ALLinHIM Ministries Blog

I just wanted to send an “arigatou gozaimasu” the the Javier family and a big “omedetou gozaimasu” to Michio Javier.

A couple week’s ago, on a Saturday evening, my family and I were sitting around talking about how much we wanted a Tagalog/English Bible. We have looked at some of the Tagalog Bible’s before and we really wanted one. We have a Japanese/English Bible, and we wanted a Tagalog/English Bible as well. The next morning when we got to church, we had a surprise (a big one) waiting for us. Brother Vic walked up to us with his wife, Sister Kris, and handed us this…

IT’S A TAGALOG/ENGLISH BIBLE!!!!! My parents started tearing up and my eyes were just a tad on the watery side. It was so sweet of them to get that for us. To The Javier family, thank you so much for your gift. We love you all and appreciate you all so very much!!!

That day, we were also privileged to be able to baptize Michio, Brother Vic’s and Sister Kris’s son.

We prayed with him one more time before we baptized him.

After the baptism, Brother Okonushi went to the supermarket and got some lunch for everyone. That was GOOD!!

To the Javier family, thank you so very much and to Michio, congratulations on your baptism.

To the Ibaraki church, we love you all so very much!! See y’all again soon!

God bless and much love,

Rachel

 

Konnichi wa!!!

Hello again!

So a couple weeks ago, I went to Sendai to see my boyfriend. He had a couple days off from school and he wanted me to come up to Sendai to see him again. While I was up there, he took me to Matsushima (which is absolutely GORGEOUS!!!). I had a great time up there and the sights were amazing!!! Thank you, Hiro!

So first of all, when I go up there, I take the train(s) from the station closest to our house, Ichigao eki (station), and I end up at Yokohama eki. From there I take the night bus to Sendai (or Fukushima prefecture. I’ve gone to both places). Yokohama station is huge (not as big as Tokyo eki though). There is a mall called The Diamond Underground Mall, there. Anyway, this was outside the station. I’m not sure what exactly it is but it’s Japanese and I like Japanese things.

This is only part of the Yokohama station. The rest of it is back behind the Joinus area. Sorry it’s a bit blurry.

On my way to the convenience store, I passed this…

This building here is where I have to wait for the bus. It’s huge but it’s also very pretty.

My bus left at 11:00 pm. I stayed awake until midnight just to make sure that I didn’t have to make a transfer (I had to transfer one hour into the trip on my previous trip up there). Once we left Tokyo station, I fell asleep….fast asleep!

When I woke up, it was about 3:30-4:00 am. The sun was just coming up and it was so pretty.

We were walking around and Hiro said, “There is my parking”. I thought he was talking about that maybe that’s where he would park if he had a car up there. Then he said, “No….that’s my parking…look!” That’s when I saw what he was pointing at…

See?? “Hiro Parking”

After walking around a while down in Sendai, we went to a place called Italian Tomato Cafe’ Jr. We got two plates of spaghetti and a large salad. The first kind of spaghetti was a shrimp and tuna (which was good!!)

The other kind was Bolognese Spaghetti, which was also very good.

Hiro picked out the salad and both plates of spaghetti. I always let him pick out our meals and he always does a good job (maybe because he also cooks quite a bit).

Then we went to Matsushima. This was the train that we took to Matsushima.

This is what it was called…

Then we went to マリンピア (Marinpia Aquarium but the katakana only says ‘Marinpia’. The website for that is http://www.marinepia.co.jp/).

This is the entrance to the aquarium.

There was even a carousel in there!!! And no, we didn’t ride it although that would have been funny…

There was a penguin area there. The penguins were so cute!!

After watching the penguins for a few minutes, we then went inside to look at the rest of the animals.

Look at those eyes!

Has anyone ever seen an alligator stand up like this?

It almost looked like a statue. Hiro and I were trying to figure out if it was even real or not. Once we got closer, we noticed that the eyes were moving….

About that time, there was a show going on outside so we quickly walked through the rest of the aquarium so we could go to the show…it was a seal show!! It was so cool!!!

The seal show was so awesome!! The seals did so many tricks…they even clapped their fins!!! I loved it!

I couldn’t understand all of it, but I was able to pick out some. I was just enjoying the show most of all.

We went back inside for a few minutes until the next thing on the agenda started. I thought this was the best picture out of what I took in that time frame.

The next thing was a penguin feeding. That was pretty awesome, too!

This penguin (the big one) was especially pretty.

This is the type of fish that was being fed to the penguins.

This penguin was so pretty!

