The Story of a Growing Bump

I wasn't sure I would ever be here: sitting with a rounding belly with a set of very, very small toes poking around my insides.

I was 22 and on my way to Japan the first time a doctor told me, "If you want to have kids, you should do so early." Ironically, at this point, I'm fairly certain her suspected diagnosis of me was not true. Five years later, a couple months after my wedding, another doctor looked at an ultrasound and said, "I've never seen someone look like this who was younger than 50 years old!" She was doubtful I could have kids right then, but more concerned that I might have cancer. This made my second move to Japan a dramatic whirlwind of a ride with a quick diagnostic surgery and many unanswered questions about what this would mean about my future ability to be a biological parent.

How do you put into words what God can do during 14 months of longing for someone who has not yet come to be? How do I explain what God did? How can I explain the fullness of blessing that came because we had to wait--and the fullness of celebration at the gift that is being given? I want to try, though the words will probably come up far short.

I must give the disclaimer that I was *barely*, *barely* even able to claim the title of infertile. Part of me cringes saying it because we got pregnant in 14 months (the definition is greater than 12 months trying without success). I feel like I have to lower my eyes to avoid making cyber-eye contact with the women whose stories I've come to know...women who have tried ten years. Women who have miscarried every time they get a glimmer of hope. Women who get poked by needles in infertility clinics every single day in hopes to make their bodies able to have a baby. Women who are mothers to so many babies in heaven while the world around them doesn't even know they are mothers. Women who lost babies big enough to cradle in their arms for a few precious minutes or days as they said 'goodbye'. I ache for these women still, and I am humbled as I watch the weeks pass, my belly grow bigger, the internal kicks grow from small bumps into thumps that move my whole stomach... the awe just overtakes me sometimes: God's kindness...how is God this kind?

The hardest part about the 14 months was that, with what the last doctor had told me, it seemed incredibly likely that I was actually quite able to conceive a baby but not necessarily able to have the egg successfully implant. Let me tell you, this can mess with your head. This means that I would have the potential to be pregnant right in the period of time where pregnancy cannot be detected by a home test, and then the baby would be lost. I was so afraid of this, and every normal PMS symptom usually convinced me that it was happening month after month. What I feared actually happened in November last year when I took a pregnancy test that turned out positive. That pregnancy ended hours later the same day. I'm not sure if it was my only early miscarriage or not, but it was the only one we ever caught.

What surprised me most about those few November hours was that I was suddenly scared stiff. Here I had been crying often about not being able to get pregnant for the past few months, and suddenly, when it happened, I found myself totally shocked and unprepared. I really believe that God allowed us to "catch" this pregnancy because He needed me to switch my mind over from preparing for a lifetime of infertility to actually allowing myself to prepare my heart for motherhood and a baby. I realized that my tendency with anything that hurts, or anything that is disappointing is to push the desire as far away from my heart as I can. But God had finally pushed me up against a desire that I couldn't do that with. It seemed impossible to shake this desire for a baby. The miscarriage in November made me realize that I had to walk forward both trusting God if the baby never came, or if more miscarriages came instead, but somehow to also keep my hands open for Him to give us a child if that was His will. It is the hardest narrow line I've ever had to walk.

My picture of Shadrach et al...forgive the poor quality photo!

I soaked in the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in Daniel 3. I love their response to King Nebuchadnezzar when they're told they will be thrown into the fiery furnace if they do not bow down and worship his statue. They say, "We do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it and He will rescue us from your hand. But if He doesn't, we want you to know, O King, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold." (Daniel 3:16-18) I've always been uneasy praying for physical healing, or praying for greatly desired things, because I'm uneasy with the philosophy some Christians have, which seems to say that if you have faith, you are guaranteed healing and prosperity. But this verse seemed to bring the whole thing into the right place for me. I needed to walk forward believing that God could bring us a baby. I needed to trust that He would give us a baby enough to prepare my heart to become a mother, even if that preparation made the pain of not being a mother much worse. And I needed to continue to serve Him right where I was, outside of the potential mother identity, in case He didn't. I worked to walk forward this way for the next seven months.

