Dear Family and Friends,
We are very excited about David’s upcoming trip to Nagoya. He will leave on Saturday morning to visit with the folks at Sakae Church. As I’ve mentioned before, our home church (GFC) is in the first steps of starting a sister-church relationship with Sakae. David will be visiting to see if Sakae might be the next destination for our future ministry in Japan. They are a pretty large congregation by Japanese standards with 120 members. They have a very active youth program and seem to be very interested in helping our family in the next stages of our missionary journey.
We would love for you to join us in prayer over this trip. Here are some ways you can pray:
- Pray for David’s safety in travel. He’ll take the train up on Saturday and come back on Tuesday evening.
- Pray for David’s health. We think David pinched a nerve in his upper back yesterday. It is better today, but the long train ride, lots of running around and different sleeping arrangements are a concern. Also, his acid reflux is giving him more trouble than ever in the last few weeks.
- Pray for a time of fellowship with the Shimizu’s; the couple David will stay with while in Nagoya. Mr. Shimizu is an elder in the church and speaks English very well.
- Pray for wisdom, knowledge and insight from the Lord on the possibility of this partnership with Sakae, what He would have us do, where and with whom He would have us serve in our next term in Japan.
- Pray that if Nagoya is where the Lord would have us go next that He would allow David to find the neighborhood where we should live, the best language learning opportunities and options for storage of our belongings while we are on furlough.
- Pray for strength and perseverance for Marcy as she takes care of the three children on her own while fighting morning sickness and vertigo.
This trip is very important as it is the first time we will get to meet with Sakae and will hopefully be the beginning of a long and fruitful partnership for the Glory of the Lord.
Little Cranes…
Sarah Grace is very proud to announce that she has lost her first baby tooth! She is particularly excited because her friend Naomi has already lost a few. Her Daddy gave her a dollar for this very special occasion and she tucked it away for her trip to America this summer.
Sam is growing like a weed and has finally trying to pronounce some Japanese words. Prior to this, he usually just said he couldn’t do it. The more he tries, the more excitement he sees from the folks at church so I think that will help.
Sean is ruling the roost. Any concerns we had of the older two being too rough with their little brother were totally unfounded. He’s very strong and doesn’t let age slow him down a bit.
Baby Crane #4 is causing mom to be very nauseous throughout the day with a few bouts of vertigo. I think Sarah might be right about it being a girl, I’m already starting to show and I’m only 9 weeks along. By the way, we did tell Sarah and Sam about the new baby and as expected they were both thrilled, especially Sarah. They talk about the baby all the time!
Monkey Business…
Yesterday, as we were finishing dinner, David noticed a commotion outside and he went to the window to see what was going on. Believe it or not, a wild monkey was scaling the wall beyond the railroad tracks that are just a few hundred yards from our house! There were several men with large nets trying to catch the hairy guy, but we are not sure if they were successful (the chase went out of view). Needless to say, we’ll be looking around outside before we hang the laundry!
A lovely afternoon…
Last Saturday, we were able to go to a natural history museum with our two friends from the church here. Megumi-san and Masoko-san showed us around and walked us through the exhibits of Japanese homes from various time periods. The kids loved the dinosaur skeletons, but weren’t too happy about the animatronic ones…just a little too lifelike I guess.
Other prayer requests:
- Pray for the church in Shimonoseki. They have had a series of difficult trials recently. Please pray that the believers would draw even closer to God and the unbelievers would see their desperate need of a savior during this time.
- Pray for Mr. Yokoyama, one of the church members here. He recently found out that he has gallbladder cancer and will be undergoing surgery on Monday. The doctors have not given him a very good prognosis. This is his second bout with cancer. He is probably in his 70s, has a lovely wife, grown children and several grandchildren.
- As always, please pray with us for continued progress in language learning.
We really hope you like this new format and that you are enjoying the blog. When David returns from Nagoya we’ll upload pictures from his trip. We are still working on getting some video of the kids on here so you can see them in action.
Thank you all for your continued love, support and interest in our lives. I hope someday to be able to put into words what it means to us. We love and miss you all…
Marcy
