February fast forward

"What do you mean I have to connect the resurrection of Christ to water scarcity in Zimbabwe??" A lot of big ideas coalesce (collide?) in February for CAJ seniors. After more than a year of individualized research, intense conversations with teachers and classmates, hinged on a core question, seniors do the complicated work of connecting their sense of the story of scripture (creation, fall, redemption and restoration) to their chosen issue (water scarcity in Zimbabwe, teenage depression, gaming addiction, etc). 

Visiting Edo period museum (we're inside!)

And March is when it all becomes hands-on. Students have saved and studied for the past four years for a ministry trip to northern Thailand, where they will work with a local hill tribe school. This year's project is helping to build a foundation for a handicapped school. This is the first school of its kind in the area; a much needed resource! Together with the senior class teachers, Ryan has authored much of the curriculum preparing for and experienced on this trip. Please pray for safety, and rich learning as students culminate their four years of learning about stewarding, collaborating, leading and following. 

I mentioned last month that I'm working on a three month research project for my church, which takes me to coffee chats, shared lunches and church fellowship halls. What intense, beautiful, shoulder-bending work is going on in our city. The stream rushes by as I listen to stories - the boy who goes home every day to an empty house, the pregnant teenage girl making the agonizing choice between giving her baby up for adoption or going it alone as a single mom, the family struggling between yes and no when yet another needy mouth shows up at the doorstep, asking for a place to stay; I pray for humility to listen well and ask before planning where to jump in. And yet, I've got a big dream percolating, the kind that I catch myself daydreaming about and realize my arms are all goosebumps. Feels like waiting for another baby to be born. Please pray for humility to listen and learn before I speak or suggest. Please pray for wisdom as I collect ideas and present them to my church council at the end of March. 

Firewood for next winter!

For those on the Japanese school calendar, March is the end of the school year, and a brief spring holiday, with the new school year beginning with April's blooming cherry blossoms. Please pray for the smooth end to this year, and a joyful start to the next year.

And sometimes you find them like this. . .

Jubilant January

Sometimes repair uses up every roll of tape you have in the house! And sometimes there are flowers blooming in the snow. 

Look! Wintersweet is blooming!

Thanks to good friends who gave us a beautiful reminder of our theme and challenge for our house: a place of welcome, shelter, healing, and ultimately, a place of sending out. We chose the image of a tree, thinking of the tree of life "whose leaves are for the healing of the nations" from Ezekiel 47 and Revelation 22. And look what we were given! Now, when you're in our neighborhood, you will know just where to find our house! 

It's winter at CAJ, which means that middle school students and teachers take the first morning train toward downtown Tokyo to bring breakfasts to the homeless people who are sleeping in the stations overnight. Ryan helps high school students who welcome the middle schoolers back to campus as they process their experience. 

Best trash find!

This month CAJ seniors are wrestling with a core question that focuses their year long research on a topic that is person to them and could help bring good to the world. Over the years, many colleagues have worked on the curriculum for this massive assignment, and Ryan has put particular ownership into the core question process. 

For the next three months, I am working on a research project for our church. Our city is becoming known as a good place for families. Today I challenged my church family: are we ready for this? Ready to welcome in new friends and neighbors? Ready to fellowship with fellow parents, living out the daily reality of being in community? I've been asked to research by interviewing those in our community with a finger on the pulse of this change. And compile the results and present it to the church by March. Please pray for my conversations and for insight as I listen and compile! 

For years, I have carried around a tiny red pencil which reads "prayer changes things." While reading one of my grandmother's devotional books (Chambers, If ye shall ask . . . ) I was challenged by the phrase, "It is not so true that 'Prayer changes things' as that prayer changes me and then I change things" (14). Dear friends and supporters, your prayers change us, and they help equip us to live and love as we are meant to. Thank you for praying! 

Our new address is: 

3-23-16 Chuo-cho, Higashi Kurume-shi, Tokyo 203-0054

or

〒203-0054 東京都東久留米市中央町３−２３−１６

Delicious December

Repair is a radical act. In the blur of holiday commercialism, one phrase gave me pause. Repair is a radical act. Catchy marketing aside, this phrase stuck with me as I lived through this month. 