In May, I was relieved because it was the first month in my married life I honestly believed that I couldn't be pregnant. I was really ready for a month without thinking about pregnancy, and our timing had been lousy compared to any other month we'd been trying. Lousy enough that I was fairly certain it was impossible. May was also the month of Pentecost and the Global Day of Prayer, which meant that we had our ten days of prayer scheduled from the 17th to the 27th. I was so excited about planning the prayer room and having something like prayer to pour my heart into for an extended period of time.

We got into praying, and a couple days into the prayer week, I was late. Which meant I was wrong. It was possible for me to be pregnant. Very soon, all of my time in the prayer room, which I had had wonderful intentions to spend talking to God about things other than babies, turned into lots of time talking to God about babies. I let Him know that I really wanted an answer from Him...that if He wasn't going to give this to me, I wanted to move on and serve Him and stop being so bogged down in a personal desire. I begged Him just to tell me whether He would ever give me a baby or not, because I believed I could hang on cheerfully for a long time if the answer was 'yes', and I also believed I could pull my heart out and direct it towards better things if the answer was 'no'. His answer surprised me. It was one of those very quiet thoughts that could have been me, or it could have been Him, but it seemed like it might be Him just because of how completely it stopped me in my tracks. That thought was, "Your faith during uncertainty is a precious thing to Me."

I was tempted to keep pushing Him for an answer. But I knew I'd actually been given something more precious than a 'yes' or a 'no'. This self of mine...the one who seemed totally unacceptable in human terms...the one who had moved to Japan and then thought about a baby she didn't have more than she thought about the mission work she did have...the one who burst into tears in public at the most inconvenient times and with strangers and who never seemed to have it together enough to make a good impact anymore...God was looking down at that mess of a child of His and saying, "The fact that you believe I can do this even though it is causing you this much pain is precious to Me." ...and that was more precious to me than certainty. And I felt I had true permission, for the first time, to outright ask Him to give us a baby.

This did not make it a stress-free week by any means. There were many more hours in prayer. And I felt like I was caught in limbo...like the important thing had been settled with God, and now I had to wait for Sunday, for Pentecost, for the last day of the prayer week, which happened to be the day it was acceptable to take a pregnancy test. God does enjoy His flashy timing when He's showing off. :)

Two pink lines on Sunday morning. And unlike the pregnancy test in November, where the "pregnant" line was broken and light...the second line this time was bold, strong, and certain. I had just enough time to go to church and tell my friends who had walked me through this and prayed through this with me before I had to run home to start the first trimester morning sickness thrills.

God's kindness. There have been so many things I've loved that God has said 'no' to, or pulled me away from. It is so easy for me to understand the side of God that is jealous, the side that strips away, that cuts off to bring greater life and greater fruit and growth. I've spent the past five years nurturing my ability to see His very real goodness in the desert and in hardship. And I wouldn't trade those hardships and lessons for anything. But this... This is grace. This is the verse "We love because He first loved us" being poured out. I feel like I am watching Him pour love into me until I could burst. And I'm realizing that this is how He heals the hard hearts. The cross is only the beginning of grace. That grace continues and lives and breathes...love poured out in the wounded places. Redemption that is able to cross any boundary put up by sin and by pain and make the dead places live. This would be true baby or not. But the little wiggles inside me keep making the tangible reminder: He loves us first. It's not our job to manufacture an ability to love, but He pours that love right into us to pour back out to others.

