So its been a little while since Ive posted anything here. Jo and I have been pretty busy with Language school. We have class from 9 in the morning until about 2:30 in the afternoon with 45 minutes for lunch. All in all its been quite an experience.

Its been a lot of fun being in an academic setting again. I had forgotten all the sitting you do as a student. But I suppose that will just have to spur me on to actually take up running or something. Jo has been going out for runs and I think it would probably make her happy if I came along.

Language study has been really exciting. I feel like I am understanding things a lot better than I had when I studied before and I am really thankful for the amount of Japanese exposure I have everyday. This has all been really trying but its worth it.

On a different note I have taken up roasting my own coffee beans. I did a little research and I discovered that if I roasted my own coffee I would spend about half as much as I would if I just bought coffee in the store. Now of course there is a certain time investment to be made but thats half the fun.

This afternoon I roasted 100 grams of an Ethiopian coffee and we will see how it turns out after it has some time to sit and degas. Odd as it may sound the cheapest way to roast your own coffee is to use a popcorn popper. I bought one off Amazon and after relocating the temperature sensor I think it will work just fine.

In other news our trusty computer seems to have died. This morning I woke up and went to check the weather and was greeted by nothing but a black screen. After some extensive trouble shooting and a little open-heart surgery on our lappy it is safe to say that it was the motherboard that finally gave out. We had had it for about 3 years and it was about a year old when we got it. We have put it through pretty extensive use over the years and I have been pretty happy with it. I think we will be looking for a desktop this time.

Youre thinking, But Will your laptop is shot, how are you typing all this? Well luckily I still have a functioning phone with a bluetooth keyboard so the death of my laptop wasnt a good enough excuse for me not to finally post something.

This weekend looks like it will be really busy. Jo has organized a Thanksgiving Pot-Luck here and then we are also going into Nagoya on Saturday to have a thanksgiving party with people from Church. It should be a lot of fun but still busy.

I know Jo has uploaded some pictures of our apartment on facebook but I will be sure to upload some more once we have a computer again, and I will try and be more frequent with posts here.

If we could ask for prayer it would be for our language study. Pray that we can learn the language well. Also pray that we are able to contribute to the community at the church. But most of all, just pray for Japan.

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Tomorrow is the big day that we are moving to Nagoya. We’ve been packing things up for the last couple of days and it has been a little hectic.

While Jo and I were in Nagano city submitting our visa paperwork Jo spotted a tree with enormous leaves. She was very excited. Pray that our paperwork goes through well.

While we have been packing we have been making a video with Drew and Megumi for the Japan Mission project website and to send to our supporting churches. We have been visiting different temples and getting pictures and video, it has been fun.

We found a huge old mirror in one of the temples we visited, it was pretty cool.

Statues! They’re all over the place and they’re pretty cool. These temples may be the center of deep-seated paganism but they do hold a certain beauty in their craftsmanship.

Today we spent the day finishing up the house that we have been tearing apart. It has seemed that every time we think we are finished the owner comes by and says, “Take this out too.” But now we are finished.

We have found a few interesting things along the way. Jo found a fish in the wall at one point. She was quite excited and took it around showing everyone. Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera. I did however have my camera when she found two shrimp in the house!

Once again, Jo was super excited to have found seafood so far from the ocean. As we were finishing up we found something that wasn’t quite so funny. No, it wasn’t a human hand.

We found someone’s ID in the wreckage of the house. The house had been flooded and tons of junk was everywhere so it wasn’t surprising to find someone’s things. We looked at the address and saw that it was in one of the tsunami ravaged parts of town. We decided to return it.

But in a situation like this could we know that the person would be there? Was the house still standing? Was she even alive? We had no way of knowing but what else were we going to do?

We punched the address into the GPS and we were off. On the way we decided to pray. We prayed for the girl, and we prayed for her family. We prayed that we might find her.

We finally found the address and I stayed in the car while a few of the others went to the door. After a few minutes of nervous waiting the three returned all smiles. The girl wasn’t home but her sister was and apparently she is just fine although her house was washed away in the tsunami. It just so happened that she had her sister’s address on her ID. We happily piled back into the van and drove off towards the onsen.

The girls’s sister was very grateful that we would return the ID and she was surprised that we would go through the trouble. But it is acts of kindness like this that only cements Be One’s reputation in the community. They are the people that help fix houses, that pick up garbage, and that return found wallets. It feels good to be a part of a group that is trying to become a part of the community and through that bring the gospel into people’s lives.

It has been along day of work but I am typing this from the lobby of the onsen as I am waiting for the others to finish. We are going out for sushi tonight. A hot bath and sushi is a great way to end the day.

