Give Peace a Chance!

Hey everybody!

I think we left you with a cliff hanger last post, about Luisa's latest classic moment. So on that same Sunday, during the potluck with the whole Fujigaoka church there, we were hanging out while people were taking pictures with Wendy, since it was the last time that they would see her for a year. Wendy would call out different people and make them take a picture with her... there's your background info. So everyone's just chatting and having a good time, when Wendy asks one of the families to go stand with her. Now this family had three young boys that were part of kid's club, so we knew them and had been playing with them... and at the moment, Luisa was playing with the youngest, the one year old, in the next room. So the parents call for their son to come out, and Luisa picks up the baby and starts to bring him into the next room. They're laughing and having fun and everyone's happy, when Luisa decides to throw the baby into the air while she's walking--- right when she was in the doorway!!! There's this huge cracking sound as the kid's head smacks into the top of the doorposts and everyone whirls around to see what happened and there's Luisa, still holding the now crying baby, not even sure what to do.

Everyone was so shocked that it had even happened, but then it was so funny and awful all at the same time that we HAD to laugh... even the pastor was laughing. So the baby went back to his parents, and Luisa came to us, her ever supportive and loving teammates... who were just laughing at her and made her feel even worse about it when she felt horrible to begin with. But there was no damage done, he quit crying in less than a minute, and we're pretty sure no one is permanently scarred, except for maybe Luisa only because we made fun of her so much. We still laugh though, remembering the moment and everyone's faces, and then Keiko's comment: "It sounded like the wood broke..." And Kiara and I are pretty sure that we saw the kid weaving as he walked around afterwards, though... haha.

Anyways, Monday we left for Hiroshima on the shinkansen. Now the shinkansen is really great, and gets you places really fast, and it's even a little cartoon character that you see on Hello Kitty lollipops... however, apparently there are unwritten rules about shinkansen conduct. We were all sitting in a row, eating snacks and laughing about how awful we all feel in the sticky weather and how long shorts make us look huge when suddenly the conductor comes out of nowhere and shushes us, in Japanese. Mind you, we were seriously at medium volume, not loud, just normal laughing, but apparently that's too loud for the shinkansen. Yeah, we got shushed, along with the five year old in front of us who was being actually loud. Then as he was walking away, the conductor gave us an extra shush for good measure. Didn't exactly help the laughing situation, which turned into poorly muffled giggles.

Our first day in Hiroshima started with a buffet lunch with the pastor of the church, his family, and a few other people with their kids. It was good to meet new people again and the buffet had a chocolate fountain, so we were happy. Then we got to visit the Atomic Bomb Dome, the Peace Park, the Peace Memorial and the Peace Museum. The A-Bomb Dome was the first thing we saw... it was a governmental building and been a landmark of Hiroshima at the time during WWII with its beautiful dome, but it was about a kilometer away from the hypocenter of the bomb, so it was pretty well destroyed and only the skeleton of everything was left. Now it's still a landmark of Hiroshima, but it's a sad reminder. The peace park was nice, with a bell tower thing surrounded by thousands of paper cranes that people from around the world had made and sent... legend has it that if you make a thousand paper cranes, your wish will come true. Each of those cranes was made with a wish for peace in the world and no repeats of the destruction and violence in Hiroshima. We all rang the bell. Then we took some pictures of the really neat memorial monument where the names of all the victims are kept with an epitaph that reads in Japanese: "Rest in Peace, for the error shall not be repeated." We can only pray that it's true.

There were a ton of chairs set out on the grass to prepare for the memorial service for the anniversary of the bombing on August 6th... and lots of foreigners were walking around. We went to the Peace Museum and went through the whole thing and learned the story about exactly what had happened and the causes and effects. It was a lot of reading at the beginning, but then there were a lot of artifacts and things to look at, including some really horrible wax figures of people right after the bomb went off, with skin melting off and hair all singed together from the thermal waves.