I got to pray at my friend Chieko's baptism!

For our neighbors, the new year is a time to value the clean sweep, the new purchase, the clean slate. While of course, we love a good do-over as much as anyone, we've been sinking deeply into repair, renewal, renovation. Rather than sweep it all away and start over, we dig deep into repair, acknowledging that - in some mysterious way - the beauty is more profound because of the brokenness. This month, we renewed some tough relationships, working to re-engage instead of move on. We celebrated repentance and new life through the baptism of our dear friend. We renovated our very-old-new house, repairing, insulating, making it stronger and safer. 

"Finding baby Jesus" with church friends

When we re-install the sink. . .

We're grateful! Thank you for the many of you who prayed and sent quick emails on the morning of our "party week!" We had a wonderful series of celebrations with so many reminders of grace. Particularly, I'm grateful that I was able to make a better connection with Kiyomi, the mother of one of our pre-school classmates. She and her kids will come over next week, after the new year holiday, to play at our house. She's very shy, but is willing to make time. Please pray for our conversation and friendship! 

We're humbled and challenged by our hopes for our new house. As we moved, we prayed over a theme for our house. We chose the image of a tree: a place of welcome, shelter, strength, and sending. A place to learn and grow, and receive restoration and retreat, and then a place to be sent out from and scattered, to heal the nations. We love the parallel verses in Ezekiel 47 and Revelation 22 which speak of the "leaves for the healing of the nations." Please pray with us as we dedicate our home to be a place of healing, welcome, and of sending out. 

The garbage bins are taped shut for the week of New Years

Please pray for the spread of grace in our community. As I look ahead to this new year, I pray for my friends to know grace. I pray for my family to know and live in grace. In Japanese culture, even the trash we put out for pick up must be clean, tidy, sorted, and acceptable. It is scrutinized by the neighborhood and can be returned to you if unacceptable! To me, a mother of little ones who generate many piles of unsightly trash, I struggle to have even our waste be neat and proper. 

Flowers from Enomoto-san

In my experience, Japanese culture is the most generous culture I have yet engaged, and also the most grace-less. Last week our kids and dog wandered into our neighbor's field and made mud pies. We fetched them apologetically, and chatted. That night, she came over with a bag of apples, and a beautiful evergreen wreath and table arrangement because I said her garden reminded me of my mother (a florist, as many of you know). Today, when I took a small apple crisp and bag of cookies to thank her for the flowers, she immediately filled my hands with boxes of chocolates, cookies and a roast beef! Incredibly generous! Yet, at our pre-school, when a boy is labeled a bully, the family resorts to quietly move to another school and cut all ties rather than face the pressure of the group. So much generosity and so little grace. 

Speaking of grace... we didn't manage to get Christmas/New Years cards sent this year. We still love you! Thanks for loving us anyway! We love hearing from you! 

Our new address is: 

3-23-16 Chuo-cho, Higashi Kurume-shi, Tokyo 203-0054

or

〒203-0054 東京都東久留米市中央町３−２３−１６

Newsy November

Life in a construction zone!

So there's a great story about one of our local train stations (Shibuya). One evening the line closed at midnight as usual, as an above ground train line. Then, out of the shadows, 1200 construction workers flocked and worked busily all night. At 5AM, the train resumed service as a subway! You can watch the transformation here. November felt a bit like that for us. We moved houses the first weekend of this month - and life couldn't miss a beat!

We're so thankful for the many friends and family (our crew of 1200!) who helped us keep up with life, brought birthday cake to celebrate our girl who turned three on the first day in the new house, chased the kids on bike around the park next door, brought us chili and donuts and coffee, hauled endless boxes, and generally loved on us.

You know we've been praying about how our location can facilitate our ministry. And we've been praying about a house that we can renovate to help keep our kids healthy (older Japanese houses often leak chemicals that are used to seal the lumber; it's a known problem called "sick house syndrome" and leads to breathing problems, especially with kids). We are so thankful to have found a place and moved in - and begun construction! Ryan has researched extensively and has a plan for renovating this house to clean out the chemicals and install purifying insulation and sheetrock.


