Day 167-180 The Church working together.

February 14-27 2010

Over the next few weeks, our big goal was to get the word out about the Gospel Meeting next  month. We have finished the flyer and Obata-san ordered 3,000 flyers. We hope to have them all distributed by March 15th. We are very anxious to see who God brings to the church through the flyers. We started passing out flyers door to door around the church building.         

We divided the area into a few smaller sections. Everyone was sent out to work as long as they could. Some went out in groups, some one by one. That day we ended up passing out around 500 flyers. A great start to this task. Our goal is to get all the church members involved in the preparations and the Meeting itself.  

 

 

 

 

 

Cleaning the building

Every Saturday Obata-san has invited the church to come and help clean the building. When we got here in September Obata-san was the only one cleaning. After a few months a few people have started to help. On a regular basis Kobayashi-san comes to clean with us. And some times other members come when they have the afternoon free.  It is very encouraging to us to see everyone working together.

“to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”   Ephesians 4:12-13

Day 154-166 Snow, Cookies and Wizard of Oz

  Monday February 1st, 2010

       We’ve had our first big snow in Haruna! We were so excited to see the big snow flakes falling. And after a few hours of falling it started to stick and accumulate on the ground. Soon we had almost 2 inches of snow. It was really beautiful, and it finally felt like winter.

Tuesday February 2nd, 2010

      We woke up to the beautiful snow still on the ground.  But by 10:00am most of it was melting off. Maybe next time we will have enough to find a big hill and go sledding. That evening we had some special visitors. We invited Mie-san, Hana-chan, and Megu-chan over to make cookies. The youth group at Northside church of Christ sent us the biggest box of cookies cutters I had ever seen. So I had to use them. And I thought the girls would enjoy making a mess with me and Paul. The girls had a blast. It was really cute watching them be creative with the sprinkles and icing. Paul watched them for awhile and he just had to join in. He started making his cookies and soon they all were in a contest to who

        could put more frosting and sprinkles on one cookie. We all had fun and the girls took most of their cookies home to give to their friends.     

Saturday February 13th, 2010

       For Christmas Paul gave me tickets to see the Wizard of Oz musical. Today was the day we would get to see the play. We were excited to see how it would be done in Japanese. We invited the Carrells to join us. They took the train from Matsudo to Takasaki and then we all drove together to the music hall in Maebashi. We arrived about 10 minutes before curtains. When we walked into the auditorium we saw so many children. We looked at each other and laughed. We didn’t even think about this being a children’s play. Oh well, we wanted to see it. How could we miss the opportunity to see the story that made our home state famous! At one point in the play the actors came down through the audience on their way to the Wicked Witch's castle. When the cowardly lion got too scared he actually sat on our friends Steve Carrell’s lap. Dorothy had to pull him off to the continue the journey. It was so funny. During intermission and after the show we talked with a few of the kids and their parents. They really enjoyed it when we told them we were from Kansas just like Dorothy. One little girls mom asked if we would take a picture with her daughter. She was so cute. After the show we went back to our house and shared a nice meal of rice meatballs, mashed potatoes, green beans, rolls and Twinkie cake for dessert. It was nice having the Carrells in our house. We enjoyed showing them around the neighborhood and around the church too.