This one was a feisty little thing.

She kept trying to escape…

She was actually getting quite close to Hiro and myself. She got so close  that she was able to reach out and nibble on my hoodie zipper.

This is the little penguin area. Do you see that red sign on the glass?

Take a closer look….

These two guys look like they are trying out some dance moves or something. 

Miss Feisty finally got off of the table and started walking towards Hiro and I so I snapped a picture of her.

Then we went to the bay area. That area was so beautiful!!!

Matsushima is made up of so many small islands, some of them so small that they only have one pine tree on it.

This tree looked at first like it was growing on top of the rock but it’s roots were still in the ground.

Hiro and I got a snack at one of the shops and we sat outside to eat it…well, at first we sat outside. This seagull decided that it wanted some of our snack, too. We were just a little worried that it was either going to attack our food or that it was going to…use the restroom…on us. So we took off to go inside.

We went on a little sightseeing cruise of Matsushima Bay…it was awesome!!

This is the boat we went on.

This is the gorgeous part!!

That little odd shaped island on the right is the small island with only one little pine tree on it.

The weather was getting a bit cooler (but not quite cold at this point) and the wind was picking up a bit…

….but the sky was beautiful!!

One cool thing about the sightseeing boat was that you could buy a bag of some type of french fry things and feed it to the seagulls. It was so cool!!! I had so much fun doing that! Hiro and I were laughing the entire time.

I got Hiro’s picture of him holding a fry that he was gonna feed to the birds.

The sunset was beautiful, too!

This is facing a shrine that was right there on the bay.

See all those little rocks out there? Well, some were pretty big actually…anyways, those are all islands.

This is going to the shrine that I mentioned above.

This bridge looked neat until you got right in the middle of it and looked down….the slats were set just a short distance from each other. You could see the water up underneath the bridge. I know I’m not very fond of heights and I’m not sure Hiro is either.

The scenery was gorgeous up there. I love it!!!

This is from the shrine looking out over the water.

I love all the little red bridges.

Hiro got a taxi that took us up the this certain observation point…the sun was setting and it was absolutely gorgeous up there!!!

The taxi driver asked Hiro if we would like for him to get our picture.

There was a little cafe’ type place up at the top of this observation point. That’s where Hiro took me to eat that evening. Watching the sunset (even though it was cloudy) was gorgeous!!! I kept looking at Hiro saying, “This is beautiful!! I love it up here!!”

This was what we had that night. Each of us had a tray like this. Normally, whenever Hiro asks me what I want to eat, I tell him to pick something. Both of us like pretty much the same things, so we will normally get the same thing. That, or he’ll order two different things and we’ll split both things.

Anyway, I’m not sure what all the names are of everything, so I won’t go through and tell you everything. I’ll just say that everything was very good, but I just couldn’t finish everything. Normally, Hiro and I have small snacks through-out the day, so I don’t eat a lot when we have a big meal.

This is the cherry blossom jello. It was oishii!!!! So delicious!!!

The view was gorgeous!

After that, we went back to the station to head back to Sendai, which was only a 25 minute train ride or so away. We walked around around down there and just hung out until my bus got to Sendai station at 10 pm. Then I started the trip back home.

That’s all I have from my last trip to the Tohoku area. I’ll be working on another blog entry here soon so y’all stick around and I’ll get another one done here soon.

Much love and God bless,

 

Rachel

 

Hello again!!!!!

I hope everyone has been having an AWESOME week!!! My dad has taken this week off and we’ve been sightseeing (well, we’ve only gone out one day so far but I know the other days will be good, too!) so our week has gone really good.

These last few weeks has been the time of the Sakura, or the cherry blossom trees. Around this time of year, they have sakura tea, sakura treats and snacks (ice creams, jello’s, cookies, and many other things). Anyway, so while I was at Camp Zama, I walked to Vet clinic (where I volunteer) and I was able to get a lot of pictures of the Sakura trees. They are GORGEOUS!!! This entry is going to be all about the Sakura trees.

I love the contrast of the sky, the bushes, and the cherry blossoms!

The colors are so contrasting that the pictures almost look fake.

I REALLY like this picture!!

This is overlooking the running track on base (oops! I forgot. It’s post. Army calls it a post not a base).

This part of Zama is up on a hill so you can overlook the city and see all the mountains. That in addition to the color of the cherry blossoms and the sky…well, it’s just really pretty.

This is looking out over the golf course. I stuck the camera lens through the fence thing so I could get a clear shot of the area.

