Pause from previous theme.  I still have a couple more posts in the works, but I wanted to take a break to update ya’ll on what’s going on: -Praise God we are around 67.5% of the way funded to get to Japan.  So, that’s about 2/3.  We still have a few events planned over the next… Continue reading An Update

“Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. 27 And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. 28 “Suppose… Continue reading Counting the Cost

In 2000, I took my first mission trip with Teen Mania to India.  Rewind about 6.5 months.  I felt SOOO compelled that I had to go on a missions trip that summer (cool story, perhaps for another day).  I had a catalog of the trips available through Teen Mania and I had spent about a week trying to get… Continue reading Draising

  Friday night, while feeding the baby, I was browsing Facebook on my iTouch.  I came across the above post and turned a nice shade of red.  For me, I felt a bit humiliated on behalf of all missionaries– sort of like when you see the videos of “Christians” holding those “you’re going to hell… Continue reading And Then I Read This Post…

I first heard about Care Teams when I came to CCEA.  Wow!! They really love their missionaries! was what I thought.  I wasn’t entirely sure what all a care team entailed, but the concept alone showed me how much CCEA believed it was important to support their missionaries. Being on the field, it’s easy to… Continue reading Care Team

A follow up to the last post about positively glorifying God in negative circumstances… I read a book years ago called Passion and Purity by Elisabeth Elliot.  She quotes something in the book that I was trying to describe to Vicente as we were headed to bed.  It stemmed from the conversation of how we… Continue reading Late Night Conversations

that it’s illegal to ride a bike while holding an open umbrella in Japan? (Although I’ve seen it done many times in Japan… as well as texting and biking…)

Some time ago we are at a meeting for the young adults and were listening to the last message on the book of John from Sean Christensen. It was a great message, and had all to do with following God and not being competitive.  This was the situation with Peter in John 21:18-25, as he… Continue reading Positively Glorifying God in Negative Circumstances

Recently I’ve been slowly making my way through Luke, very slowly mind you. But I read something last week from Luke 4 that has been on my mind quite often.  It’s a pretty big chapter– a lot happens.  In the beginning there’s the story of the temptation of Jesus and His time in prayer and… Continue reading Prayer and Purpose

http://mentalfloss.com/article/55140/10-japanese-travel-tips-visiting-America This was a very interesting article that we found for Japanese people travelling to America.  It’s a bit amusing to see how others perceive us. It wasn’t until I began living in other countries that I really realized how different cultures can be.  Of course, we all know that generally about cultures, that they’re… Continue reading Perceptions