February 12, 2014 Blizzard, Building and Stuff!

Hello Everyone!  My following has doubled!!! I am proud to announce that this blog officially has two followers now!  Lol!

Since I last blogged things have been happening! The biggest and most important being that we have been approved to rent the third floor of this building for our church!  Praise God!!!
                                                                         

If you recall, we first went to look at this particular building in Mitaka on Christmas Eve and since then we have been in negotiations to rent it. It has been a LONG and arduous process! Gary has exchanged SO many phone calls and emails! When it comes to business, nothing here is done quickly!

 When we first arrived in Tokyo, last Oct. to Jan., to scout out the land, we hadn't gotten any clear direction from the Lord until our last day before returning State-side. While we were waiting for our bus to the airport,  God stirred us both about this area of the city. When we returned, we looked at many apartments to live in, and without even realizing it at the time, we ended up in this very area! When we started our search for a church building, we saw buildings all over the city but nothing became available to us. Then came Christmas Eve when our Realtor called us about this building, in the very area of the city we wanted! We hardly dared hope, especially after it appeared negotiations had once again stalled, but after some fasting and prayer God moved on the owner and we were approved to rent!!!!  Gary still has all the massive paperwork to sign and meetings with the owner and Realtors, but if things go smoothly, we should be in our building by March 1st! 

PRAISE GOD!!!!!

So much for Spring, Tokyo had it's largest snowstorm in decades last week! It was crazy snowing out! While the accumulation didn't seem like much for this Wisconsin-ite, in this city that hardly ever gets snow, it was enough to paralyze most of the trains and air flights.  Here's a view from our apartment.

This was just near the beginning of the storm, it snowed all that day and into the night!

Poor Cup a Noodle mascot in Yokohama had to work!

And it was cold! Brrrr!

On to Food!

A couple of brothers from our Norfolk, Virginia church are in the area for a few months for work. They kindly brought me some Chile Guajillo! I was tickled to finally be able to cook us some Mexican food!

It's just some simple Chile Colorado with rice and beans but it was delicious! The other nice thing is they have an APO address so Gary was able to order me some Minsa for making corn tortillas, quesadillas  etc. I'm SO excited for that to arrive!!!

Gary bought me some cute little candies the other day.

Inside the candies all have a different cute animal on the packet.

Turns out the candies are candy/cough drops, but very mild ones, so I think maybe these are for children but I like them anyway! 

One day we were surprised to receive a package in the mail from our friend Atsuko. She sent us a food gift to celebrate Springs' arrival! Food gifts are very popular in Japan with the basement of many department stores dedicated to different types of food gifts.

Our gift consisted of goma-dofu varieties, and ochazuke . The goma-dofu is a sesame based "tofu", served chilled with the sauce packet. In this case it was a citrus blend flavor. The ochazuke is served over rice and hot water added, creating a flavored rice-soup.

I made some simmered chicken and daikon to eat with the meal, nothing fancy but it is warm and tasty.

So that's it for today, didn't get up to too many shenanigans this week since we were trapped indoors for a couple of days with the snow, but things are going to be getting real busy in the days to come as we will have a church building to get ready for services!

Woo Hoo!!!!!