So yeah, it was a lot to think about and deal with... so we had some ice cream to feel better. But right after that we were dropped off at our host families and had dinner and went to bed. The couple that Kiara and I stayed with had the shyest cat EVER. Tuesday morning we went to to the church and helped out with an "English party." We didn't actually do a whole lot, just played with the kids, read a book about Noah's ark, and did our skit. But after that, we went to Miyajima island where there's a really famous shrine. As we rode the ferry over, we saw the gate to the shrine standing on the beach in the low tide with people walking around by it and we started to feel the darkness of the place. It was such a different experience, being uncomfortable and praying the whole time against the spiritual darkness, but wanting to be respectful at the same time. As we walked around it got more difficult for us as we watched people ring the bell to call the gods to come. Thinking about how many years and how many people had come to do the same thing and ask false gods to enter that place kind of made us feel sick. So when we made it down to the beach, we went by the gate and held hands and prayed together for the people of Japan, asking that God would show them his love and how false all of that really was.

That night we ate dinner at a woman's house who had been at the English party and played card games with the kids, then went to pack our bags to ride the shinkansen again to Osaka the next morning... which was today! No shushing took place on this ride, but we did get a whistle blown at us for getting too close to the tracks while we were taking a picture. Today was pretty uneventful... we came to the Izumi Hope Chapel here in Osaka and were shown all around the church. We had a meeting and then unpacked every single item of clothing and souvenir that we have, then went down to dinner. Coming back upstairs after dinner, we opened the door and had were just horrified at the awful mess the room was in. Seriously, all of our stuff covers the floor and we're debating the different ways of getting it all home, usually involving getting another suitcase to check, because we're not sure if it'll work to come back the same way. It's pretty bad. Really bad, actually... some unloved clothing items will probably be left in Japan, including the nasty, horrible green dress that I really hope there are not pictures up of. It's bad.

That's probably enough for now. Tomorrow we go to Kyoto with Megumi, the pastor's daughter, for sightseeing so we'll see more shrines and temples and maybe understand the religion of Japan a little more clearly. Tell you about it later...

In peace,

Allison and others who's names start with K and L

P.S. I think we're going to add some pictures to the other blog posts, so be checking!

We put the Mount Fuji in Fujigaoka

Hey followers!

So where did we leave you off? FUJIGAOKA is a pretty great place!

We worked in a kids club for three day which went pretty well! We each had our group Kiara was yellow with the cute little kiddlets ages 4-6 and some 7 i think. Allision had green and her kiddos were around 5-7 ish? and then I had the older kids in BLUE team ages 7-10. I think we all had a pretty good time with the kids. DAY ONE: Well we got here and kids started coming right away! 28 of them in total. Our morning was filled with songs and stories and team time. Which we mostly spent playing games and preparing for out big (actually small) show-ish thing... i forget what its callled...THE PRESENTATION. right. So kids here aren`t really shy I really thought they would be but once you engage them they are like monkeys! But we loved every moment with them. After lunch we made a craft and we played a game. The game went pretty well and was lots of fun I`m just happy it worked out! That was mainly the first day at kids club. After that we had some time before we had to go back to our host family so we went to STARBUCKS for team time. Which by the way was sooo good and just like at home! So we had a really good team time and we walked back to our home! We played cards with Yuto and Nanaha the two little kids of the family we ended up playing this Japanese card game which was so much fun. Dinner was amazing that night! Had more sushi and chicken and more good food. Japanese food is soooooo good:) Ken the father had a coworker over for dinner to speak english with us. Dinner was great spent the night playing video games singing national anthems and eating. Overall we loved this family and were so sad that we had to leave them the fallowing day!

DAY TWO: of kids club

Was spent about the same way love love love these kids. They just give us hugs and love being around us and it makes me just want to be around them. So pretty much we love this. We went to the park today NO RAIN. Which was super exciting so we played some red light green light and a few other games. Saw a grasshopper that look just like grass it was so cool! We played the game with waterballoons and buckets they were fun. The day was so much fun even though it was really hot and there were alot of bugs it still went really well:) After kids club ended we headed to STARBUCKS again. Yes we liked it that much, and we need to have team time again and this night we went to different host families for night. So after we went to starbucks there was a farwell dinner for Wendy! It was with her english students most of them were adults but the lunch was fun. THERE WAS SO MUCH FOOD. Allison and I tried eel which wasnt too bad. The dinner was super nice got to talk to alot of different people and play with some of the kids. But the night was so cute because someone from each class gave a speach to Wendy and it was so wonderful it almost made me cry:( But she will be back here in a year SO ITS ALL GOING TO BE OKAY. but it was a really nice dinner! That night we split up Kiara and I went to stay at the Hashimotos and Allison stayed at the Kawasakis. We both had a great time meeting them and loved playing with their adorable kids.