After that, I went over the the library for a little while. While I was there, I got some pictures of the cherry blossoms there.

My mom really likes this little blue panel truck. It’s kinda cute!!

This is walking down the road by the vet clinic. There is a whole bunch of cherry blossom trees on the left side.

This is back up by the towers. I went on two separate days so I got several different pictures.

That is all I have for this entry. I’m gonna start working on another entry here soon. I hope y’all enjoy the cherry blossoms even though you can’t be here in person.

God bless y’all and we love all y’all so much!!

Rachel

(P.S. By the way, the title says “Sakura ga kirei desu!!” which means “The cherry blossoms are beautiful!!”)

 

 

Hello again!!

How are all y’all doing? We are all doing well here in Japan. How many of y’all from Dayton remember Brother J.J. Bourn? Well guess what?!?!? He is here right now!!! This last weekend he preached at Haijima UPC. So Friday we had one service at 7:00 pm, on Saturday, we had a service at 2:00 pm and on Sunday we had a service at 10:00 am and one at 2:00 pm. It was SO awesome to be able to see Brother Bourn again. We got to spend a little bit of time with him and that was awesome, too.

So, anyway, the first night (Friday evening), we started the service by walking around and praying for each seat and asking that God would bless and touch every person that would sit in each seat.

Brother Daniel and Sister Yokoyama led the song service. When we have a joint service like that, we have one leading the songs in English and one leading the songs in Japanese.

So, since I have so many random pictures of the special services this last weekend, I’ll not be writing too much, only on certain pictures will I write a lot.

Sorry a few of these are a bit blurry.

Moving on to the Saturday services.

I just wanted to say how absolutely WONDERFUL it was to see everyone from Haijima again and to have everyone together again.

By the way, the lady on the far left is Sister Kim Hatch. She is an AIMer that is working with the Lucas’s for the next 6 months.

If you have not heard Brother Bourn, you HAVE to hear him one day!!! He is absolutely AMAZING  and he has some of the greatest stories to tell.

Also, although this is sort of off topic, I just wanted to say how good it was to see Brother Paul Apedo and he was walking almost perfectly normal. For those who don’t know, Brother Paul broke his foot a couple months ago and he was in a cast for a while and now, although he was in a walking cast/boot (I think), he’s walking pretty good now.

Brother Bourn’s main message for the weekend was on Miracles. Basically that we don’t have to beg God for miracles (or the Holy Ghost). We are God’s children and all we need to do is tell God what we need and He will give it to us when the time is right.

This is Silas Coker. His dad, Brother Mark Coker, is the chaplain at Atsugi Naval Base. To me, Silas looks a lot like Dylan Brock. Sister Brock, please give your boys a hug for me and let them know I miss them bunches!!

Anyway, Silas was talking to Brother Bourn and I thought he looked just adorable so I got a shot of him.

Brother Perry, Brother Ephriam, and Sister Omorefe were praying for Naomi Omorefe.

Here is Brother Lucas closing out one of the services with Brother Matsui translating for him.

Brother Lucas asked for all the people that didn’t have the Holy Ghost, and if they wanted the Holy Ghost, to go up to the front and we would pray with them.

This is Allie Coker in the blue. Isn’t she a cutie?!?!?

Here is Brother Doan praying for David Bryant. The Bryants (David’s parents and sister, Jaliah) had come with the Coker’s.

Sorry I don’t have a lot of captions on here. This is one of those times when a picture speaks a thousand words. Not really anything else you can add to some pictures.

Steven Agyare was also up at the front getting prayed for.

This is Jaliah Bryant (a picture of her older brother, David, is up a bit).

Here is Dennis Datsomor and Zion Omorefe.

This is Jemima Kwarteng.

After church, Rebekah and I were playing with Isaiah Shahid. He’s so adorable!!

Brother Bourn was speaking about claiming what we want (in terms of miracle(s) or things that we want to happen). He turned to Brother Yokoyama and told him to start claiming what he desired.

During the service on Sunday, Brother Lucas walked past Naomi and she was moving around like she wanted to get out of her wheelchair so Brother Lucas and one of the other brothers helped her up out of her chair. She had some help standing up, but she was moving her legs and walking on her own. No one was moving her legs for her. She was doing it all on her own. So we prayed for her for a while and she ended up walking from the alter to the front pew. In the end, she was very tired and just wanted to lay her head on Sister Omorefe’s lap.

This is Michio Javier from the Ibaraki church.

Brother Lucas had asked for all of the pastors (Brother Matsui, Brother Datsomor, Brother Yokoyama, and my dad) to get up and greet the church.

