Greetings! We pray you all are having a wonderful season!
We thank you for all your prayers and support throughout the year. We feel your prayers every single day. We are thankful for God’s grace and provision. God has given us many opportunities to share His love with Japanese people this year, and we are excited to see our ministry and friendships grow.
Thank you for your continued prayers as we share God’s hope and love with those around us.
We’ve met many people at Hope House!
Love these families.
Vacation Bible School at our church.
We served with a mission team from Waialae Baptist Church in Hawaii.
They ministered to so many people!
Children loved to hear the Bible stories.
Aloha!
Beautiful garden in northern Miyagi.
Children at our church made rice balls for lunch.
Children’s Fellowship.
Logan was asked to be our friend’s ring bearer.
We are blessed by our friends.
English Ministry at church.
Children singing songs this past Sunday.
Families from our English classes came to our morning worship.
June and July were busy but wonderful months for us! We went to Hawaii to visit our dear friends and ministry partners. We spent a lot of time in prayer before leaving Japan and we prayed God would guide us and make His plans clear. He did more than we could have ever imagined while we were in Hawaii.
What made our trip so special were the people. They welcomed us, made us feel loved, encouraged us, prayed for us, and blessed us. From the mission house to stay to the car to drive, God provided everything we needed through our generous friends.
We enjoyed our family time, but more than anything, we loved spending time with old and new friends who are more like our family. Words cannot express how thankful we are. We used this opportunity to share what He is doing in Japan and it is so encouraging to know many people have a huge heart for Japan and Japanese people.
To our friends in Hawaii, thank you SO much for loving us and encouraging us. To our friends who were praying for us while we were in Hawaii, thank you for lifting us up.
We are thrilled to announce we are partnered with FBC Pearl City to share the Good News with Japanese people. We have worked with the mission teams sent by their church. They have also sent a great missionary couple to a city that is 4 hours away from our city. We can’t wait to see all the wonderful things He is going to do in Northern Japan where there are not many churches or believers.
Thank you for your continued prayers as we answer His calling to make Him known among Japanese people.
We are excited to share about our children’s ministry. God has blessed us through these children and their families. We love spending time and sharing God’s love with them. Thank you for praying for these families.
We teach and serve them every week.
They are children in our English classes.
We eat lunch together every Sunday.
We have a monthly children’s fellowship and we lead worship and the mission project.
Children and Mother’s dinner is one of our favorite events.
I shared about Thanksgiving in our children’s classes and moms’ groups this week, and I asked them what they are thankful for in their lives. Many of them talked about family, friends, food, house, jobs, toys, and different things. But one boy said he is thankful for Jesus, and several moms said they are thankful to God for an opportunity to know more about Him. One mom shared her life has changed so much since she started learning about God. It’s so exciting to see God working in their lives.
We are thankful God has sent us to Japan to make Him known. We also thank God for all our prayer and financial supporters who make it possible for us to share His love with Japanese people. Please know God is working in many ways here in Japan!
Greetings from Japan! It finally started getting warmer here and we are enjoying this beautiful spring season. We pray you are all well.
We would like to share some of our memories from this spring. It has been a busy season with many exciting news! It’s hard to list all, but hope these photos will help you get to know more about us and our friends here!
We helped lead the Youth and Young Adult Retreat at our sister church. There were many students who attended for the first time.
Yu leads the Children’s Fellowship at our church every month. We are thankful these children are learning more about Christ.
Two children were baptized on Easter. What a blessing it was to see their joy when they shared their testimonies with the church family.
Michael leads the Bible Study and Worship on Sunday evening at our sister church. It’s a great group of both believers and non-believers from different countries.
We had a BBQ fellowship one Sunday evening after the worship service. We enjoy partnering with our missionary friends.
Yu went to South Korea to share about our ministries in Japan. She had a great time visiting several churches and meeting with friends.
Yu enjoys leading a moms group every week.
We had a farewell party for a family who moved to another part of Japan. We learned so much from this family.