THIRD DAY: of kids club

Okay, so, this was the last day of kids club and everyone practiced for their presentation infront of the parents. Then, we played games and did the same sort of deal as the other two days... I think truthfully I can not really remember the details of that day. So, yeah then we ate lunch and what not and practiced more and then the parents started to arrive. So my group the yellow team all introduced themselves and sang head and shoulders knees and toes, we even sped up .. it was pretty impressive oh and we sang God is so Good. It was a pretty impressive preformance and truthfully I did not think it could be topped. However, Allisons team whipped out the hand bells and played Jesus Loves Me it definetly raised the bar for Luisas team. But Lu`s team did a Skit about Zeccheaus which was the icing on the cake. So, the preformances were great. However, I forgot to mention that we used face paint before these preformances. So, Allison was a huge scary looking butterfly... it was frightning, I was a rainy day... it was just weird but Wendy convinced me it was cute and Lu was a lion.. which I honestly could not take her seriously in. Meanwhile the children have barely any facepaint on... it was an unfortunate situation... oh and Wendy was a tiger.. I forgot to mention that before sorry Wendy. Okay... so yeah anyways that was all good. Then, we went to Starbucks... once again. And we all ordered drinks but then we decided to be fat north americans and we went back an got pastries. Then we took pics in starbucks because we are that cool. and one of the workers offered to take a picture of us all together with my disposable camera courtasy of Jayne. But, we were like no that is not necessary and then we saw a barista at the counter in the background lean into our shot it was funny but yeah interesting. Then, lets see we went to another photo booth or pelicula thing with Allisons home stay family. We took pics with the little girls and it was a good time those things are soo much fun. Then we went back to our seperate home stays and made some good memories with the fam jams. One highlet for me and Lu was watching the 9 year old dance to Michael Jackson he was sooo into it it was great... Lu danced with him to thriller... but he outshined her a little.

Day 4 (Not Kids Club)

So we were supposed to go to a theme park Saturday which apparently had great roller costers. BUT IT WAS RAINING!!!!!!!!!!!! I was soo upset I was really looking forward to that... but when life gives you lemons you make lemonade. So, we went to go make pottery instead. That was sooo much fun none of us had ever done it before it was legit really cool and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Then we went to an outlet mall and shopped..more...not like we need it ...but we did... and bought more....even though are suitcases are packed.... and we are on a missions trip...so I don`t think we should be shopping...but we did...oops. Then, we went out to dinner which was so yummy but I am not going to get into this considering we talk about food way to much! But, I will tell you this oh wait first we got our own private rooms in this restaurant which is legit really cool. Anyways, getting to what I was going to tell you when we left all the workers we ran into said an enthusiastic bye to us. Then, we looked behind us and the whole kitchen staff was peeking out of a door and waving at us. It was so cute and funny, we felt like celebrities.. like really we are not cool enough for that kind of attention. Okay, so when we got home they gave us hagen das ice cream which really topped off the day quite nicely.

So, now we are on to today. So, today was Sunday... that means we went to Church. We were slightly late..whoops. But, the service was nice, and the lunch after was enjoyable aswell. We ate sooo much but it was sooo good. Wendy dressed up in her yukata which was really cute.. I enjoyed it. And yeah the farewell potluck for Wendy and welcome to us went very well. We did our drime and Lu and Alli read their testimonies. Wendy gave a speech in Japanese which was impressive. We sang a couple english songs which was sweet, watched a home video... good times. Then we went back to Starbucks for team time. It was good, as usual... and the evening finished with the onsen, again!!! I love it...

So we've got to go now, but this trip has been filled with more classic Luisa moments than any other, so we'll leave you wondering about that. Maybe next post you'll find out what happened most recently. Kiara was crying, she laughed so hard.

Love and peace,
Kiara, Luisa, and Allison

We put the Tea in Toyota

Hey our eager followers!!

So we have been slightly rebelious lately and have not posted anything for a while. Sorry I am sure that dissapointed all of you. But , do not worry this post will be extra long. So I think we left you with Tuesday night, how we walked to the disappointing Jusco and then we came back to the church and decorated it with paper chains and balloons, it looked very classy.

