two of the yoshizaki dogs here, and i tell them stories of her. one dog seems like a fly magnet, so elvin sprayed him with off! bug spray. . . poor doggies. alrighty then, ciao! thank you for your partnership and love. . .

love, sumiko

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