Japan Cranes: February News

Dear Family and Friends, Thanks for coming to our new blog. David has worked very hard on it and we hope you’ll enjoy it.

For several months now, Sarah Grace has been praying for a baby sister. When she first mentioned it to us, David told her to pray about it. We haven’t heard anymore about it in the last few weeks, but God has heard her prayers…I can’t guarantee the “little sister” part, but we are expecting another baby in late October. We’re very excited and are looking forward to seeing Sarah’s reaction when we tell her (we are waiting a few more weeks before we break the news to the kids, so shhhhh). We will be in America on furlough when the baby arrives (due date: 10/30), much to the enjoyment of the grandparents. I'm about five weeks along and I'm feeling pretty well with the normal bouts of vertigo and morning sickness.

We told you last month about our new neighbors the Okamoto’s. Well, we had hoped to have gotten together with them by now, but it just hasn’t worked out yet. Please keep praying for a relationship to flourish with this new family. Many of you may remember me talking about Kondo-san, the midwife who helped us during the months leading up to, the labor and delivery of Sean. She and I seemed to have had a connection and she even came to the Christmas Eve service a couple of weeks after Sean was born. She also came to the Valentine’s Day outreach event last year where David and I were the featured speakers on love. Since then, I’ve tried to keep in contact with her to no avail. Last week, out of the blue, she called me! I was so excited. We were able to meet for coffee on Saturday and we had a wonderful time together. She only speaks a little English and I speak even less Japanese, but we were able to understand each other, laugh and have fun. We have plans to get together again soon. Please pray that our relationship would grow and that I would be able to share Christ with Kondo-san despite our language limitations.

As you know, our first term here on the field will come to an end this summer. David and I, along with our home church (GFC) and our Barnabas team, have been praying about what God has for us in our next term. It seems like God is opening up some wonderful opportunities for us in Nagoya. GFC is working on a sister church relationship with Sakae Church in Nagoya. David will be going to visit the church in late March and an elder from Sakae is hoping to visit GFC in NKY in the spring. The idea is that we would move to Nagoya after our furlough and spend time learning Japanese as well as continue building the relationship between the churches. Please pray with us that God would continue to guide our path and make clear what He has for us.