So, on wednesday was the first day of kids club and let me tell you those balloons were a hit. It is funny to watch how amused children are by balloons they like looking through them, and watching them float and hitting them, balloons are just loads of fun! So basically the kids were super great and yeah thats it. Duck duck goose was a big hit I must say, we defss played it for a solid half hour. So yeah, they learned how to say what their names were and whether they liked or didn't like certain animals and colors... at least, we tried to teach them. We learned that Japanese kids can make a baseball game out of wadded up paper scraps and house slippers and that they don't care if you can't speak Japanese as long as you are willing to play with them and soak them with water balloons.

Kid's Club lasted through Thursday and Friday, then Saturday we had a day off... so what do you think we did???? Walk to Jusco, of course!! Yes, that's right. We did it again, but this time, we took a new route to a different one, which ended up being way closer and way better. Before I get into that story I will tell you about our friday its luisa ps. So friday we went for dinner with these two amazing girls! They were 21 and were close friends. We actually didn`t know them before this dinner so it could have been really awkward BUT it wasn`t. Akina and Asami picked us up and took us to a nice dinner. Im sure your dying to know how them met right? Well in high school they were parteners on the athletic tennis table team. Yes pretty great we thought so too. ANYWAYS It was good time some good laughs great pair those two! Anyways I want to tell you about what we did after! So we went for ice cream at Baskin Robbins and had a long, indirect discussion about what to do that night... we were tossing around the idea of going bowling, but with one innocent question about an onsen, suddenly we were headed to the public baths.

Let me tell you a little about the onsen here in Japan. Japanese society is very interesting in that they value modesty so much in normal life, but they are totally okay with public baths and being completely naked in front of each other. Men and women go to different areas, you rent a couple of (really small) towels, and you strip down in the locker room and you go out into the bath area. First you sit down at a little booth and shower off, washing everything. Then once you're clean, you can go sit around in any of the baths that you want. There was a huge warm pool, and jet baths and a silk bath, and a shallow pool you could lie down in, and personal round tubs, and a cold bath, and a big warm pool with a TV... some of them were inside, some were outside and all of them were great. That's right, we tried pretty much all of them. We even sweated inside the sauna a little bit, just to try it. And all with two girls that we'd barely met and a whole lot of Japanese women that we didn't know from Eve (reference to Eve made on purpose). But honestly, we all loved it after we got over the initial awkwardness. Onsens are awesome and we're fans of getting a few back in North America... but our culture values privacy way too much to ever allow it, so I guess we'll just have to come back to Japan for them!

Anyways the walk to Jusco was a lot more fun for everyone, especially Kiara, who talked about Hilary Duff the whole way. Apparently she's cool again and who needs Hannah Montana when you have Hilary Duff? (Luisa loves Hannah Montanan and seriously shes way better but kiara likes Hilary) That was the basic conclusion we arrived at, I think. Anyways, Jusco was great this time around and we finally got it out of our system. Then on the way home, it started to pour rain!! Luckily for us, there was a dollar store close by, so we ran in and bought umbrellas for the rest of the way. Then that night, we were picked up and taken to shop again at a mall in a nearby city... unfortunately, we were all shopped out for that day, so we didn't enjoy the stores as much as we would've otherwise, BUT there was definitely a Coldstone in the mall and we definitely got some ice cream, which was sooooo good. Also, Japanese Coldstone employees rock, because THEY SING TO YOU WHILE THEY MAKE YOUR ICE CREAM! How amazing is that? We took a video.

Sunday, we were out of our house from ten fifteen straight until two in the morning... it was ridiculously busy. We went to church and were part of the service, singing Kid's Club songs with the kids and sharing our testimonies. Then we had lunch at the church and said goodbye to everyone. Then we left to go to karaoke with Suellen and Susan from church--- which was super fun! Then we went to a church member's family member's house to dress in yukatas (summer kimonos) to go to the festival in Toyota... which we immediately went to. It was so crowded downtown, so we didn't stay long. THEN we went to park and walk to see the fireworks down in a field-type of place, and THEN it started to pour down rain, again! So we got soaked in the yukatas, didn't see the fireworks, and went back to Jusco to buy some other clothes so we could go back to the onsen to relax, which turned out not happening... instead we were driven 40 minutes out to a game center in our awful mismatched outfits (Allison's was definitely the worst) where we played video games, ping pong, and took pictures until it was time to leave. Finally, we got to go back home and sleep...