I’m not sure if my dad was looking at me or not, but it does look like he is.

After the Sunday service, everyone wanted to get their picture with Brother Bourn. Here is Brother Doan and Brother Datsomor with Brother Bourn.

Here is the majority of the Ibaraki church with Brother Bourn.

Sister Yokoyama, my mom, and Brother Bourn.

Rebekah wanted to get her picture with Brother Bourn. I’m kind of sorry (okay…really sorry) that I also didn’t ask to get my picture with him, but…

…We did get a family picture with him. I guess that just means that I have to see him again to get my picture with him.

And that, my friends, is all I have from our (Japan’s) time with Brother Bourn. Brother Bourn, we really enjoyed having you here in Japan with us and we hope you can make it back over here very soon. God bless you!!

And to everyone else, God bless you all, too!!!

Much love,

~Rachel

 

 

 

 

 

 

こんばんは!!

Good evening!!

I hope all of you are doing well. We are doing well over here. Last Sunday, March 25th, 2011, we went to Tokyo Worship Tabernacle in Nakameguro for their monthly fellowship. There was SO much GOOD food!!!

Anyway, enough talk about how good the food was. It’s time for the pictures. So first off, Sister Mary Joy started the worship off.

My dad got up and spoke for just a few minutes to open the service up.

Here is part of the Praise Team.

Brother Datsomor spoke about Naaman that morning. He was saying that even though Naaman was so high on the social ladder and even though he had money, that still didn’t take care of the fact that he was a leper.

This guy is Japanese but he speaks very good English. He learned his English while he lived in Israel quite a few years ago. Because he learned his English in Israel, he doesn’t speak with a Japanese accent, he speaks with an Israeli accent. And he speaks and reads some Hebrew! He was showing us some of the Hebrew letters and how like in the phrase “the land of milk and honey”, it comes out to mean the land of the blood and the water covenant. It was so cool!!!

Lynda was posing for the picture here. I love how she can be playing for a service and still pose for a picture.

After church, we had a jam session. Well, Lynda, Nat, and Dennis had a jam session. I was watching. Nat was playing the keyboard, Lynda was singing and Dennis was doing the bass.

And that’s all I have from our last fellowship. I will be putting more pictures up here soon so y’all keep an eye out for them!

God bless y’all!!!

Rachel

Hello again!!

How are all y’all doing?  I’m sorry it’s been so long since I’ve been on here. In between volunteering at the Camp Zama Vet clinic and school, I haven’t been on my computer near as much and I haven’t taken so many pictures here recently either. So sorry!!! But I will show you what pictures I do have.

So last week, I went to Fukushima to see my boyfriend.

So anyways, last week, on the 15th, I left Yokohama station at 11:00 pm and I began the 6 hour bus ride to Fukushima prefecture…NOT Fukushima City. I slept the entire way, waking up about 20 minutes from Fukushima station.

Once I got there, we went and got some breakfast and then we went sightseeing. After driving around for a while, we stopped and got some lunch. We stopped at a place called “Gusto”. It was really good!

I’m not sure if Hiro was posing or if I caught him off guard.

Hiro ordered this tasty fruit and yogurt dessert.

The mountains up there were gorgeous!! It was a warm sunny day and there was snow on the mountains making it picture-perfect.

This is at Hanamiyama.

This lady in the picture is one that we met while walking up one of the roads going up the mountain. She walked up the road with us a bit pointing different things out.

I think Hiro told me that this is a plum tree.

Then after talking for a few minutes, this lady asked if we would like for her to get our picture together.

The sun shining off of the mountains was SO pretty!!

One of the parks we went to had this cute little creek running through it.

Sorry my reflection was in the glass.

This is St. Anne’s Wedding Chapel.

Later that night, after eating at an Italian restaurant (which was delicious!!), we went bowling. I was able to snap a couple pictures of Hiro while we were at the bowling alley.

After this, we went and waited for my bus.

Although this wasn’t in Fukushima, I thought it was worth sharing. We saw this on Sunday on our way to Ibaraki for church.

Funny, isn’t it?

