My birthday and the beginning of the rainy season hit!

Here is Jan teaching Mai on Friday evenings. Although Mai is only in Junior High, she has a good grasp of English and what I especially enjoy is her ability to make jokes in English. In this photo, I am attemtping to teach enough vocab to explain the bridge illustration - the way in which God has made it possible for man to restore a relationship with Him.

You can see that although we live in the country we are not deprived! Our neightbour has installed a coke machine!














It could not be kept a secret! Jan had a birthday on Sunday. There is a tradition of going out to the front at church and being sung and clapped to 'Happy Birthday' in English. The pastor then gives a brightly coloured origami necklace.


Jan was given some beautiful gifts.

I don't know what happened to these guys but they took a brief holiday to the U.S. - something about route 66 and the grand canyon - any way they are back now with american accents. These are Warren's English students from a town called Kasugai - they travel for a 3 hour class once a week. They hope to improve their English so that they can minister in Japan through their local Baptist church and promote the Bible view of creation. There are not many Japanese who know about or believe in the existence of a Creator God.

It is bead-making time. Jan has been teaching the 'wordless book' for the past 5 weeks to the children in Bible time each day. Now they are threading the colours - gold for the streets of heaven, black for our sinful hearts, red for the cleansing blood when Jesus died for us, white - our clean hearts before God, green for our need to grow and blue for eternal life with God forever.