Monday was sort of boring, blog-wise... we packed up, did laundry, hung it out to dry, walked to the post office, and cleaned the house. After we slept in, of course. It was sort of depressing, knowing it was our last day in Toyota, where we've had such great memories. We'll miss the people at that church, and all of those great kids.

now we are in Fujigaoka its great we just spent the two hours playing video games with our host family pretty great oh and we went to a tea ceremony and dressed in Kimono which were so pretty!! Kiara got a wedding one pretty awesome. We had some sweets again... not as bad pretty deece but cool thing was we got to do the whole serving tea to others like hardcore tea master even though we werent perfect kind of cool! anyways we stayed up way to late playing video games and we are kind of in love with this family. Its great.

WELL it night time

ps kiara`s eyes are like the sunshine so we are told!

well peace out Tea time

LOVE

LUISA and crew yo
(even though i just finished this blog)

Breakin' the yoke in YOKohama

Okay, so we have a few days to catch up all you eager followers up on. Let us begin our journey of the past few days on Saturday. The day after Friday. Okay, so on Saturday we had a luncheon at the church in Yokohama. The point was to give the attendees a chance to speak English with native speakers and share our testimonies in small ways. We showed pictures from home-- great fun! Many of you reading this were probably talked about that day. We met some cool people, we played some games with English, and answered a lot of questions about our cultures and homes. AFTER, we went to the park and played with little kidlets. Megumina-oka church has been going to this park once a month for ten years, playing with the local kids and sharing a little gospel message with them, inviting them to their church. So we helped out this weekend and played with bubbles-- which I think we enjoyed more then they did-- to attract the local kids. Then we did a skit which ended up being kind of over their heads and had to be explained in detail... so that sort of flopped. But a few kids ended up being interested and came back to the church with us later to see where it was and eat some snacks.

That night, we took the subway to a church member's apartment for dinner and to watch the fireworks for the summer festival in Tokyo. That's right. We watched fireworks for an hour and a half in TOKYO! It was awesome. The next morning was church. I was super brave and shared my testimony in front of church. Then we all got up to do the "special music" together. Let's just say that it was really special... our guitarist was fabulous... we hoped that our bright smiles made up for our less-than-professional voices. At least we tried... After church, we had another luncheon with young adults and university students. It was really fun to talk with them about what they like to do, and they asked a lot of questions about Canada and the States. Leaving Yokohama that afternoon was hard; we all talked about what we'd learned that weekend on the shinkansen (bullet train) back to Nagoya.

Megumina-oka is the only MB church for the whole Tokyo-Yokohama area, a church with about 40-50 members with over 28 million people living in that area. Our eyes were opened to the overwhelming need for missionaries in that area in particular, but Japan as a whole, too. Less than one percent of the population of Japan is Christian!!! We sat and talked about how we realized our missions trip is different than if we had gone to a developing country. Japan's looked at as a rich country, not really needing people to come help because they aren't poor. But actually, they are impoverished spiritually. In Tokyo, there's at least one suicide everyday. In poor countries, people are hopeless because they have nothing. These people are hopeless because they have nothing but a life focused on work and being successful. Our mission here is clearly focused on the people and evangelism, we realized.

Monday we helped Nozomi with the Kids Event for her English school. Moose. Okay, so due to popular demand I Kiara am going to take over post writing. Okay so the event at the school was lovely, before it began we met Wendy, who was pretty much the coolest 28 year old I have ever met. She had a great Jurassic Park hat, which really made me take her more seriously. So, the event began and 40 some kids came strolling in. We sang songs with them, made crafts with them, did a skit, said a story...and played simon says, but Lu went so fast that the poor non english speaking kids got so confused... so mean. Then we played some games outside, which was a good time. By the way Japanese girls take their dodge ball very seriously, they don't stand back they are intense and put their game faces on. It was a little intimidating, I was out in the first 2 minutes, it was a little upsetting. Okay, so it was a good time and the children were cute and great and awesome. Then we went out to dinner with all the people who volunteered for the kids event. We had these interesting sea food pancake things... they were not like anything I had before, the pancakes were alright but we got to make our own cotton candy and shaved ice.. that was sooooo much more exciting. Okay, I just thought I would tell you about that dinner since we like to talk about food so much.