We welcomed two friends from our sending church. We are thankful for their encouragement. They helped with our English ministry.
Logan turned 5! We celebrated his birthday with our friends!
Thank you so much for your continued prayers and support! As you may already know, we have been praying and preparing to start a new ministry for families, single moms, and senior citizens. We have some exciting updates to share soon. Please pray for God’s guidance as we seek His will! Thank you for partnering with us to share His love with Japanese people.
Hello. Some of you may remember for Christmas 2016 we gave bilingual children’s Bibles to the families that came to our weekly ministries. For 2017, we decided to give Max Lucado’s “You are Special”. Thanks to those who donated, we served 21 families with a book! We thank those who gave and prayed for these families!
The beautiful smiles we saw as we gave them their gift was priceless! The majority of the families who received a book are non-believers. We pray they will understand the meaning of this book. Some of the children and their parents did tell us how much the book meant to them. One of them struggles with bullies at school. We pray for her and encourage her. She attended the Christmas worship service with her family. She wrote us a letter saying, “Being at church is the only time I feel at peace.”
Please join us in prayer that these families will always remember how special they are and how much they are loved by God.
We are so sorry our website was down for a while. We are finally able to post new posts. We will catch up in the next few weeks! We hope you had a wonderful Christmas. Our Christmas was extra special this year because Luke was baptized. Many of you prayed for him and encouraged him over the years. Thank you so much for praying for him!
There were several families that came to church for the very first time this Christmas. It was their first time to hear the real Christmas story. One mom said it was the most wonderful Christmas ever. Please pray for these families.
We pray you all have a blessed new year. Thank you so much for praying for us and supporting us. We are honored to partner with you to share the gospel with Japanese people.
We are excited to share with you that our son, Luke, has made a decision to follow Christ. As his parents, we are so proud of him, and we are thankful for the ways God has blessed and impacted his life. He will spend the next few months learning about what it means to be a Christian. Would you please rejoice with us and pray for him as he continue to learn more about God? We know God has a wonderful plan for his life and we can’t wait to see where He leads him!
This past weekend, we were invited to be a part of the Family Camp hosted by the local Japanese church where we lead the Bible Study and Worship on Sunday evenings. It was an outreach program for non-Christian families. It was great to make new friends! While the children had their own program, we talked with other parents and we were able to share about why we came to Japan and how much we care about their family relationships. We talked a lot about the importance of having a quality time as a family. We were able to get many ideas as we prepare to start a new family focused ministry. Michael made friends with other dads and some of them asked if we could go have dinner together sometime. We look forward to getting to know them better. Thank you for praying for these families!
Hello! We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!
It is getting colder here in Sendai and we had our first snow of the season today. We have many exciting events coming up, but we wanted to share about some of our memories from this fall. God continues to bless the ministries here and it is such an honor to see the ways He changes people’s hearts. Thank you for your continued and support. Please write us anytime to let us know how we can pray for you!
We continued to visit several temporary housings once a month. Many residents have moved to their new home or a new government housing, but there are some that are left in the temporary housing.
Luke and Logan love delivering vegetables and small gifts to the residents.
Luke baked cookies and sold them to raise money for the missionaries in Asia and Africa.
Our English classes and worship for children are growing!
Michael continues to lead the Bible study and worship on Sunday night.
We hosted the “Chili Party” and it was so much fun!
Children who come to our English class sang “Jesus Loves Me” at the church bazaar!
We were so happy to meet some of their dad and grandparents!
Luke and his friend dressed up for the “Bless the children” service. Our pastor led the prayer of blessing over all the children.
We started having a monthly fellowship for children at our church to teach them about missions.
We are SO thankful for all of your prayers and support. We wouldn’t be here without your support! Please know how much we appreciate you!
There was a pretty big earthquake this week (we are okay!) and so many people called us and wrote us to check on us. We felt loved! We are thankful God has sent us here to share His love. He is doing amazing things and we are honored to be a part of His wonderful plan. Please continue to pray for Japanese people!
“Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.” 1 Chronicles 16:34
We hope you had a wonderful Christmas! Our Christmas was filled with joy and we had a wonderful time with family and friends!
As we start our new year, we wanted to reflect on this past year and count all the blessings from God!
Year in Review
January:
We left for America on January 1st. It was not easy to leave our friends in Japan and ask others to be in charge of ministries here. However, God used this opportunity in many ways and our Christian friends have stepped up to help and serve! Being in Texas was wonderful! We were reunited with family and friends once again! It was Logan’s first time to be in America so it was fun to introduce him to everyone. Luke turned three on January 6th and lots of friends came to celebrate with us! We went to Georgia to attend a conference that taught us how to raise support. It was such an encouraging conference and we learned a lot! We had a chance to see many friends which was a huge blessing!
With friends who used to live in Japan.
February:
We were so happy to be a part of our church’s Child Dedication Service. It was an honoring and humbling experience to dedicate both of our boys to the Lord in front of our church family. We are so thankful for our family and friends who help us raise our children. We also went on a camping trip with our close friends. We met these friends in Panorama which taught us and prepared us for future mission work. Most of us were singles or young married couples but the group has grown so much since then! We love these lifelong friends!
Such a fun group!
March:
Main reason we stayed in America for three months was to raise support. We traveled to many places to meet people and talk at churches. Support raising was not an easy task but we learned so much through this process. God taught us over and over that He is faithful. We loved meeting with new and old friends and sharing what God is doing in Japan. Thanks to generous and faithful supporters, we are able to live in Japan to share His love with those who do not know Him. If you are already our supporter, THANK YOU from bottom of our heart. If you are interested in supporting, please contact us or go to the “Partner with us” page on this website. We are so thankful for God’s provision and the ways He has blessed us! It was hard to leave Texas but we were ready to come home!
Sharing about Japan with children at our home church.
April:
We were able to come back to Japan just in time for Luke to start kindergarten. It was another answered prayer. It took Luke a while to get used to the new schedule but he made friends and loved his school. Mommy and Daddy got busy as soon as we got back to prepare for the weekly ministries. It was so good to see our friends and students again! We celebrated Easter at church and some of our friends came to church for the first time!
Sharing the resurrection story with children at church.
May:
Logan turned ONE! He brings so much joy to our lives every day! We celebrated his special day with our friends. We also hosted a mission team from Hawaii. We loved serving with them. These Hawaiians are so good at loving on people and making everyone feel loved! They helped us with the Hawaiian Festival which was an outreach to the community around our church. We also went to the disaster area with them. Since most of the team members had been there before, it was such a great time of reunion! It was good to see everyone’s smile!
Fellowship at the temporary housing.
June:
In June, we said “see you again” to the Qualls family who went back to America for a year. They helped with our weekly English Bible study and worship service. Most people who come to this ministry are non-believers so it provides many opportunities to share our faith with them. Micheal teaches the Bible study every week and preaches once a month. There are several men who are non-believers and Michael has spent one-on-one time with them throughout the year. We are thankful for those who come and look forward to meeting more new people this coming year. At the end of June, we hosted a young lady and her mom from Texas. This young lady stayed for a little over two months to help with the ministries in Sendai and Sakata. We are grateful for the ways she served and helped!
Group that meets every Sunday night.
July:
July was such a busy month filled with lots of fun! Our friend from Canada stayed with us for about two weeks and we loved spending time with her! After she left, we hosted a mission team from our home church in Arlington, Texas. Three ladies that came had been to Japan before and we were so thrilled that they came back! Their heart for Japanese people really encouraged us. We hosted a VBS at our church and also at our mission church in Sakata. So many kids and their moms came every day and they loved it! At the end of July, we hosted another team from Hawaii and served together in the disaster area.
FBCA team with children in Sakata.
