"the water is cold, but my heart is warm"

We haven't even been in Tokyo 2 weeks, but already we've seen God doing wonderful things! On Sunday after church we took the train to a river, where our new friend Yo was baptized! The river was dirty and very cold (there was a typhoon here the night before), but he was so excited! Afterwards as he was drying off he told us, "The water is cold, but my heart is warm." We took a video so we could share the moment with you...

[Starting out- one of the J-men, Daniel, is on the left; Yo is in the middle; and Yo's friend Leon (who led him to the Lord) is on the right.]

You can pray for Yo as he begins his new life in Christ!

Also we did manage to introduce ourselves properly to our neighbors last week, and our prayers were answered - one woman speaks English! She and her husband and their 18 year-old son live across from us on our floor; they are the O family. She has been exceptionally outgoing and friendly toward us (especially for a Japanese person) and has already offered to have us over for dinner soon. She said that her son loves sports, so we're hoping that he will be able to connect Trent with some guys from our area through that common interest. Please be praying for the O family and our relationship with them. We want to represent Jesus Christ well to them! As we have more specific prayer requests about this new relationship, we will let you know.

Finally, this weekend we're planning to go to a nearby university's fall festival to meet 2 girls we met there last week. You can be praying that we will have a chance to share with them the reason we are here in Japan: because Jesus loves them so much and wants a relationship with them!

That's all for now. Thank you so much for your prayers both for us and for Japan! We love you!

new experiences

Wow, we have been so busy since we got here! Here are some new experiences we have had so far:

1. Grocery shopping: it's a much different experience when you have to identify everything by how it looks! I can't read any of the labels/packages so sometimes I just guess!

2. What do we eat?? We have no choice but to try new things everywhere we go! (Trent is eating a strawberry crepe.. it was a good choice.)

3. Getting around without a car! We walk or ride our new bikes to anywhere that is "close" (which has become a relative term), or...

4. We try the train! This is the train station closest to our apartment; it's called Musashi-Koganei. The system is very complicated and of course mostly in Japanese, so it's still a little over my head. Trent has it figured out a little better.

5. Making new friends! These are some girls we met at a University this week at an English meeting (and 2 other team members)!

The past week and a half has had its highs and lows.. it can be very frustrating and overwhelming not to be able to communicate or figure out how things work. But when we get to talk with students about the emptiness of wealth and success and the joy that we have in Jesus.. those are great moments. Yesterday when Audrey and I read Matthew 11:28-30 ("Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest..") with a university student T, he said his heart was suddenly full of peace. Please pray for T and other Japanese students whose hearts are desperate to be filled by God. Please pray for us, that we will be bold and share with many! And pray that they will have the courage to follow Jesus.

Please read the right margin of the page for specific prayer requests and praises. AND go to the following website to see pictures of our apartment and our various experiences in our new home!

http://picasaweb.google.com/trentandlindsey

Thanks so much for all of the emails and comments! We love to hear back from you! And thank you so much for praying! We can't thank you enough!

We're here!

Yay, we are finally here! I wish we could have updated sooner and said this, but thank you so much for all of your prayers during our trip! It was completely smooth - all flights were on time, all of our luggage made it unharmed - a huge answer to prayer! We did not get to sit together on our 13 hour flight from Detroit to Tokyo (Trent sat right behind me), which seemed like it was going to be terrible, but I ended up sitting between two American ladies who chatted with me through many long hours and Trent sat between two Japanese men who stayed completely silent the whole flight and let him sleep. I guess it was a blessing in disguise :)

Our flight arrived around 3:30pm here in Tokyo, but to our bodies it was 1:30 in the morning (the time difference is 14 hours)! Our supervisor met us to take us to our new apartment. When we finally got here, it was such a relief! It is so cute! We live in a more traditional area in West Tokyo called Koganei, and so our apartment is Japanese in style, not Western. In some ways that is strange, but it is also really cool, and we love it! (Pictures to come, promise!) After the drive, unloading our luggage, and a quick meal at a little restaurant around the corner.. we pretty much collapsed into bed. And somehow we managed to sleep over 8 hours, we only woke up once! That was another huge blessing!

The next day (Thursday) we woke up really early to a very bright sun shining into our apartment. We remembered that we now live in the Land of the Rising Sun :) I worked really hard to unpack everything in the morning so that we would start to feel at home quickly. Then we decided to be brave and explore our neighborhood a little. We found a McDonalds, KFC, and 7-11 all within a half-mile! After wandering around for awhile we somehow managed to get some lunch for ourselves from a couple of little shops on our street. Trent got the chance to use one of the few things we can already say in Japanese: numbers! Then that afternoon our supervisor came to explain to us all of the many confusing gadgets in our apartment. First of all check out the way we change the temperature of our water in the shower:

Yes that’s right – we have an electric shower. It talks to us. We have no idea what the lady is saying or what half of the buttons do, but it’s awesome. Another amazing thing is that our toilet has a cord! It plugs in to warm the seat. Crazy! And speaking of crazy.. I have never heard of anything crazier than the way these people deal with their garbage! Here are our trashcans:

Yes, trash canS, we have 4! We have to buy different kinds of fancy trash bags to go in fancy trash cans which each hold different things. It is recycling to the extreme. We have to figure out what trash is burnable, not burnable, certain types of bottles go in one place, cans and other bottles in other places. And here’s the real kicker.. we have to CLEAN our trash before we throw it away! Cans, bottles, milk cartons, meat packaging – it all has to be washed before it can be put out. AND we have an elaborate trash schedule to tell us what is picked up when and where! See:

We have been told to take this very seriously because they will actually check our trash before they take it, and if it is wrong they will bring it back to us! So needless to say we have a lot to learn about living in Tokyo!

That night we went to our first team meeting and met everyone. They were all great and we’re looking forward to getting to know them more in the next few weeks!

So far we’ve been doing really well despite jet lag and initial culture shock. Please continue to pray for us as we adjust. Also we will be going to formally introduce ourselves to our 3 neighbors this weekend (which is kind of a big deal here). We don’t know if they speak English at all, so it has the potential to be a little awkward. Please pray for us as we make our first impressions on these people! We could be the only Christians they ever know.

Thank you so much for praying for us! We love you and are so thankful for you! Many more stories and pictures to come…

goodbye, part 2

Wow, we are leaving for the airport in like 10 minutes! Please pray for us today while we travel to our new home in Tokyo!

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We love y'all!!!!

saying goodbye, part 1

This morning Trent and I received our one-way plane tickets to Tokyo for October 16th, two weeks from today. It is surreal but awesome to finally have them in hand!


Today is our Commissioning Service and our last day at Orientation. I know it will be full of a mixture of many feelings as we say goodbye to precious friends and celebrate the journey we have finished here together and the future journey that lies ahead of us. Thank you for praying for for us while we have been here - this time has been invaluable. We have learned and grown so much; God has been so good!

We will write more from home in the next two weeks, but for now please thank God with us for His faithfulness and many blessings.