So we were dropped of in Toyota last night. We are back home it is sooo exciting. We slept in till around 11:00 today and I was pretty pleased about that. Then we had a short meeting with Mariko about all that we will be doing in Toyota. Then after that we went to the I-Mall. We ate ice cream, I got maple wall nut, I was pretty pleased with that. Then, we got some groceries... but I am not going to go in depth of all that we bought. But I will tell you this we bought Calpis, which is a drink and Mariko told us what it sounded like, that cracked me up a little bit. I think you guys can use your brains and figure out what it means. By the way I like drinking Calpis, Calpis tastes really good. When we got back we needed a refreshment and we thought Calpis would really quench our thirst. Then we went on a journey, a long eventful life rendering crazy wonderful blash kazoom bam distasteful JOURNEY. Lu will take it from here, ennjoy!!!

SO, this long eventful life rendering crazy wonderful blash kazoom bam distasteful JOURNEY was to ... our favorite store JUSCO!! WHICH WAS SUCH A DISSAPOINTMENt. At first. we walked about an hour just to get there! all alone to Japan yea were rebels. So that was a blast and haft not going to lie. We got there finally after crossing the Golden Arches; going over a big bridge; past the toyota stadium and over a fence which allison didn't like but it was such a smart idea! she still doesn't think so. So as we crossed the street at the big crab castle we saw the big JUSCO sign and got real excited! To our dissapointment it wasn't a big one and their was not much there. It got so upsetting that we had to eat our sorrow away with McDicks. and more ice cream, yea we were way happier and ended up getting alot more after that point. Including awesome watch me and kiara purchured, you should see them they are pretty ballin. Evenually we left and walked ALL the way back after walking ALL the way there and doing ALL the shopping that we did. It was ALL around a good time! On the way home we talked about movies so I could probably tell you all about two movies I've never seen!

ANYWAYS so we still had to decorate the chruch for tomorrow when we got back. Which was around nine, and there were people there! We hustled over as fast and we could just to do it. we did it. It looks great. So now we are writing this way over tiered so i will just say some great points from tonight just to end this off.

"tricky ricky"

"high buns"

"FINGURES FINGURE FINGURE"

sorry excuse Luisa, she doesn't know how to spell finger... It is late

"grounded"

"put your feet up"

"YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL"

"One slap to many"

"No I dont want no scrubs"

"Peter pan invented Wendy.. true story"

"Real"

"lets G-O go pal"

Okay, so there are some mildly funny jokes. But it is rather late here and I am hearing some random sounds in this empty church, which I'm not going to lie, is a little sketchy. So we are going to B-counce of Bzounce. Or go away. Bye

Written by the some what talented,

Karabou, Al Pal and Tlulu bear

Tokyo Drift

Hi from Yokohama/Tokyo!

It's pretty incredible thinking about the opportunities that we've been given... we're going on a tour of the gorgeous country of Japan as we travel around to different MB churches that we're serving with. Today we took the shinkansen (bullet train) from Nagoya to Shin-Yokohama, where we met Pastor Fuwa and Keiko, another church member. When we went out to the parking area, they had to give the attendant their parking ticket. We sat in a little waiting room until she told us we could go out there, and when we walked through the door, the van was waiting on a little platform, all ready for us... it was so cool! It doesn't sound cool, but it really was and I wish I could make you understand exactly how awesome that moment was for us. After a good lunch of fried pork and rice, we settled into the living area of the Megumino-oka Church. All three of us are in the one bedroom with air conditioning... good thing we're friends already! We spent this afternoon and evening taking the metro into Tokyo with Keiko. We went to the Imperial Palace and met the Emperor of Japan! He gave us a tour of the palace and he has dark hair and dark eyes, in case you were wondering................. just kidding! The Palace was closed for tours by the time we arrived and the security would never have let us near the Emperor anyways. But the grounds were beautiful, full of cherry trees and green lawns that went on forever.

Then we went to the Times Square of Tokyo... Shibuya. There were tons of stores and tons of lights and thousands of people and there we were, in our wrinkled sweaty traveling clothes, feeling crumpled and very unfashionable. However, it was cool to walk around and see the heart of the city. We sat down for dinner at a chic little restaurant which handily had everything on the menu translated into English and served such cultural delicacies as caesar salad and seafood pizza. Once in a while, it's nice to find some familiar food after trying so many new Japanese foods, just to remind our stomachs of home a little bit. Coming back to Yokohama on a very crowded metro train, we bought some bread for breakfast at the Little Mermaid bakery across from the station, then had a meeting with the church members about what we'll get to do with them this weekend. We'll be doing a lot of free talking in English with all ages, singing, doing our drimes, and... dun dun dun... lots of testimony sharing. So do pray for courage for us in the slightly unnerving area of public speaking.

