This is truly a beautiful time to be here in Japan.  Every spring, the cherry blossoms open up and for about two weeks all of the trees are in bloom.  Colby and I have been blessed to be within walking distance of a large park and have been taking advantage of the beauty of this time of the year.  Much to our delight it is also getting warmer these days and so we don’t need to run the heater quite as much.

This spring also marks a new transition for the Lighthouse Church here in Ube.  This Sunday will be the last time they meet in the old building before cleaning it up and locking it for the last time.  Next Sunday will be the first service at the Ministry Center that is on the property where Colby and I live.  There has been a flurry of activity these past few weeks between moving everything from the old building to the new one and getting the new one prepared.  In a couple of weeks we will have a work team from Atlanta coming over to do renovations in the sanctuary as well as in our apartment above it.  Once that is done, the church should be pretty well moved in.

This past Wednesday night Colby and I got the chance to help clean out the new building with some of the members of the Gospel Choir that some of the missionaries are involved in.  We had met them for the first time in 2007 when we came to Japan to meet each of the missionaries and so it was a joy to see these people again.  These are folks who have joined the Gospel Choir because they enjoy singing in English and like this type of music.  An interesting thing about them is that most of them are unbelievers as of yet and the missionaries have found this to be a great opportunity to witness in explaining the meaning of the songs.  Colby and I have been praying for them and were glad to finally put faces with names.

The missionaries have been praying that this year, they would see many of these people come to Christ.  Would you please pray with us that the Choir people would understand the message of the Gospel in these songs and come to genuine faith in Christ?

I find Japanese cemeteries to be really interesting and beautiful. Because of the tight space (everyone is cremated) they almost look like a giant chessboard, with each family’s grave topped by a stone pillar with the family crest and name. If you went to the cemetery in Japan yesterday, you would find it to be especially pretty, probably one of the prettiest days of the year. The reason is that Friday was the spring equinox.

In the US, spring equinox goes by in relative obscurity. Few people would even know the word equinox (coming from the same Latin root as the word “equal” because on this day the length of night and day are exactly the same). Those who are familiar with it simply know it as the day that coincides with the first day of Spring. The only people who mark it’s passing are elementary school students who might do an art project.

However in Japan the spring equinox is a national holiday. It is a time where people get together for family reunions and begin to celebrate the blossoming of the cherry trees. Just as important is the fact that it is one of the four times a year where Japanese people visit the family grave. On the equinox and the weekend surrounding it, the cemetery is a busy place and by the time most people have visited, it is covered with fresh flowers. Typically, a Japanese family will tidy up the grave, put out fresh flowers, and then light some incense asking their ancestral spirit for blessing in their lives. For some is holds spiritual significance, for others it is simply a cultural tradition.

Please pray for the Japanese people who still worship their ancestor spirits. Pray that they would come to understand that Christ is the only person worthy of worship. Pray for us and others in cross-cultural ministry as we interact with Japanese Christians and seekers. Pray that we would be able to help these people be able to follow the teachings of scripture while still showing respect for their ancestors and Japanese cultural traditions.

The next time you go to throw something away, please think about poor Colby and Theresa, serving and suffering for the Lord in Japan.  Here in Japan there is a very complex garbage system that not only maximizes the use of recycling, but your patience as well.  Allow me to explain.

As you approach the garbage section of your house (yes, section) with garbage in hand, you must first ask yourself, “Can this item be recycled?”  If it cannot, you have it easy and can just throw it away in the ‘Burnable Garbage’ container.  This type of garbage is collected every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday each week and goes in a special plastic bag that is labeled ‘Burnable Garbage’ (in Japanese, of course).

However, if the item in hand can indeed be recycled, then you have more to think through.  Is the item plastic?  If so, it will have a special plastic symbol on it somewhere (which would be pronounced ‘pu-rla’ in English).  If the item has any bit of paper on it, however, the paper part must be taken off first and thrown in a separate container (will be mentioned soon) and then the plastic may be thrown away.  However, if it has any food particles or oil residue, then it must be thrown away in the ‘Burnable Garbage’ container instead.  The plastics get collected every Thursday of each week and go in their own special plastic bag.

Is the item paper?  If so, it goes in yet another special container, the contents of which are collected once a month.  This garbage would be all your magazines, office paper, cartons, cardboard (please note: corrugated cardboard goes in a separate pile), etc.  At the appointed time each month, like paper items must be bundled together with twine in piles that are not too big, mind you, and brought out to the collection place.