Today is our Sabbath day. Up until recently groups that came here worked everyday and only spent a little time in the morning on Sundays in prayer. Recently however, they have started having a small church service in the house they use as their base here in Ishinomaki.

Church this morning was mostly people from the group that is here volunteering but there were a few locals there as well. It was encouraging to get to sit around and sing praises to God, share from the Bible, and share communion with a group of Christians.

On the way the way to the house this morning Beth says to me, “Do you mind sharing from the Bible today?” I say sure and have the rest of the drive to the house to come up with a small sermon. Lucky for me I have preached enough sermons that coming up with a short devotion on the fly was a simple task.

After lunch we went to the neighbor lady’s house for lunch. She is a wonderful and generous woman who insists on cooking for a lot of the groups that come to visit. The people of Be One helped fix her house and she has decided that big lunches are the way to repay them for their kindness.

After that we spent the afternoon going around the city to see the effects of the tsunami. It’s still shocking to see all of the damage that was caused and how much of it remains. I suppose it shouldn’t be that surprising but it is still rather emotional for me to see it all. There is a lot of work to do.

Pray for Japan. Pray for the people living through all of this. Pray for the workers here. Pray for peace in the hearts of the Japanese. Just pray.

I really meant to have more regular updates but we have been running like crazy all over the area. Here is a quick synopsis of what we have been up to.

Day before yesterday Jo and I were working with a large group of people deconstructed a house. There are a lot of houses that have been totally torn down but there are just as many houses that are being rebuilt.

And these houses are the ones that we are primarily working with. Be One has a house in Ishinomaki that they use as a base and the people in that area really seem to have developed a close relationship with Be One. It has been really encouraging to see the relationships that have been developed through all of this tragedy.

In the last couple of days we have been working at a couple of different locations. One day we spent cleaning out gutters near a local shrine so that the houses on the street wouldn’t flood in the rain. Another day we spend removing the floorboards form a local house in preparation for remodeling and today we have continued the process of completely gutting the inside of the house.

All of this has been a lot of work but it has been really fun to get to just do something helpful.

Tomorrow we will be having a church service at the Be One house and then we will be heading over to a neighbor’s house for lunch. It should be fun.

Jo and I are spending about a week and a half in Ishinomaki helping out with a relief group called B1 Tohoku Aid. Mostly we are just doing clean-up jobs in the community like ripping up the floor in a house so that it can be redone, clearing out gutters along the street so it doesn’t flood every time it rains, and just generally picking up trash.

It has been almost six months since the earthquake and there is still so much to do. A lot has been cleared away but there is just so much devastation. There will be work to do for years to come.

I am going to try and update my blog more often this week but the posts will mostly be short just because I am doing all this from my phone.

A couple of weeks ago we were taken out to a German restaurant by one of Drew’s students. Apparently she is a bit of a grandmother figure to him and is always either taking him out to eat or generally trying to take care of him. Anyways, one of the dishes we were served were meat pies. They were so good that Jo insisted I try and make some. After a little research I discovered that German meat pies are commonly called Bierocks.

The ones at the restaurant had a pastry type crust that was delicious and flaky, but as some of you might know I have a general dislike of pastry dough; I have never had a good experience working with it, eating it yes, but not making it. With that in mind I decided to use a modified pizza dough instead. We didn’t have any sausage either so I just opted for some seasoned ground beef. Here is what they looked like:

The only difficulty arose in the baking because I don’t actually have an oven. What I do have however is a toaster oven and that seemed to work well enough. There are two temperature settings on the oven, 1200 watt and 300 watt. Apparently 5 minutes at 300 watt and then 10 minutes at 1200 watt seems to be just enough to get the entire crust a nice golden brown. In hindsight I probably should have put the seams on the bottom so the top would be smooth and round but that’s for next time. Apparently they were good enough that I was invited to make them again so I guess that counts as a success. Here is the basic recipe:

Dough

1tsp sugar

2 1/4 tsp yeast

1 cup warm water

1/4 cup olive oil

2 tsp salt

black pepper and Italian seasoning to taste

3 cups flour

 

Mix together sugar and yeast, add warm water and let proof. Add remaining ingredients and mix. Knead dough for 5 minutes then let rise for 30.

 

Filling

1lb ground beef (or whatever)

Salt to taste

fresh cracked black pepper to taste

Italian seasoning to taste

no fewer than 5 cloves of garlic pressed

random vegetables (Use what you have around. I used cabbage, green onions, and carrots this last time.)