We're thankful!
- our weekly moms prayer time is growing! Hikari came today with her two boys, and shared her desire to be a light at our pre-school. I'm so blessed to befriend, kneel beside, and raise kids next to these wonderful women.

First "English Play" in the new house!

- our neighborhood "English Play" time is also growing! We renewed friendship with a family who is now just around the corner from us, and they have started coming to our weekly play time. Shino has four kids (which is very unusual for a Japanese family) and I'm so excited to have her company on a weekly basis in my home! Please pray that these women and children would be drawn to Jesus through spending time in our home.

Preparing gift boxes for Operation Christmas Child

- Ryan's seniors spent time discussing morality today in Bible class - and ended with applause! Students wrestled with the nature of God, and the nature of Love. Please pray that Ryan and other CAJ teachers can continue to facilitate honest, open dialogue with these wonderful students.

250 boxes ready to ship out to the Philippines!

- On a personal note, my dad, Ethan Pettit, leaves tomorrow for Liberia, where he will work with a construction crew to renovate a mission house, one of the headquarters for the Amani ya Juu project. Check out their work developing sustainable economy for women, and pray for my dad's team!

Waiting for pre-school to end!

Only in October

His mom co-leads the moms-in-prayer with me!

It was that series of silly moments. I hastily apologized as my kids cut her stroller off with their little bikes in the entrance to the convenience store where I was grabbing a coffee. Then we smiled as we left the bread store, and saw her again (also coffee in hand, from the same convenience store). By the time we all showed up at the same park around the corner, we had to laugh. The inevitable exchange of kids’ ages, admiring of each other’s “gear:” “you made that baby-carrier cover your self?!” and commend each other's taste in park-day snacks (same coffee and cinnamon rolls). Then we got into the real conversation. “So, are you a missionary? Are you connected to that international school next to the station?” 

Because our kids had the day off from school, we decided to turn our prayer time into park fellowship, and let our kids play together. As the Spirit would have it, three other moms happened to also come to the park that day; these moms happen to be enrolling in our preschool next April. Each of them was friendly, and Hikari, who I played tag with all the way there, is a Christian! We exchanged emails and look forward to our next prayer time, when she will join us. 

This month, I sensed a strong movement. Something is happening in this city. Not only is this city becoming a hub for young families, but there are several new ministries right at our fingertips. Please pray for those meeting to plan these new ministries. Right now, we're praying for who to invite into leadership, and the values we want to shape the ministry. 

1. Thanks for praying with us! This month, high school students at Christian Academy experienced “School Without Walls” week, going out of their normal school routine to focus on servant leadership, collaboration and stewardship. Ryan, together with the HS principal plans and implements this curriculum. It was a great week! This year, Ryan had conversations with his group, several of whom are non-Christians, about the figurative ways we can “carry each other’s burdens” while they worked on physically carrying each other’s loads on their week long hike. This is an excellent way to bring to life the teaching from Bible class!
2. We’re grateful! Our two older kids each celebrated their birthdays recently, and E is just starting to read! We’re so grateful to have happy, healthy, growing kids. Thanks for your prayers for our family.
3. Exciting news: Remember my friend Chieko? I wrote about her last year. Although she has been attending a church with her daughters for the past few years, and she comes to our moms-in-prayer meetings with a well-worn Bible, she hasn’t formally committed to Christianity because she doesn’t want to offend her parents. Just this past Sunday, she told her pastor that she wants to become baptized! This woman is remarkable for her courage, humor and humility. Her younger daughter is one of E’s best friends at preschool (sometimes the only reason we can entice him to go in the mornings!). It is an awesome privilege to walk toward her baptism beside her. 

Soggy September

As an American, I was raised to value efficiency. Stock up, and shop for a month's worth of groceries in one trip! Send out emails to the whole group. Lead a large meeting, to be sure everyone is welcome.

English practice with Japanese school friends

In contrast, my neighbors bike to the grocery store daily, to shop for one or two meals. Invitations come in person, with a smile and comment for each friend in turn. News travels from mouth to mouth. Each piece of laundry is hung on the clips to dry, taken down, folded, placed on each tiny body. I am often struck with what feels like staggering inefficiency of daily life.

