Chris & Abbie

Chris made my birthday so special this year! We couldn't really celebrate on my birthday because I have class until 8pm on Tuesday nights, so the night before we went out to Koriyama and had some delicious Chinese food and Starbucks for dessert!

On my birthday I came home for my afternoon break and there were all kinds of voicemails on our phone. I didn't know, but Chris had sent an email out to a bunch of people from home reminding them it was my birthday and asking them to call me! It was such a fun surprise and so great to hear from so many people back home. It made not being at home, not as hard.

We also got some fun packages from home - can you guess which present came from America and which came from Japan?

Chris was trying to find me a pie pan for my birthday, and this mini-pie dish was the closest he could find.

On my birthday after my night class I went back to the office and was surprised by our entire team - even the little kids (even though it was past their bedtime!) This is everyone hiding.

My desk was decorated, too.

Bethany heard that we had Sugar Cookies at our wedding instead of cake, so he asked Chris to find the Sugar Cookies recipe and she made them for dessert!

The family here took everyone on our team out for the day to celebrate the people who have birthday's in July, which included me and Chris. We had dinner at a delicious restaurant where they had bread for us (they don't do that in Japan), and we ate tasty hamburgers!

Before we went to dinner they brought us to a hotel that has an Onsen. An Onsen is a Japanese bath house. The water from the volcano the hotel sits on heats the water of the Onsen and you just sit and relax for as long as you want. Kind of like one big hot tub.

Everyone with their tasty bread!

The family also bought us birthday presents.

Chris got a Japanese calligraphy set so he can practice writing Japanese characters. This Kawaai Sensei showing him how it works.

I got a Japanese jewelry box and a Japanese fan, you know like the women who carry the fans with them. Sorry - no picture, but they are both beautiful!

Our Easter Program was on July 5th. The whole town was invited and we had about 200 people show up, so the room we were in was packed. It was a great day - the gospel choir sang (you read write, we have a Japanese gospel choir), we did a drama of the Ragman, we sang songs (Redeemer, Nothing But the Blood, & God of Hope), and we shared why Easter is so important for Christians around the world.

After the program we had lots of fun with the kids painting Easter eggs, decorating cookies, coloring, and eating snacks. The day was really wonderful and God answered so many of our prayer in the preparation of the program, the amount of the people that showed up and having the exact number of everything we needed! Please continue to pray for the people that came that what they heard would speak to them, and that this would open up opportunities for conversations with the community around us!

The Gospel Choir

Chris played the guitar for a couple songs.

This is Janelle singing the song Redeemer - she rocked out to the song - it was beautiful!

Coloring Easter Eggs - there were 300 eggs, and zero left over!

The cookie table...it was crazy, but lots of fun!

This is one my second grade students - he's the cutest!

These two girls were my biggest customers. Katherine (brown hair) made cookies for everyone in her family. Her sister, Mariana (blonde hair), made a cookie, ate it, and would make another. It wasn't until 5 eaten cookies later, that I realized I needed to stop the madness! This basically sums up their two personalities - we love these girls!

I am apologizing AGAIN for the lack of updates. Here's a glimpse at what I've been doing instead of blogging. Promise to update this weekend!

I'm sorry for the absence these days. Ever since the Easter program we have been overwhelmed with finishing out the term, as Summer break starts after this week. We aren't officially off school until August 1-16, but the students are done after tomorrow...so we are only 1 day away from some much needed rest and some more time to blog.

Please don't give up on our blog yet - I promise to post pictures of the Easter program and some other happenings from the past few weeks!

For now, I will leave you with saying:
"Happy Birthday Chris!" (tomorrow, July 17th)
He only has one more year left in his late-twenties,
as I remind him of frequently these days!

This is my favorite picture of Chris from when he was a kid.

There might not be as much blogging this week because we have so much to get done, besides our normal teaching responsibilities. So with this post I am asking that you pray for us for some things that we are trying to get done:

Easter Program: Yes, you read right. We are having an Easter program this Sunday for the town we live in. We have been inviting friends, students and co-workers to come join us as we celebrate Easter and teach them about why we celebrate Easter. So, first if you can pray that people come. But there is also a lot we need to get done before the people can come...
- we (our team) are going to be hard-boiling 300 eggs that they can color
- we are going to be baking 200 sugar cookies that they can decorate
- we are going to be baking other snacks that they can eat
- we are giving a drama, so we have two more practices for that
- we are singing/playing music and that needs to finish coming together
- but most of all we want people to hear what we have to say...so pray that their hearts are open.

Stolen Identities: Today we learned that Chris' identity has been stolen. While he was in Japan this weekend, he also appears to have been at Six Flags Great America, The Cute Kid store, TMobile, etc... We have found out that there has been fraudulent activity on two credit cards, and possibly more. We are both actually laughing about this, because come on, how crazy that this is happening while we around the world?! But at the same time, how annoying that we have to deal with this and try to figure this out while we are around the world!

4th of July: A day to celebrate, right, so why is this a prayer request? Well, the 4th of July is my favorite holiday. My whole life I have gathered with many of you on both the 3rd and 4th of July. I was away at camp a couple of summers and missed it, but I was still able to celebrate with friends. I'm really nervous that this will be a hard weekend for me, being away from all of you and knowing the fun that I am missing. And nobody here knows what 4th of July is...there are no fireworks...and of course, no Taste of Chicago! We are going to do a little something with our team on Saturday, but with all we have to do for Sunday, it will be short. So please just pray that I don't get more homesick than necessary this weekend.

As a side note, to curb my missing the 4th of July, I bought a CD today off iTunes - it was $5.99 and had 50 patriotic songs - it's wonderful and I feel like I should be sitting in Grant Park when I listen to it.

Ok, I know this is long, so I will say thanks ahead of time. We have some busy days ahead!

Don't like Japan now.
Watermelon, twenty bucks?!
That is just silly.

This was stated this evening after he went to the grocery store and was disappointed by their fruit selection.