 

Sautee the beef (or whatever) and vegetables until beef is cooked and vegetables soft (or crisp if you like it that way).

 

Once the dough has risen roll out into a tube then cut into ten pieces. Roll out pieces into squares and add filling. Fold in a pleasing manner.

Bake until golden brown.

 

With these proportions i made enough for 10 bierocks but you can always make them larger or smaller to fit your desire.

 

It seems kind of silly that I would add a recipe to my blog but I have a lot of fun cooking (and feeding people) so I wanted to share something fun that I had experienced. I hope it was at least a little entertaining.

Jo and I have been volunteering at the Shinshu Bible Camp over the last couple of weeks. It hase been a lot of fun but it also has been a lot of work. We have mostly been working in the kitchen or cleaning up the rooms. It has been encouraging to see the different church groups that have come through and it has been a lot of fun getting to know the couple that run the camp.

It has definitely been interesting seeing what sort of meals the camp serves. For breakfast one day we had sausages, hard boiled eggs, salad, bagels, bananas, and these little raisin croissant rolls. I am an eggs, toast, and coffee kind of guy but nonetheless I have enjoyed cooking at the camp.

While at the camp we have been staying in an A-frame style cabin. It’s a cozy cabin and has been a pretty nice place to rest after a long day of work. There isn’t any AC but it’s been pretty cool up in the woods int he mountains.

Two and half years in Japan and Jo and still don’t have a car. At first that was hard for me but it has been fun to realize how easy it is to get around and live life car free. It isn’t quite as convenient here as it is in Sendai but nevertheless it is perfectly possible to live without a car. Jo and I have been biking back and fourth to the camp and it really isn’t all that far. It is about 14 km, the first two thirds is a slight downhill but the last third is a steep uphill into the mountains. It is rough getting there but coming down that hill is a blast. It has nice straight-aways and some fun twists and turns. My bicycle computer has run out of batteries but I think we have been hitting speeds of at least 60 kilometers per hour coming down. Don’t worry, we’re wearing our helmets.

One day on the way home we began to hear lots of thunder in the distance and a cool breeze began to blow (a bad sign if you don’t want to get rained on). As we left the camp we prayed that God would hold the rain off just long enough for us to at least make it down the mountain. We flew down the mountain and as we climbed up and and crested a hill this is what we saw:

Dark clouds dropping rain where we were headed. It was nice and clear above us but ahead it looked ominous. We rode home as fast as we could manage and got to the house just minutes before it started to rain. It then proceed to dump rain on us for the next several hours. All in all it was a fun ride. We’re looking forward to doing it a couple more times.

If I could ask you to pray for us I would ask that you pray for our Japanese studies. As much as we have been working at the camp it has been hard to study a lot. I would also ask that you pray for our upcoming trip to Ishinomaki. We are planning on volunteering with a group that is still helping clean up the Tohoku coast after the earthquake and tsunami. Pray that God would use us well and give us the strength to work hard. Thanks.

Jo and I had just gotten back from a Japanese lesson across town when it started to rain. We both felt appreciative that we didn’t get stuck in it but not half so appreciative as when we heard a loud clap of thunder. Apparently lightning had struck a tree just across the street from our apartment. Luckily it looks like only the tree was hurt and the fire didn’t spread anywhere.

Before too long the fire department showed up but the flames were out. A little excitement on a Saturday afternoon, back to my book I suppose.

Jo and I are finally back in Japan. We spent about 2 and a half months in America. As strange as it sounds it felt like too long away from Japan and not enough time in America. The flight was long and boring but I suppose boring is the way you want your trans-Pacific flights to be. I had the middle seat while Jo sat in the aisle. It seems that we are getting to be old hands at this flight, and it is getting easier and easier with each pass.

We have been back in Japan for a couple of days and I feel as though I am finally feeling like myself again. Jet lag is a strange thing, it is more or less just a matter of my body getting used the new day and night schedule. Jo and I have both been feeling dead tired at about 9 p.m. and then feeling wide awake at about 4:30 a.m. This morning though we both ‘slept in’ until around 7 a.m. It has taken a bit but I think we are both feeling a little bit more normal.

I had almost forgotten how much I missed Japan, but as we have ridden our bikes around and walked about I have seen with new eyes all the things I love about this country. We have been making  plans and talking about our ministry here and it has just been re-enforced in my mind how long a road this will be. But it a place that we feel that God has lead us to. We just need to trust in him.

If I could ask anything I would ask that you would pray for us. Pray for us that God would give us wisdom. We have decisions to make and plans to lay out and it has been my prayer that God would guide us. Pray for us, we need it.