Sad Day

On Sunday, June 29th, my friends Ayako and Akihiro Naka closed their restaurant, Small Talk. It was a sad day! My friend and I sat there for 3 hours chatting with other regulars and savoring Small Talk food for the last time. Some of the people I hadn't talked to before except to greet them, but we had a common experience to share.
They don't have any plans yet except to get the shop cleaned out and get Ayako's health checked out. Then they will be moving on to the next step.
We still have plans to go to Costco together, go to other restaurants together, etc.!


Working together behind the counter.


With Nakas and my new Australian friend, Madison.

At the time of this post on July 4th you can still go to their website and see pictures of the restaurant under "About Us."

Wedding

Last week I attended the wedding of a friend from Karuizawa basketball days. I hadn't met her husband until that day, but considering he quit his job and moved back to Kariuzawa and found a new job just so he could marry her, I figured he must be a pretty good guy. Seems it is true!

The wedding was held in a wedding chapel at a wedding 'club.' The chapel was a nice simple little wooden building. It was next to the main building, connected by a bridge through the woods. Very Karuizawa.

Although neither of them are Christians a pastor performed the ceremony for them. We sang "Joyful, Joyful" and "What a Friend we have in Jesus." Somehow that has become known as the Christian hymn here in Japan. The friend I was sitting by and I cried when she walked down the aisle with her dad and when the couple was introduced.

Then we headed back to the main building for the reception. We milled around for a few minutes, found our seats and prepared for the toast. Then the couple arrived in lovely kimonos.

And then the food started! The food was amazing! The servings were just the right size so that you could eat everything without having to be rolled out of the building.

Sometime between the fish and the meat course the couple left and returned in their original wedding clothes. Since Yoko likes to eat we were a little concerned because all of her food was just sitting there waiting to be eaten. She was true to form and ate as much as she could as quickly as possible before standing up for the next requirement, a letter to the parents.

The reception ended with the parents standing on one side of the room and the couple on the other side while Yoko read a letter she had written to her parents. As you can imagine, everyone teared up!

But then, her dad made it worse! When the couple walked over with the biggest bunch of flowers I've ever seen and gave them to their moms, Yoko gave the letter to her dad. When he took it from her he grabbed her in the biggest bear hug I've ever seen a Japanese person give and audibly cried. If anyone had survived the reading of the letter without crying, that was the last straw, there was not a dry eye in the place after that!

Then we all rushed home to change clothes for the second party. It was held at the same place-convenient for me-which is unusual. We ate more food, had more drinks-I really liked the blueberry juice!-and played Bingo. We played for some of the best prizes I've ever seen at a bingo game-I got a Starbucks gift card. One gal got an overnight trip to a hot spring, another person got a Disneyland one day passport, and one guy got a Nintendo DS!

Besides all of that, each person got a bag of goodies to take home from the wedding. It included two boxes. One was Karuizawa cheesecake-which didn't have to be refrigerated, a little suspect to me-and the other box was a catalog. You got to go through the catalog and choose what gift you wanted! I chose Japanese pottery:)


It was a fun event! I got to see several friends and meet new people. I also got to go to the candle shop and bagel shop! It was a good trip! (Even if I did come home with a cold!)

Dad

So, I must be the luckiest daughter in the world, well, besides my sister! Not only do I have the best mom in the world, I have the best dad, too! It worked out well for me and my sister that they married each other because that means we have the best parents in the world!

What makes my dad so great? Well, for starters, he taught me about being a child of the King. Through all the challenges we have gone through as a family, he has shown me that faith in God is what gets us through one challenge and into the next. I have seen his faith grow over the years and that, in turn, has strengthened my faith.

On top of that, he gives about the best neck massages around and can talk about anything while helping your body heal. He taught me about basketball, running, how to ride a bike, algebra (which blew me away when I found his high school report card!:), how to change the oil in my car, when to change the oil, how to enjoy music even if the only thing you can play is the radio, and how to cry at sad or happy movies or when saying hello or good-bye.

If your dad is half as cool as mine, then you are also blessed!

Thanks, Dad!

Karaoke

Last night I went to Karaoke with Mr. and Mrs. Shindo. It has been a long time since I've been to Karaoke. We sang for 4 hours and had a great time! They are both good singers.

In Japan karaoke is a private party. You go to a karaoke center-a building filled with little rooms. Each room contains a couch, coffee table, TV and karaoke machine. There is also a telephone for room service. And, big books listing all the songs you can choose from-thankfully there is a huge list of English songs! There are also Korean, Chinese, and songs from the Philippines available. The English songs included everything from Frank Sinatra to ZZ Top, Disney to Gospel! I stuck to Frank Sinatra era songs, Gospel songs and show tunes.

Mrs. Shindo and I are singing the Carpenters "Top of the World," which is always a favorite.


And, Mr. Shindo singing a song in Japanese that I am pretending to sing.


The one thing I forgot about is that even if no one in your room is smoking you leave smelling like you've smoked six packs of cigarettes! I couldn't wait to get my clothes washed this morning!

Happy Birthday, Joy Chapel!

June 1 I went to Tsu to celebrate Joy Chapel's 11th birthday. I can hardly believe it was 11 years ago when Joy Chapel started.

Joy Chapel is a bilingual worship service, an outreach of the Tsu church. (Tsu is the first city I lived in here in Japan.) As a short term missionary at the time when Joy Chapel started I got to be there at the opening service 11 years ago. We had lots of fun planning for the bilingual services, writing dramas, singing silly songs, learning the theme song, etc, etc!

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures from that time on my computer so I can't include any in this blog. But, I will include some pictures from this year's party...

Here is the 'band' leading in worship.

Tadashi giving his testimony of God's faithfulness. Two of his buddies from university came for the first time.

Yui chan is ready for pizza!

Baking and English

Monday was the next installment of Baking and English at Shan's apartment. Pizza was the food of the day. It was incredibly popular! There were 6 students in the morning and 7 in the afternoon class. My little kitchen/dining area was filled to the brim!

For the crust I used a recipe I have been using for several years from the Wycliffe Cookbook. Although it has yeast in it, there is no wait time for rising-always good when you only have a 2 hour class. I provided all "American" toppings for the pizza-no seafood, potatoes or mayo-except for the corn. I think corn is a good addition!

We also made dessert pizza. This took me back to my Pampered Chef days in Texas. I pulled out a bunch of PC products and demonstrated them. Lots of fun. Once again, the egg slicer was a surprise-so many more uses than just for slicing eggs!

In the afternoon class there was one person who had never come before, a friend of another student. It was fun to add another person to the circle and learn about her. (She came with us 3 days later when we went to see Prince Caspian, too.)

Overall, yet another fun time of baking and chatting!


Miki san had fun with the pizza sauce!


They decided to try all of the toppings, even the black olives.

(There are two more photos I wanted to add but they don't want to upload right now. I will try to add them later!)

Words cannot express

When I got online tonight and looked at my "My Yahoo" page the first headline that jumped out at me was "Daughter of Christian Music Star Killed by Car." Somehow I instinctively knew it was Steven Curtis Chapman. Unfortunately, I was right. Here is just the first sentence of the article...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - The 5-year-old daughter of Grammy-winning Christian music star Steven Curtis Chapman was struck and killed Wednesday by a sport utility vehicle driven by her brother, authorities said.

Steven Curtis Chapman's music has been a favorite of mine for many years. I can probably sing most of his albums in my sleep. Then when his family began adopting children from China and started a ministry to aid in adoptions, I became an even bigger fan.

I am certain there are thousands of people praying for this family right now. Please add your prayers, too.