So yeah, that was today! I'll rewind a little and catch you all up on what we've been up to between the last post and now: Wednesday was Doris's last day with us (so sad-- and a little scary!) and it was a pretty unplanned day for most of the morning and afternoon... so we had a good chance to rest, process, and reflect on everything that had been happening. In the evening, Su and Susan, two girls from the Toyota church came to pick us up and drive us to Nagoya. We all had ice cream at Baskin Robbins together-- a little taste of home in a scoop of Jamoca Oreo-- and then said goodbye to Doris at the metro. Not going to lie, it was hard to see her walk away, not only as a friend we've made over the past week, but also as our intercessor in a culture where all we know how to say is "Thank you" and "I'm from America/Canada." But hanging out with Su and Susan that night was really fun... we shopped, of course, then sang very loudly and attempted to dance in the van on the way to Brazilian pizza. My moves were the best, as always... LIE! Luckily, I was in the back of the van, so it was a voluntary choice for Kiara and Luisa to turn around and witness the sad state of affairs that my dancing ability is in. I had a good time, though... anyways, pizza was good and we learned how to say "Thank you" in Portuguese. Also, on the way home, we had another failed attempt at shopping at Jusco... we'll keep trying though, because those bargains on clothes cannot evade us forever.

Thursday, Nozomi picked us up at nine and drove us to Seto, a center for pottery crafting in the area. We walked across half of the town, looking at different pottery shops and we even visited a pottery workshop where we saw the process in action. Kiara and Luisa were ready to eat an ice cream bar by the time we left... I wanted to paint a vase. They got their wish. I didn't. We got back to the church in time for one ice cream bar before leaving to catch the school kids to pass out flyers for the Toyota Church summer kid's club next week. We were driving down the road to the school when suddenly we rounded a corner and saw a flood of little yellow hats already bobbing down the sidewalk... the kids had already been released from school!!! Inoue-san peeled into a side street, threw the car into park, and shoved the flyers at us as we raced out of the car, chasing the innocent little kids up the street. We were smiling and trying to be friendly, but I'm wondering if we came off a little strong. Some kids ran away from Luisa and a lot of the ones I approached averted their eyes and walked a little faster... I have no idea why, though. Kids love being chased up sidewalks by foreign visitors to their country, right? No really though, a lot of them were really cute and excited to say "Hello" and use their English... and they started reading the flyers as soon as we gave them out, talking with their friends, so we're praying that many of them will sign up to come next week.

That night, we were slightly lame and walked to McDonald's for dinner. The only adventurous thing that happened there was that Luisa ordered a double cheeseburger on accident when she only wanted a regular one... and we were all too scared (or lazy) to try and ask for ketchup for the fries. It was a good bonding time and fellowship over fast food. Luisa falling off of her chair has been the shining moment of glory for our team so far, in terms of embarrassing stories... but today I had a moment that came kind of close. We were driving to the church in Yokohama with Fuwa-sensei and Keiko and I was trying to explain what we had done the day before, looking at pottery in Seto. However, at that particular second, the exact name of the town skipped out of my brain and I grabbed a word that sounded right... So the pastor and Keiko are listening politely to my story until I say, "Yesterday Nozomi took us to 'sake' in the morning." Keiko whirls around in her seat and says, "Sake?!" And I'm nodding obliviously until Kiara corrects things by saying "Seto... we went to Seto." Which is when I remember that sake is Japanese wine and I realize that I've basically said that we went to get drunk the previous day. Not the best first impression ever, but I think we've recovered from it as the day has gone on.

That should bring you up to date on team news to this point, so I will wish all of you lovely followers good night from all of us here in the Land of the Rising Sun. Good night and may the love of God be stitched into everything you do.

Allison, avec Luisa & Kiara

Turning Japanese?!?

Hey Followers... o gee,

Okay, so since our last post we have partaken in a few Japanese activities. Sunday we went to church and met a bunch of members at the luncheon afterwords. Thankfully a good amount of them could speak English... well not a good amount but enough... anyways so because of that we got to know them better. They have been really kind and found ways to fill up our time during orientation. After church we went shopping and talked with Nozomi, who we will be working with at her English school in a weekish. A major purchase me and Luisa bought while shopping were Yukatas,, which are summer kimonos.