August:
We helped with two children’s camps in August. One in Sakata and another one was in Sendai. We love meeting children and loving on them. As you can imagine, they all come from different backgrounds. Most of the kids that came to these camps came from non-Christian homes. It was such a blessing to have an opportunity to tell them how much God loves them and cares for them. We hosted two more teams from Texas and Hawaii (can you tell we love Hawaiians and Texans?) and had special time serving with them. We were sad that Luke’s summer break ended but he was ready to have fun at school!
Summer camp in Sakata.
September:
Our church welcomed a new pastor. We prayed for a new pastor for a while and God blessed us with a wonderful pastor. His wife is pretty special too. We have been learning so much from him and it is great to have a pastor who is mission minded! Many of you already know that one of the ministries we have at our church is a playgroup for moms and kids under three. It’s one of Yu’s favorite times of the week. Yu has become good friends of other moms and spent lots of time with them. She found out many moms are struggling with marriage and parenting. We asked the pastor to share a Bible scripture and talk about it during our snack time. We have heard so many positive comments from moms about how much they needed to hear it!
Our playgroup (the man holding Logan is our new pastor).
October:
There were lots of events at Luke’s school in October. Luke had so much fun at his field day and field trip. At the end of October, we hosted the annual Fall Festival. We had help from mission teams in the past but we had to do it on our own this year. Thanks to lots of chocolates from Hawaii and help from our church members, we were able to host a fun festival for kids in our community. We shared the gospel with everyone who came. One boy told us he wants to have the Light of life (John 8:12). We pray they will always remember Jesus is the light of the world.
Aren’t they cute?
November:
It was a wonderful Thanksgiving month! We spent one week in Tokyo visiting friends from Yu’s high school and college and vacationing with dear friends from Australia. We loved every single minute of our family time! Our church hosted several special events and invited people from the community. We were encouraged to see so many new people coming to church! Our sending church in Texas had missions month and we had a Skype meeting with friends in our Sunday School class. Their love and prayers meant so much to us. We ended this wonderful month by having a Thanksgiving dinner with friends here in Sendai. It was nice to have all the traditional food but more than anything, we thanked God for all the blessings He has given us throughout the year.
Love these friends.
December:
December came and went! Where did the time go? Although it was a busy month, we enjoyed all the festivities! In Japan, people celebrate Christmas but many people do not know (or care about) the meaning of Christmas. So we spent lots of our time sharing why we celebrate Christmas. The kids that come to our weekly English class/worship told us that they would be sharing the true meaning of Christmas with their friends at school! We also went to the temporary housing to deliver flowers and hand made Christmas cards. This Christmas was also meaningful as Luke was really interested in Christmas and Santa and we were able to spend every night talking about Baby Jesus (and Santa, too!) and how He came to the world. One of the greatest gift was one girl in our English class making a decision to be baptized. She was praying about it for a while and told us after the Christmas worship service that she wants to be baptized! What an answer to our prayers! Thank you so much for praying with us for more Japanese people to be saved!
Merry Christmas from children in our English class!
The girl on the right is the one who will be baptized.
We wanted to tell you how thankful we are for you! Thank you so much for your love, prayers, support, and encouragement! We give thanks to God for all His blessings.
We hosted a very special friend in July. We have known Carolyn for many years. She came all the way from Canada to attend our wedding in Texas. Yu first met her at church in 1997 and Carolyn was also a school teacher at Yu’s high school. Yu’s family really enjoyed spending time with Carolyn while she was in Sendai for three years. For two weeks we got to celebrate many old friendships as people came to see Carolyn. We were blessed as a family because the boys had someone that never stopped loving on them. Carolyn also helped with our Kids English Class and Adult English Bible Study. She shared her testimony which encouraged us so much. I must say there wasn’t a single time that Carolyn was not smiling or thanking God for the chance to rekindle old friendships. She now lives in Canada but her time here proved one thing if only one thing and that is that the fellowship one has with fellow believers is tremendously important. And to see how much a life has changed because of the friendship you started many years prior is priceless. Thank you, Carolyn, for coming back to Japan and spending time with us. And especially thank you for allowing us to the opportunity to witness just how much you cared for the people here and allowed the light of Christ to shine wherever you go.