In our roles of teacher and worship leader, we pray for an amazing lesson, one poignant uplifting song set to draw the congregation toward revival, or to awaken epiphany in our students. Yet, life more often takes a daily, walking pace. Catching a student in the hall to discuss a plagiarized paper. Stopping mid-song to deal with a broken guitar string.

Yet, I think about the life Jesus chose. Traveling on foot, eating long, slow meals, welcoming long, interrupted, rambling conversations and inconvenient relationships. The theme for next week's bible study is the Eternal God. It strikes me, an Eternal God has little need for efficiency, which is a product of those bound by time. God, being outside of time, engages each moment without rush. Eugene Peterson calls it the "long obedience in the same direction." Lamentations says, "Your mercies are new every morning." The Israelites found manna each day, and had to trust for more tomorrow.

Rainbow over our river path!

As we give thanks and petition this month, I am mindful of the need for daily faithfulness. For the need of God's eternal perspective - outside of the tyranny of efficiency, outside of the urgency of time.

1) We're grateful: Plans are underway for a rich and meaningful "school without walls" week for CAJ high school students. Ryan works together with the HS principal to plan this curriculum, spiraling servant leadership and teamwork qualities for each grade level. Please pray for safety and great learning experiences for the students and teachers as they spread out all over campus and all over Japan next week!

2) We're grateful for the group of wonderful Christian moms at our public school. I'm so grateful for the new members, and for my wise and patient co-leader. I'm grateful that my language skills are developing too! Please pray as we meet on Monday to pray through the theme of God as Eternal Father.

3) We're grateful for our local church, Kurume Bible Fellowship and our church plant, Tokyo Life Church. We will go on a retreat this coming weekend as a whole body, to rest, pray and enjoy fellowship. Please pray as our church goes through a re-visioning time, and continues searching for a new pastoral team to lead the congregation as our current pastoral team plans for retirement.

Leaving August

Come morning, our entry way is once more filled with assorted bags, helmets and shoes; the kitchen counter a jumble of lunch boxes amid breakfast fixings - we're back in the swing of our regular life!

Our suitcases are empty, and the last waft of American dryer sheets has faded from our clothes. Tonight we're catching our breath after the first English play time with neighborhood friends after the summer holidays. We miss each of you! And are so grateful for the time we had together with many of you this summer. 

We're grateful!

- Ryan's summer studies ended well, with a clearer focus for his final semester of masters work. 

- CAJ is back in full swing, with a theme of Love God, Serve Others. We even had a special concert last week from Christian artist Michael W. Smith! Many students don't know who he is, but the staff were happily snapping pictures. 

- We were concerned that the long summer away from pre-school would mean a hard transition back, but instead, there were many smiles and hugs and excited reunions; we're all growing up! 

Please pray with us:

Baptism for V, with some of our "cloud of witnesses"

- Ryan has a full month ahead with many student events, and a week of hands-on learning for the whole high school, which he plans with the high school principal. Please pray for wisdom and attention to detail in planning. Please pray that students would learn about servant leadership, and experience God, the world, their classmates and themselves in new ways through the curriculum Ryan plans. 

- I'm leading the Moms in Prayer group for our preschool along with another mom, and feel the weight of the former leader's absence, and my lack of vocabulary. On the one hand, a friend commented, "wow - you remembered your Japanese when you were in America!" but on the other hand, I struggle to describe how praying for your child on his way to school is different from hanging a good luck charm on his backpack. Please pray for me as I lead this group of wonderful and inquiring women. Pray especially for Yuko, who is curious about Christianity. 

- Please pray for our children's spiritual, emotional and intellectual health. We know we're asking a lot of them, functioning in multiple languages daily, and between a variety of sometimes conflicting cultures. Pray for their development of truth, values, sense of identity, formation of friendships, as well as language development. 

A prayer from this month:

"Let me use disappointment as material for patience; 

Let me use success as material for thankfulness; 

Let me use suspense as material for perseverance; 

Let me use danger as material for courage; 

Let me use reproach as material for longsuffering; 

Let me use praise as material for humility; 

Let me use pleasures as material for temperance; 

Let me use pains as material for endurance." (John Baillie, 1949)