Monday, we had a long meeting (3 hours) that was a little boring (well Allison doesn't think so, but I do). The meeting was just about what we will be doing at the different churches we will be visiting. One thing that was pretty hilarious that happened at the meeting was Luisa fell off her chair while a serious conversation was going on. Everyone ignored it, but me and Allison laughed and laughed, it was ridiculously awkard... which made it even more AMAZING. Okay, so moving on after the meeting we went to Asuke the "nature". It was really cool, it was like this old fashioned japenese village, it was surrounded by trees and little mountains. It was legit GORGEOUS. oh and there was a little fast moving river there that we almost fell in because of slippery rocks. Then we went out to dinner and ate 2 desserts, because we could and one soy ice cream so thats healthy so it doesn't count. Then something horrific happened while were sleeping that night. THERE WAS AN EARTH QUAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We barely made it out alive. Just kidding we found out about it the next morning and apparently it only lasted 2 secounds and apparently that happens alot in Toyota so whatever, we were still in an earth quake.

TODAY, was a pretty decent day... I wouldn't lie to you. In the morning we prepared for our ministry; planning games, songs, practicing drimes... it was a good time. Then, a couple ladies from church took us to the art museum in Toyota. It was pretty cool and deep... so I didn't get it... but Allison did. Then we went tea ceremony there. There was pretty little sweet shaped like a flower. It looked gorgeous but it was filled with red bean paste and tasted DISGUSTING.. I seriously almost puked because we had to finish all of it.. like really i could barely hold it back. But then things got better.... we went shopping!!!!!! The clothes in Japan were amazing and we had a great time shopping .. oh and the clothes are pretty affordable here so that made it even better. Then the two ladies who took us out got us these cute little gifts.. they were little japanese bags and cute barrettes... it was very much so enjoyed. THEN we went out to eat and it was CRAZYNESS. We went to a little restaurant that only seated us and we had our own cheff who cooked infornt of us its was sweet. So first he fried up some vegetables for us and it was good. But then he moved to crustations.... i have to say i dont enjoy eating shrimp legs.. but the meat was good. Then we had squid and scallaps which were both good. However, things went south when he whipped out the full fish eyes scales... everything!!!!!!!!! It was so nastyi could taste eyes and brains.. not fun, but we ate it... ik wasnt happy about it though. Then he killed eel infront of us... i have a video. He gauged out the eyes and cut him up and decapeted it... traumatizing much? yes. Then he fried up the spine and we ate it.. it tasted like bacon and then he fried up the meat and it was good. but the skin was on it so that freaked me out a little.. but thats okay. So yeah moving on then we had a calligraphy class and it was fun. We all suck but thats okay, no one who wasn't Japanese could tell. We learnt how to write our names in Japanese calligraphy which was great. So yeah thats all i need to say for now.

BYE Y'ALL

xoxoKiara (with help from Luisa and Allison)

Konichiwa Japan!!

We are here in Japan! Our flights went well and never got lost in the airports... We went from Winnipeg to Chicago, then to Tokyo. That flight was 12 hours it was okay because we mainly slept! We had two meals with chopsticks so that made us feel like we were almost there. It was super exciting when we were coming in to Japan but our landing was shaky. We got on our next plane fine and the flight over Mount Fuji was beautiful. Mr. and Mrs. Abe picked us up from the airport and took us out for our first meal.. SUSHI. Which was surprisingly good, there was cool conveyor belt and a hot water tap for our macha tea. The chef there told us we were beautiful and wanted us to come back everyday! We are slowly getting use to the chopsticks we're getting there. We are staying in a amazing home beside the Toyota Church. We were greeted by sweet Japanese ladies who gave us a tour of the church. Then we went to bed eight pm never felt so late. This morning we started orientation with Doris. We had breakfst together, a devotional and shared our faith stories. After, we walked up the street to the 100yen store WHICH IS AMAZING. Then we bought groceries for lunch and the next day. Beside all the Japanese characters it wasn't that different just a few more fish. We walked back, cooked and mixed some noodles, vegetables, egg, crab, and ham for lunch. This evening, Doris's friend is coming to go out to dinner with us, so we'll see what kind of restaurant experience we'll get this time!

Sayonara for now!

Luisa with Kiara & Allison