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. . .