We got to go on a vacation with her!
It was great to see our friends from English worship service.
We hope you had a wonderful Christmas and a blessed new year! Our Christmas in Japan was filled with joy as we shared the meaning of Christmas with many Japanese people!
We came back to Texas last week and have been adjusting to our new life here. It took us a while to get over jet lag and cold weather but we are finally feeling better. It has been fun to see our family and friends. We know many of you have been praying for us and supporting our ministry in Japan, and we want to thank you.
One of our main goals for this trip is to share what God is doing in Japan and to recruit prayer partners and financial supporters. We would love to meet with you in person or visit your Sunday School class/church to tell you more about Japan, Japanese people, and our ministries. Please send us an email at michaelandyu@gmail.com to let us know if you would like to have us. Also, we want to get to know you better and to know how we can pray for you and your family. We look forward to seeing you and spending time with you!
We are planning to attend a support raising conference in GA at the end of this month. We appreciate your prayers as we prepare for this important trip. We look forward to seeing our friends in that area as well!
Thank you for your prayers and support! We pray this year brings many blessings to all of you!
Even though people do not celebrate Thanksgiving in Japan, we had a great Thanksgiving dinner/celebration with our dear friends from America! We also invited our Japanese friend and her daughter to join us and we all enjoyed our time together.
In our English class this week, we told our students about the history of Thanksgiving. Then we all made a turkey hand and wrote what we are thankful for this year. As all the kids shared what they wrote, this girl who comes from a non-Christian home said “God” with the sweetest voice. Then another girl said “Jesus”. Our hearts were so full!
There are so many things we are thankful for, but we want to thank you for your love, prayers, support, and encouragement! We wouldn’t be here without you! And we are grateful God has sent us here to share His love with the people of Japan!
PS We are still in the process of updating our blog. Thank you for your patience!
“I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him. So now I give him to the LORD. For his whole life he will be given over to the LORD.” 1 Samuel 1:27-28
We are SO happy to announce that our son, Logan Kou (it means “light” in Japanese), is here! He arrived 5 weeks early but God protected both mommy and baby. A big thank you to those who prayed for us! Luke has been such an awesome big brother. He loves to kiss and hold Logan and it melts our hearts to see him love on his little brother.
Logan was in the NICU for a short period of time and we realized life is a true miracle and blessing from God. We saw many babies that were fighting to survive and also the doctors and parents that were doing everything they could to help them. We should never take our lives for granted. As we thanked God for our baby boy, we prayed for those babies and parents who were going through such a difficult time. God taught us so many important lessons through this experience.
Recently, the verses for our Sunday School lesson were from Jeremiah 1. It says:
The word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”“Alas, Sovereign Lord,” I said, “I do not know how to speak; I am too young.”But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am too young.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you.Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the Lord. Jeremiah 1: 4-8
We are so thankful that our almighty God knew Logan before he was formed in the womb and He is with him and will rescue him wherever he goes. We pray Logan will come to know Him and go wherever He commands him. We love you, Logan, and we are so blessed to have you as our son!
Wow, it’s already February! January was such a busy month!
One of the big events was Luke’s 2nd birthday! He brings joy to our lives every day and we are blessed to have him as our son! We are so glad that he is loved by so many people. He brings a smile to people in the temporary housings and they always ask us to bring Luke back! He enjoys playing with other children and he opens so many doors for his mommy and daddy to meet and get to know many parents! He loves trains, cars, and books. We thank God for Luke and pray he will learn to love Him and make Him known!
Here are some photos from January:
Happy Birthday, Luke!!!
He loves playing with the snow!
Such a big helper!
His favorite ride- Shinkansen (Japanese bullet train)
We want to take this time to tell you how grateful we are for each of you. Thank you so much for praying for us, supporting us, and encouraging us. Thanks to God’s provision and support from many of you, we can continue our ministry in Japan.
