Month: January 2010

Just a quick update to let everyone know, Tomo was accepted as a SEND missionary! She did great on all the evaluations she took, and the interview went really well also. There will be a ceremony on Thursday to make everything official. The rest of the week will consist of further training on support raising. Please continue to pray for God’s guidance as we try to work out a schedule for getting out to Japan, as well as strength for Tomo. It’s been a very exhausting week for her having to use so much English everyday, and this coming week looks to be just as hard. We’ve got a practice presentation we have to do in front of some SEND staff, and we’ll be giving our testimonies in Chapel.

Thank you for all your prayers! God is good!

Here’s some pictures from Michigan! Lots of snow!

This is where we do tests, trainings, etc.

Some of the other candidates.. Heading to Spain, Ukraine, Kosovo, and Alaska

Tokyo time!

Thank you all for praying for us!
Like David wrote last time, we’re in Michigan attending SEND’s COP (Candidate Orientation Program).
This is the third day into COP and I (Tomo) already feel exhausted.. The first two days were assessment. Yesterday, I took a Bible knowledge test first thing in the morning, which was very hard! I was running out of time as I was doing the essay section and I felt like crying. And as soon as the test was over, I was separated from David (!) and was told to go downstairs with half of the group to do case study, which was basically discussion. It was hard because the discussion was done in English and I was the only non-white, non-American person in the group. After the morning session was over, I had to go back to the room and cry for a little bit to get it all out of my system before joining everyone for lunch. We had a time after dinner to share our testimonies (there are 7 other candidates), which was very encouraging but it was again all in English. It was a loong day.

Today’s been less hectic. We got our picture taken for prayer cards and I met with a counselor in the morning. Now we’re waiting for our appointment with one of the personnel staff for a pre-interview interview.

This whole two weeks in a group of Americans sharing testimonies and being tested in a second language is certainly a challenge! I thank God for this challenge because “suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope (Romans 5:3-4)”, I mean what I’m going through right now is nothing compared to the “suffering” that Paul had to go through, but still, you know.

Again, thanks for praying and please continue to pray for endurance and encouragement!

Tomo and I are in Michigan right now at SEND’s headquarters for candidate orientation program (COP). This is the same program I went through back in 2007 when I was accepted as a missionary appointee with SEND. However, SEND’s policy is not to send a couple out on the field unless both spouses are appointed as missionaries, which means that Tomo also needs to go through the process.

I’m also sitting in on most of the sessions, getting a little refresher course on support raising, and getting to see and talk to a lot of the SEND staff that I’ve gotten to know over the years. It’s been very encouraging, because much of the staff is comprised of missionaries who worked in Japan for many years, a number of them even know and have worked with Tomo’s parents, and some even knew then before they were married.

The next two weeks will be pretty busy. Tomo will have to endure a number of evaluations (although this morning I learned that she scored the highest out of all the appointees on a language acquisition test, despite the fact that the test was written with English speakers in mind). We’ll be getting pictures taken so we’ll finally have prayer cards with both of us on them. On Saturday we’ll be interviewed as a couple by the SEND board, and a week from Friday, at the conclusion of the program, Lord willing, Tomo will officially be appointed as a SEND missionary. We’ll also get a new list of financial requirements, which dictates the amount of support we’ll need to raise before SEND will allow us to go out on the field.

Support has been a little slow since I last went through COP two and a half years ago, but things are also a lot different. I believe God has had a plan along, and I’m excited to jump into support raising officially as a couple.

When I finished COP in 2007, I was single, I went from Michigan almost directly to Romania leading a short term team from our church, I came back from that to continue leading the high school and college groups at church, and soon started dating Tomo, and subsequently got engaged and married. God had me involved in a lot of different ministries and was introducing a lot of changes, I could barely keep up. Now however, God’s cleared a lot of things off of my plate, and I feel like this is the time to finish raising support, and get over to Japan.

Please be praying for this week. Pray for Tomo that she does well on all the tests and doesn’t get too stressed out. Pray that the interview goes well, and that she will be appointed. Also please pray for wisdom as we try to set a departure date that is both realistic and rooted in complete faith in God’s ability to provide.

Happy New Year!!

I (Tomo) hope everyone’s having a nice week. What’s your new year’s resolution? Mine is to be more self-disciplined! Like getting up in the morning and spending more time in the Word and prayer. I was challenged by David to read through the whole Bible this year and I made my own Bible reading calendar. I read three chapters from the Old Testament and one chapter from the New Testament everyday and I’ll have read the whole Bible by Dec. 20th! I made every Sunday “catch up” day… My home church in Japan handed out a similar plan a couple years ago and I read through the Bible in about 2 years using that plan. This year my goal is to stick to the plan and finish in a year. It’s gonna be good!

Well, today I want to write about Japanese New Year. On the 1st of January, many people get up early and go to a shrine to pray for a good year. Here’s how you do it: you go up, ring the gigantic bell to wake the gods, throw some pennies in, clap twice, and pray for whatever you want. This year I was looking at the news and it said one of the shrine bells fell on a high school boy and he broke his nose! How ironical.. Also, New Year is the biggest family holiday, kinda like Christmas or Thanksgiving in America. My parents go visit all the relatives usually on the 2nd or 3rd every year. And we eat lots of New Year’s food! The New Year festivity (visiting family and eating New Year’s food) usually goes on for the first week of January. This year I’m over in America, and there’s nothing going on for the New Year so it feels a little weird…

Let me introduce some of the New Year’s food we eat in Japan!

My favorite is Omochi!! Omochi (or just Mochi) is made from rice and you cook it on a grill and eat it with soy sauce & nori sea-weed or soy bean flour, or put it in hot soup called Ozoni.. mmm yuummm.. I haven’t had omochi this year. David and I are going to go to a Japanese market later today to get some! Cooked omochi is very sticky and stretchy. Every year people choke on omochi and die… so I have to be careful!

Another typical New Year’s food is Osechi, which is like an assorted food in a tiered food boxes. They are all cooked in a way that makes them last long. You’re supposed to prepare them by New Year’s Eve so you won’t make the god of fire angry by using fire on New Year (its practical meaning is so that the women can take a break from cooking). And there’s superstitious meaning to each food item. For example, herring roe (my favorite!) symbolizes a wish for family prosperity (many little fish eggs àmany children à family tree prosper!), and so on.

mmm I miss Japan…