Oh!! I also have some AWESOME information!!! How many of y’all from Dayton (ALC to be specific) remember Brother J.J. Bourn? Guess what?!?!?!? He is going to be coming to Japan ONE WEEK FROM TODAY!!!!! We are ALL SO happy to be able to see him again. Actually, Brother Bourn prophesied to my parents that we “would have your answer in 45 days of less.” My parents had been trying to decide whether we needed to stay in Ohio and retire there or for my dad to stay in the military. 45 days later, we (my parents) signed the contract on a house there in Ohio. To be more specific, the house was on Eagle Watch Way in Huber Heights, Ohio. Anyway, because of that, we stayed in Ohio for 8 more years, which in turn led to us having my grandparents come visit us in June, and that’s when my dad’s truck broke down. Because of that, we had to leave the truck in Amish Country. When my parents went back to pick the truck up, they met with Sister Lucas. All of that led up to us coming back to Japan!! How AMAZING is that?!?!?!? It’s awesome!! Anyway, so Brother Bourn is going to be here IN JAPAN and is going to be in some special services with several of the churches here on mainland Japan (it will be held at Haijima church and I know the Ibaraki church and Tokyo Worship Tabernacle churches are invited). I am SO excited about seeing Brother Bourn again! I can’t wait!!!

Okay, that’s all the new pictures that I have for now and all of the new information. I’ll try to get some more over these next couple weeks, especially while Brother Bourn is here.

God bless you all!

Rachel

Hello again!

I just wanted to share some pictures with you from our time at the Tokyo Worship Tabernacle (a.k.a. TWT) in Nakameguro. So as most of y’all know, we go to TWT every Wednesday night and on the last Sunday of every month. So on the last Sunday of January (the 29th), we were at TWT and they had a fellowship that night. Here are a few pictures from that.

There was SO much wonderful, tasty food there!

Here are some pictures from one of our first services at TWT.

Well, that, my friends, is all I have from our first few services at Nakameguro. I’ll try to get some more pictures on here as soon as I can. Hopefully that will be very soon. I’ll try my best.

We love all y’all so much!

God bless all of y’all!

Rachel

 

 

Magandang umaga!! Good morning!!

Well, as most of y’all know, we had many birthday’s the past couple months. I know for sure Micaleah Sanchez, Courtney Banks, Jordan Smith, Brother Marty Kay, Brother Mike Williams, Alina Vazquez, Amma Amoabeng, Bernice Gyamfi, Rebekah, Dennis Datsomor, and myself all had birthdays in January. In February, there were also several birthdays that I remember: my mom, her twin brother, and one of my good friends, Rachel Nelson (a.k.a Ren), and Drew Smith.  I’m sure there were many more birthdays in both of those months, but those are all that I can think of right off of the top of my head. So anyway, a great big “Happy Birthday” to all y’all. Or as they say in Nihongo, “Tanjoubi Omedetou Gozaimasu!!” If I missed anyone, I’m SOOO sorry!!

So for all of our birthday’s (Rebekah’s, mine, and my mom’s), we went out to Outback Steakhouse in Shibuya. On the way there, we walked down this one street that was lined with shops…

including…

I think this Forever 21 had 6 or 7 floors, including a men’s floor.  Yeah, we love Forever 21 here in Japan!

And this is something we haven’t seen off-base/post in Japan: A Burger King.

Just a little something to add a smile to your day.

Here a just a few of the interesting shops that we saw around.

And we reached our final destination for the day…Outback Steakhouse.

My dad was being slick and let us follow the waitress first (as normal) and then he told one of the other ladies that it was our birthday’s. When he sat down, I told him “Dad, don’t tell them it’s our birthday.” He said, “Okay, I won’t.” And he didn’t because he already had. So after the meal, a group of the waitresses came out and started singing and gave us these delicious desserts.

Okay…so I had already taken a bite…or two..out of it, so I took a bite of the pretty side first.

While we were in the Shibuya, and while we were in Forever 21, I saw this Coach store across the street. Yeah, I don’t even like walking into an expensive store over here because I feel like I’m gonna be charged for breathing the air.

I really enjoy walking down the shop lined streets. There is just something about it that looks so interesting.

This is at Shibuya Station. This is the station where 2-3 million people pass through every day.

Look at all of those people!

This is looking in the opposite direction.

This is how packed the train was on the way home.

Well, this is all that I have from the trip downtown for our birthdays. I’ll be working on more blog entries soon so I’ll just “see” y’all around soon!

~Rachel

Hello again!

I’m sorry it’s been so long since I’ve been on here, but at least now I have plenty of pictures to give y’all some reading material for a little while.

So, as most of y’all know, we have been helping out at the church(es) in Ibaraki and Nakameguro. Brother and Sister Lucas wanted to give a going-away party (they actually called it a farewell party) for us since we would no longer be attending Haijima on a full-time basis (we will be visiting!) Here are some pictures from the farewell that day.

