October ocher (E's current favorite color)

Sports day; can you find him?

Last night, our extended family gathered (even via skype!) to celebrate the 100th birthday of Nelle Caitlin's Grandpa Foxy, who went home to be with Jesus one year ago. We remembered the time he and grandma happily napped on newspapers right in the middle of a busy beachfront on Catalina Island. The time he gave away his prized new camera to a friend, keeping his old one for himself. The time my sister and I fell asleep on the terrible hide-a-bed in their Pasadena living room, listening to grandma and grandpa pray through the list of kids and grandkids by name. Grandpa taught us to love Jesus, to love each other, and to love Japan. We are here because of him, and are humbled and blessed to continue the good work he began. 

Visiting our dear friend Eri! 

We celebrated the birthdays of both of our older kids recently. We’re so grateful for healthy, compassionate, cheerful and interesting children! Please pray for wisdom as we learn to parent them better each day. We’re especially mindful of the many relational opportunities that come through our pre-school community; please pray for all of us as we connect with the other families and build relationships. Tomorrow, we will travel out to the country with friends to play on an organic farm. 

I'm two!

I (Caitlin) have found juggling my various roles to be particularly stressful recently. The transitions between parenting three wonderful but energetic kids, managing the day care at CAJ, keeping up with the preschool schedule and community, managing Japan Harvest publications and working at CAJ are exhausting. I love the various things that I do and the roles that I serve, but it is hard to keep margins and stay emotionally healthy. Please pray for wisdom about how to balance my various responsibilities.

Ryan lead worship at our new church plant;
yes, we meet in a cafe!

We find ourselves in the midst of many conversations about long term planning: should we buy a house instead of paying rent? Should we keep our kids in Japanese school or move them to American school? Should we continue to have both of us work and our kids in day care, or should one of us stay home full time? We need wisdom! We’re not rushing any of these decisions; please pray along with us as we seek God’s plans for us.

Birthday in the park with best friend Yui!

Our good friend Loren, Yui's mom  

We're planning an extended trip to the States in May and June! As we've come to understand the ways that God uses our particular personalities and strengths, we've realized that it's no accident that we live and work in Japan! Japan is no stepping-stone for us: our application for Permanent Residency in Japan was recently approved, and we're finding ourselves increasingly comfortable conversing at length in Japanese, and fulfilled in our relationships with our ever-expanding circle of Japanese friends. As CAJ students become CAJ alumni, we are blessed to hear back from them that we had a meaningful role in their academic, spiritual, and personal maturity. As we've come to see that we are called to be here long term, we've realized that we need more accountability, more connection and communication with established churches, and more prayer support (see the section above regarding stress!). We are working on pursuing community and church visits in May and June, and we'd love to connect with as many people as possible. Would you like to see us and hear about what we are doing? Let us know if we can connect with your church, small group, Sunday School, or community in some way, and we will try to visit, this summer or in the near future!

Two months!

Love to you all!

Ryan, Nelle Caitlin, and kids