Let me give you a hand...and a foot.

Ellie saw grandpa mulching the flower beds and wanted to help out.

Anna has this certain way of showing her joy at feeding time.

Comfort is...Mommy's string!

Japan Friends

During our stay in Japan, we were hosted by the Bengtson family in their home located on the seminary campus. They were very gracious hosts, and it was enjoyable to get reacquainted after all these years away.While I was delivering a series of lectures to pastors, Joy was able to cross the island to visit with Kazuko Sasaki, who worked with us in our years of church-planting in Sendai. Kazuko planned for them to spend a couple of days near a mountain that Joy remembers from her childhood.When Joy returned, and my first series of lectures ended, we drove to the north side of Sendai to visit our former neighbors. They seemed not to have aged at all. We stopped at our next door neighbor's home and visited with Mrs. Okada, her son Yuya, and her son Katsuhiro's two children. Here are Mr. & Mrs. Kaneyama from across the street, along with the two Okada tykes.
Mr. and Mrs. Ohnuma treated us to a home-cooked meal of tempura, and while there we were able to see their son Seiki, who was a close friend of Tim's back in the day. We were beginning to feel like we'd never left Japan.
On another afternoon we visited Miki Hayashi and her two children. Her mother, Hideko Satoh also dropped in to see us. Hideko was our neighborhood Japanese "mom" in many ways.
It was a real treat to worship on a Sunday morning at New Life, the church we planted on the north side of Sendai. A number of people stayed to have lunch with us and visit, and to pose for a group photo.
Though now living hours away from Sendai, Mie Satoh came with her two children to be at New Life that morning and visit with us.

Hisashi and Junko Sasaki work with the seminary in Sendai where Gaylan delivered his second set of lectures. They took us out to the mountains to see some beautiful sights. We stopped in for a snack at this tofu restaurant, where the tofu is prepared fresh in small bamboo cups. Refreshing on a hot day!

A Day in Sendai

Because I was invited to do a couple of lectures series in Japan this summer, Joy and I were able to celebrate our 35th wedding anniversary in Sendai, where we lived with our family for 9 years. We decided to spend a day sight-seeing around the city, taking in places we'd always wanted to visit together but missed while we lived there. The Christian Martyrs Monument was our first destination. We had lunch at a traditional restaurant, and took in a couple of gardens at a historic Shinto shrine and a Buddhist temple.

An old building in the downtown area.

Kids returning to class from a dip in the pool.

The Christian Martyrs Monument near the Hirose River.

Hydrangeas at the Shinto shrine.

Bamboo groves like this one are not only beautiful to look at, but are believed to be safer places to go in an earthquake. You see them often in older neighborhoods.

We had lunch in this traditional Japanese restaurant. I was impressed by this design on one of the walls (below).

You see these little "jizo" (neighborhood protectors) all over Japan. People like to show their affection by dressing them in caps and bibs. Temple gardens.

Joy is standing next to a tea house in the gardens.

Pagodas, like the one above, typically enshrine Buddhist relics.

Temple bells are longer than western ones, and emit a lower-pitched, more somber tone.

Can you imagine the complaints from neighbors if tourists were always ringing this bell? Shop sign in the shopping arcade in Sendai. Didn't know freedom of the soul was so easy now did you?!

Summer's Gymnastics

Michelle and Pete's daughter Summer had a gymnastics event this past week, so Joy and I, along with Tim and Jenny's daughter Ellie went down to see it. Ellie wasn't quite sure why she was the only kid who couldn't play on all the stuff, but she did pretty well, and toward the end she got to try out a few things with Summer. As you can imagine, with the event being for pre-schoolers, it wasn't very formal.
First there was some time for the cousins to play together, and Summer shared one of her favorite books.
Then Joy and Michelle prepared a "roll it yourself sushi" dinner for us. Then we were off to the gymn. Michelle and Pete helped Summer along on her routines.

Ellie got to try out the summersault mat with Summer, with Grandma Mathiesen coaching.The awards ceremony--Ta Daa!

Joy & Summer make Japanese food

Joy and I were in the Twin Cities this past weekend, and we swung by Michelle's place on the way back to Fergus Falls. We had arranged for Joy to pick up some ingredients in St. Paul and make a Japanese meal at their house, and Summer got to help make Inari Sushi. She had a great time doing that. Then there was big excitement later that afternoon when Summer and I found a "lost" Christmas present under her bed! It was a toy for learning the alphabet, which she had carefully stored in a box and apparently tucked it under her bed and forgot all about it. Michelle said that they had been hunting for it for months.