I wasn’t able to get very many pictures of the rest of the service. And what I did get, I moved and they pictures were blurry. Anyway, after the service, we went to a Community Hall and we had a fellowship. There was so much good food there! We had American food, Ghanaian food, and Japanese food. It was so good!

And Hiro came up that weekend so he was there for the farewell party, too.

Everyone was just having a good time eating good food and enjoying the company of everyone there.

Sister Mateo made a cake and some cupcakes for the fellowship. It was so pretty! She does an amazing job on cake decorations.

Here is little Isaiah Shahid. He is SO adorable! He was dancing to the Ghanaian music that was playing. Actually, his mom just had a baby girl, Bethannie Bella (she’s also adorable). Congratulations to the Shahid family! Isn’t he SO cute!?!?!?!

My dad took his Ghanaian shirt to wear after church. They all went crazy seeing him in his Ghanaian shirt.

Sister Lucas got up and made a speech.

Towards the end of the fellowship, we got groups pictures, first all of the guys and then all of the ladies.

And then all of the females. The newest baby in the front is the Lotsu’s baby, Elom (I’m not sure if that’s spelled right or not).

I had been holding Isaiah and when I set him down for the picture, he walked back up to us. So he got to be in the picture, too.

And here is Isaiah, Rebekah, and Hiro.

So, to all of the Haijima church members: We miss you all SOOO much!!! But you haven’t seen the last of us yet. We will be visiting. We love each of you so very much and we are so very happy that we got to know each of you as well as we did. We hope all is going well at Haijima and we hope to see you all again very soon. Love all y’all so much!!!

Rachel

 

 

Magandang gabi!!!

That means “good evening” in Tagalog. We have recently learned several phrases in Tagalog, but I’ll go into that more later.

Anyway, I guess starting out, I’ll apologize for not doing a blog entry sooner. I really haven’t taken many pictures recently and I didn’t want to do a bunch of short blog entries, so I just wait until I get enough pictures to do a decent blog entry. But I am sorry that it has taken so long.

As some of you know, since the Lucas’s have been back, we have started helping at the church in Ibaraki. I know I’ve posted some pictures before from the church in Ibaraki. Now what we’re doing is we go to Ibaraki every Sunday of the month, except the last Sunday. On the last Sunday of each month, we will be joining the Tokyo Worship Tabernacle in their services.

So one morning on the way to Ibaraki, instead of sleeping, as I normally do on our way to church, I stayed awake to watch the sun and the clouds (does that sound funny?). This was my reward for staying awake.

And introducing the Skytree, due to open in either March or May 2012.

After church, I got this picture of Brother Okonushi, my dad, and Brother Vick.

I love looking at the water on the way to and from church. This area looks so country.

One day we went out to Zama (I think we went for a vet appointment for Buford) and it was a clear day so we could see the mountains. It’s so pretty!!

Two weeks ago, also at Ibaraki, I took these of the Yokoyama’s dog, Rocky (I hope that’s spelled right). He’s such a pretty dog.

Now, moving closer to the present time. Last week, my dad received an email from a Brother Jeremy Booker from Indiana. Brother Booker was saying that his job brings him to Japan pretty frequently but he wasn’t able to find a church over here. He found out website and contacted my dad asking the locations of the churches.  From where Brother Booker was staying, the Tokyo Worship Tabernacle in Nakameguro was the closest church. So on Wednesday night, Brother Booker called my dad and said he would be able to come to church that night. And it turns out that Brother Booker’s kids went to a youth conference at our church in Dayton, Ohio and also I think I may have met, or at least seen, some of his kids while in Bible Quizzing. I also think that we may have quizzed against the team that one of his sons was in. It shows just how small the world actually is.

Also, most recently, we had our first big snow in Yokohama! We got a whole…..1 inch or so….and it stayed 2-3 WHOLE DAYS!!!!! I was SO happy that we finally got snow, especially with how cold it’s been here lately. Here are some pictures of the snow.

Let’s just say that I was just a little excited about the snow….more than a little….I was a lot excited about the snow. Is that proper English? I’m thinking probably not.

When the snow stopped falling and the sun came out, it was so pretty! I loved it!

It was actually icy out. We even saw where people had salted the roads. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve seen that?  2 1/2 years….wow…it’s been so long now.

Well, that’s all that I have for now. I’ll be working on some more blog entries here in the next few days so keep an eye out for more entries coming up.

God bless you all and we love all of y’all. Please continue to remember the country of Japan in your prayers.

God bless,

Rachel