At this point, many of the Japanese are headed back to their homes after being away for the New Year’s holiday. (Yes, I said New Years.  In Asia, it’s much more important than Christmas.)  Although we didn’t travel anywhere ourselves, we heard reports of a lot of traffic which was compounded by the freeway being closed on New Year’s Eve due to snow (very light, but the Japanese are very cautious).

Amidst the celebrations, Colby and I had the chance to visit with one of our English student’s family, the Hiraishis.  The owner of a small take out restaurant, Mr. Hiraishi invited us for dinner at his house with his wife and daughter.  We had known that Japanese people like to make a variety of foods for their guests, but we were still taken aback when we arrived.  We were served avocado, oden (various egg, tofu, and fish items simmered in soy sauce) two kinds of sushi, noodle soup with shrimp patties, chicken wings, pizza, and a sweet potato soufflé for dessert.  Thankfully they were all small portions. They even had prepared a second pizza just in case and gave it to us to take home!  Everything was delicious and they were wonderful hosts.  We enjoyed getting to know the Hiraishi family better as we practiced our Japanese and they their English.  A highlight of the evening was when Mr. Hiraishi showed us his heirloom samurai sword that had been in his family since the 1800s. Because it is the real thing capable of causing severe injury, he is actually required to have a permit for it.

We kind of look like pirates, huh?

On Christmas Day we had dinner with our teammates, another missionary family, and the Japanese pastor and his family.  Because whole turkeys and hams are hard to come by in Japan, we decided to have Mexican food for dinner.  Colby and I also celebrated our 5^th Christmas together with our pentannual Lord of the Rings movie marathon.  It made for a long day, but we thoroughly enjoyed our trip to middle earth.

On New Year’s Eve night we gathered with all of the other missionaries for the annual appetizer and BUNKO night.  As it was our first New Year’s Eve on the field, we soon found out exactly what BUNKO is.  Not a game for the strategist – BUNKO is played by quickly and aggressively rolling dice to get the right numbers and patterns. Even though our luck wasn’t the best, Colby and I were amongst those who received prizes for various categories.  Mine for the most losses and Colby’s for winning at “Rock, Paper, Scissors” amongst all the other people who didn’t qualify to compete for a prize in any other category.  It was an interesting game.

All kinds of goodies.

Please pray for us as we adjust from vacation mode back into our normal routine.  Pray that we would start afresh with Japanese study and English classes with renewed energy and purpose.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 4th, 2010 at 10:13 pm and is filed under Life in Cross-Cultural Ministry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.