What about bottles and cans?  Glad you asked.  Cans go in a separate pile, PET 1 bottles go in yet another separate pile.  Glass bottles….well, we’re not sure where they go yet.  Make sure to remove the wrappers on bottles and rinse everything out thoroughly (bonus: you do not need to crush the cans – yippee!).  If you have a broken bottle or sharp glass, you must wrap it in thick paper and mark it as ‘kiken’, which means dangerous.

With all this in mind, there is yet another category of items that do not fall into any of these categories.  It is the mysterious category called ‘Non-Burnables’.  This is kind of the catch-all category for things that cannot be put with the burnable items, are not plastic, recyclable paper, bottles, or cans.  Such things could be books, clothing, shoes, metal dishes, handbags, plastic pitchers (we know this from experience), etc.  All of this gets taken out to the collection place at an appointed time each month (but thankfully does not have its own special bag).

Needless to say, throwing away garbage here is a rather complex activity.  One reason is because Japan seeks to be “Green Friendly”, but another even bigger reason is that in this small, condensed country, there is no space for garbage.  Anything that can be burned is and if it can’t then they try to find the most effective way to recycle it.  “That’s good,” you say, and yes, it is good, however it is also tricky and time-consuming.  By the way, did I mention that if you happen to mistakenly throw the wrong thing into the wrong container, your garbage will be returned to you for you to sort through and try again?  So far, Colby and I have not had any of our bags returned to us, except for that plastic pitcher that we threw away with the plastics (good guess, huh?) but turned out to be a ‘Non-Burnable’ item.  In conclusion, the next time you are tempted to complain about your garbage or recyclables, please remember us and count your blessings!

When you think of us and garbage at the same time, which hopefully isn’t often, please pray that we would grow in knowledge and patience in this trying area.

Colby, Theresa, and our team leader pose with Mr. Yamanaka and the car he helped us purchase at the local auction.

At 11:30 this morning, Colby & I were very pleased to complete our car purchase here in Japan!  After going to the used car auction a couple of times, we settled on one in particular that really seemed to suit our needs well.  I know many of you were praying for this purchase and God saw fit to provide us with a good vehicle.  We bought what in Japan is called a Kei Car or Kei Jidosha.  (And no, it is very different from the K-Car, as in Plymouth Reliant.  Colby already owned one of those and isn’t keen to repeat the experience.)  “Kei jidosha” translates to English as “light automobile”, and is a type of car here in Japan that has a small frame and even smaller engine (660 cc).  However, they are great for saving on gas and the taxes are much lower.  (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kei_car)  The one we bought is a ’04 Daihatsu Move – one of the many new makes and models we’ve encountered here in Japan.

Praise God with us as we thank Him for providing a car for us!

I want to dedicate this post to my good friend Ian, with whom I have shared many… well, we’ll call them “rescue and recovery adventures.” I hope I have enriched your frugal soul as much as you have enriched mine.

With the installation of the internet connection at the Ube ministry center complex today, our temporary new home is now pretty much set up. It has been really neat to see how God has provided the things we need without requiring a huge outlay of funds and has enabled us to get things set-up fairly quickly. One of the big reasons for that is something called a sōko (倉庫). Sōko means warehouse in Japanese and is the name that has been applied to the two storage buildings here on the property. Although we didn’t have the opportunity to see the property in its original condition, Chuck (our team leader) told us that it was as if a time warp had occurred. The Lighthouse Church took possession of the building in August of 2008, almost exactly two years after it had been abruptly vacated. We have been told that the desks were still in place, the calendars were still on the wall, and personal belongings were still scattered around the building as if they expected to return to work the next day.

Ube Ministry Center Soko

One of the first tasks that the church had to tackle was collecting and sorting through all the stuff. A few things were kept for future use, but much of it was stuck in bags or just piled in the two storage buildings on the property for future disposal. When we arrived and moved into the house on site, Chuck told us that we were welcome to take anything that we thought we could use.  Theresa and I figured this meant the bags intended for disposal as well. Because of the small spaces here, the Japanese don’t have a lot of room to store junk and thus often are quick to discard things even if they would be useful. After a while, we had found so much good stuff in the “trash” that we nicknamed it “sōko diving” (think dumpster diving).

All told though, between the sōkos, the 100 yen stores (more on those later), and the exchange of unneeded household items between the Christar members here, we have been really blessed to see all the ways God has provided for our household set-up.

Please pray for wisdom for us and the rest of the Ube team as we continue to clean up the ministry center and prepare for renovations in April. Pray that we would be able to find inexpensive, creative ways to enhance the usability of the space.