Please know that we appreciate you so much. May God continue to bless you and your family this Christmas season and always.
Hello from Sakata, Japan! We are visiting our mission church on the west coast. We are with the mission team from our sending church, First Baptist Church of Arlington. All the team members are great and it has been a blessing to serve with them! Please pray for all of us as we share His love with many people this week.
Hello! This is Luke! I hope you are doing well. I know you miss me, so I decided to show you some pictures of me! Enjoy!
I like my daddy’s phone. I wonder why I can’t play with this all the time.
Did you know I love playing with water?
I can sleep on the train! And people keep looking at me while I sleep!
This is my new pose when someone tries to take a picture of me. I can’t make a “peace” sign with my fingers like my Japanese friends.
I am happy most of the time, but I cry sometimes.
I just love chilling at the zoo.
This is my favorite ride, Anpanman.
My new favorite food. Don’t worry, I shared with mommy and daddy.
My grandpa taught me how to play the recorder.
This is me and my friend playing together. I love going to his house and I know mommy loves it, too!
You know, I was just trying to see if these fit me…
I told you I love water!!!
I can spend hours looking at fish.
I love playing the guitar and singing in the car.
This is how I play hockey in the house.
My friends came to my house to swim with me!
Hope you all had a great summer!
We went to the Anpanman Museum.
Grandpa bought me a new ukulele. It’s my favorite toy right now.
As you can see, I am growing up! Thank you for thinking of me and praying for me. Please pray for 5 friends who are coming to Japan from our church in Arlington. They are coming this Saturday and we will be visiting many places. I am excited to introduce them to my Japanese friends! Thank you for your prayers!
Hello! Hope you are all having a wonderful summer. We have been super busy hosting mission teams from America! It has been fun to spend time with them!
While we have a short break, we will try to catch up with our posts! This one is about our time in Hawaii. You may remember that we hosted a wonderful team from Hawaii in April. We really enjoyed getting to know them and kept in touch with them after they went back home. They invited us to visit them but we didn’t think we would be able to go so soon! God provided everything we needed! We were able to stay at the beautiful mission house provided by the Hawaii Pacific Baptist Convention, and our friend who works for Delta let us use the buddy pass which allowed us to fly super cheap! We were there for two weeks and it went by so quickly! We enjoyed EVERY SINGLE DAY! Our friends in Honolulu and Pearl City blessed us so much! They planned a dinner with all the mission team members who had come to Japan and we had so much fun sharing our special memories!
The main purpose to visit Hawaii this time was to speak at several churches about the disaster relief work. Many Hawaiians have already given so much to help the Japanese people in the disaster areas. We wanted to thank them in person and ask for their continued support and prayers. The church members welcomed us warmly and we felt their love!
Here are some photos of our trip:
As soon as we arrived in Hawaii, Yu was asked to be on a radio show to talk about Japan.
Worship service at FBC Pearl City. The lady on the right, Lynne, was one of the mission team members that came to Japan.
Speaking in their Japanese service.
Luke had so much fun at the Children’s Discovery Center.
Of course, he enjoyed playing on the beautiful beach!
Restful time with our little family!
Luke was spoiled the whole time! Mommy and Daddy were happy to have a break from holding our BIG baby!
Grandpa got to come!
We were invited to speak in our friends’ Sunday School class at Waialae Baptist Church.
Speaking at their worship service. It was great to see our friends again! We had a meeting with Pastor Robert and we look forward to partnering with their church!
Reunion with all the mission team members. We had such a special time together.
Michael enjoyed hiking!
We thank God for this wonderful opportunity! A big THANK YOU to all of our Hawaiian friends! Thank you for making our time VERY special. We miss you all!
We want to say thank you to those who prayed for us as we took a trip to Yamagata. We had such a blessed weekend. About 20 children came to the event at the mission church. We taught them English and Michael shared a short story from the Bible. Many of these kids come from broken families. We just wanted them to know that they are LOVED! It was great seeing their sweet smiles and we pray they will remember the story they heard that day.
