Goodbye 2012!!!
In reviewing 2012, I'm really amazed how different my life is from last year at this time. One year ago, I was working as a manager in an America's Best Eyeglass store and living in Denver, Colorado. We were happily pastoring a church with wonderful people and enjoying Colorado, one of our all time favorite places to live! Then we got the news, we would be moving to Las Vegas, New Mexico, Gary was going to be working as an Evangelist out of our home church. We left Denver with mixed feelings, not happy to be leaving our two grown children in Denver and taking with us our youngest 17 yr. old who was less than thrilled to be moving to a small town. God is good though, and we settled into life in our church hometown and renewed old friendships. It was nice to be able to concentrate on getting son graduated from highschool, and just work at church with the other ladies. Our son became a leader of his own little "gang" of friends and was having a good time running around the town and playing in a band.
God had other plans for us though and in July we were announced to pioneer our Fellowships first church in Japan! So Jr., who had turned 18, moved back to Denver with his siblings. A couple of weeks later, Gary and I took off for Japan and here we are! We've spent the last 2 months here exploring the Tokyo area and working on immigration paperwork. Lord willing, we'll have that all sorted out in the next couple of months and will finally be able to rent a home and church building and get to work!
Hello 2013!!!
Some of you may be wondering what New Years Day is like in Japan. Apparently, you watch a long variety show with famous Japanese performers singing etc. and it's a competition between the men and women and at the end of the night, right before midnight they vote and see who won. This year the men won the competition. Then, you eat Soba noodles! Well, that's what we did anyway, except that I had Japanese curry instead as I didn't know I was supposed to get Soba noodles when we were at the 7-11 picking out Bento! (I really like curry though so that's okay)
Apparently a lot of Japanese head to the Shrines on New Years Eve, as New Years has religious significance here.
That reliable source... Wikipedia says,
"At midnight on December 31, Buddhist temples all over Japan ring their bells a total of 108 times (除夜の鐘 joyanokane) to symbolize the 108 human sins in Buddhist belief, and to get rid of the 108 worldly desires regarding sense and feeling in every Japanese citizen. A major attraction is The Watched Night bell, in Tokyo. Japanese believe that the ringing of bells can rid off their sins during the previous year. After they are done ringing the bells, they celebrate and feast on soba noodles.
We live a ways from any shrine though so I didn't here any bell ringing. Today I went out and all the stores are closed and there are families riding bikes together as many people have the day off.
Apparently garbage collectors really make out during this time as there is no trash pick up all week!!!
Happy New Year!!!! 2013!!!!
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