The kids and moms decorated cupcakes.
They all looked so happy!
Group picture.
On Sunday, we attended the Sunday school and worship service at Sakata Mission Church. Even though this church is small in size, everyone has a big heart for the Lord! We enjoyed our fellowship and learned so much from them.
Children’s Sunday school.
Worship service.
After we left this church, we drove to Zao ski resort. We decided to stay there for one night to have our family time away from home! Even though the weather wasn’t great, we enjoyed staying at the hotel with a hot spring and skiing/sledding on the mountains.
On our way to Zao!
Dinner time at the hotel. Luke loves to eat!
Family photo!!!
View of the mountains and trees. They were so beautiful!
Mommy and Luke!
Daddy and Luke!
This trip made us realize how blessed we are. We have a supportive church family that sent us out, great church family to serve with, and wonderful family that God has given us. Thank you all for thinking of us and praying for us.
Hello from Sendai! It’s snowing outside and we are stuck in the house! It gives me a chance to update our blog!!!
We had an opportunity to go back to America in November. The main reason for our trip home was to take care of my visa, but we were blessed by so many people who took time to see us, to feed us, to give us a chance to share about our ministry, and to encourage us!
As always, I took SO many photos. I am sad that I won’t be able to share all of them, but here are some of our favorites!
We stopped in California on our way to Texas. We stayed with our friend from college and we had fun catching up! Luke had a great time with her kids!
Luke had the BEST time at this play area. Don’t you love his smile?
We stayed with the Turner family for the first few nights in Texas. Cheryl has served as our lead advocate last year. We love them and thank God for their love for us!
Our friend, Charlie, who let us borrow the NEW car while we were in Texas. He is such a generous man! His company donated money for the disaster areas as well!
With our dear friends and their boys! It was great to worship with our FBCA family!
We were able to share about our ministry in several Sunday School classes.
Sharing with the Panorama group. We went through a weekly missions training with them for over two years and we all became close friends.
Can’t believe we are all parents!
We were invited to speak to the children who were learning about the missions. They were precious!
Luke learned to WALK!
He loved playing with Great grandpa Woods!
Dinner with Yu’s former co-workers and Japanese students.
Luke got to meet his cousin, Carmen and Uncle John!
Visiting friends at DBU!
Fun night with the Steiger family and our new Japanese friends! Can’t wait to see them again in Sendai!!!
Luke had a play date with his new girl friend, Molly! Her mommy is a good friend of mine from college!
Aunt Cathie and her kids took care of Luke while mommy and daddy went on a date! What a sweet way to bless us!!!
Thank you for spoiling us! We love you!
We went to the ICE show at Gaylord Texan with Mimi. We had a great time!
Jennifer’s 80s themed 30th birthday party!
Luke had an early 1st birthday party!
WE LOVE YOU, LUKE KAI! You have brought so much joy into our lives!
We stopped in Honolulu on our way to Japan! We were invited to speak at one of the churches that had sent a mission team to Sendai last year. Thank you, Olivet Baptist Church for having us!
Luke loved playing on the beach!
He just sat there and looked at the ocean for a while. Loves beaches like his mommy!
On Wednesday, we attended the Japanese Bible Study and shared about our disaster relief work. We had a blessed time of fellowship!
Amazed by God’s beautiful creation!
We had lunch with some of the team members (and their families) that had come to Sendai in October. It was fun to see them again!
So thankful for some “family time” to rest and relax!
God blessed our trip in many ways! From the cheap plane tickets (thanks to our friend who works for Delta) to all the places to stay for free, and more than anything, all our precious friends and families made our time extra special!
We love you and miss you all so much! Now it’s YOUR turn to come visit us!
Happy Thanksgiving from three of us! As we reflect on the past year, we have so many things to be thankful for and we thank God for everything He has done for us. We are also thankful for each of you! May God fill your heart with His joy this Thanksgiving and always!