As of yesterday, we've hit 26 weeks. The baby is due January 26th. :)

Kids Camps at Inawashiro

Two girls, hand in hand with each other, were stopped outside the tatami room with their moms, where the five of us would be sleeping that night. "I'm sleeping together with you! That's great!" I exclaimed to them. A girl I'll call Nora had been in the same room as me for our Kids' Camp in May, and I was very excited about getting to continue a relationship. The other girl was new to me--I'll call her Hana. But she lit up even more than Nora at my words. Hana, I soon learned, was very affectionate. She wore a pink shirt most of the first day that said, "I'm cute, make me happy", which I have to admit it was nearly impossible not to want to do.

We had just arrived at the third kids' camp I've been able to participate in. I've watched these camps come together from the beginning of an idea, when we couldn't quite tell if it was coming from God, an overseas church connected with us, or our Japanese synod . . . and all my best guesses to try to figure out which Fukushima church was running it came out clueless. The general vision behind it hasn't changed while many of these structural things seem to be fluctuating all the time. We take families out of Fukushima and go to a location with lower radiation for a weekend, or a few days over a long holiday. Then the kids play outside without fear. Whether there are any real physical benefits to doing this or not is a controversial question. But as I talked it over with one of the other Christian volunteers on the bus on the way there, we came to the same conclusion I always reach. Whether the danger of radiation in Fukushima is real, or whether taking people out of it for such a short time does any physical good or not, the fear is real, and the stress relief from taking people out of their lives to relax and play seems to me to be real too. It is a wonderful chance to talk to and love on Fukushima families.

Nora, Hana and I spent much of Sunday and Monday arm in arm. I usually have a little more of a slope to climb when earning the affections of Japanese children, but Hana seemed totally unafraid. From the moment we were together, she shamelessly questioned me and noticed things outloud. "You have a long nose." "That's true. Do you think it's weird?" "Nope! It's beautiful." Later in the evening, she sat down across from me and pulled her cheeks down so I could get a good look at her eyes. "Can you see black?" she asked me. "Yep!" I said. She responded, "Your eyes are blue." Once her mom told her there were lots of colors of eyes other than black, she questioned me thoroughly about all the different options. "Green? Purple? Brown? Orange?"

Having known me for all of 15 minutes, right from the get go she seemed just as disappointed if I sat out of one game of tag as if her dad skipped the final championship of an important sports tournament. She and Nora spent the two days teaching me card games, and how you play dodge ball the Japanese way. We hid out together in the futon closet while Nora's mom rescued us from large flying insects . . . okay, it was actually one medium sized flying insect (I swear I'll grow up about being afraid of crawly things . . . sometime soon! ;-) ). On the last day, I spotted the girls through a somewhat intense ground level ropes course--and had fun encouraging them not to be afraid and to try (safe) things without holding onto my hand. I really am an introvert, and cherish these opportunities in the middle of a big group to get to pour out a lot of love on a few people I can get to know more intimately.

One of the things I love about working at the kids' camps, is that we've had whole teams of Japanese Christians come in to help. Eric and I do some of the games and English activities, and they do some. Last time, it was a whole group from the "Domei" Church. They'll be with us again for later camps too. This time, CRASH--the Christian organization formed to respond to disasters in Japan--sent a team of people. I like teams coming in because they bring a certain Christian environment with them. When prayer and conversations about God are springing up in Japanese in the free time, I always feel like we're being more natural when we have our structured Bible time later on. I also continue to be a lover of interdenominational Christian activity, and these camps have always been a good example of the way we are strengthened by working together.

Even so, we are definitely coming in as strangers! Hana asked me why I came to Japan, and I told her I came here for Jesus. Her mother (a non-Christian, to my knowledge) tried to help me out by explaining to her daughter that I was here for God. Hana was obviously confused. I keep thinking about that conversation and wondering, as I always do doing mission work in Japan, if there's any way to make the gap easier. But it always seems to come to the same thing--pray, follow God's leading, and if anything is in the way of God's Spirit, make sure it's gone. Because it's only His Spirit that leads people to himself. Every time a Japanese person begins following Jesus, I am amazed at God, because none of the conversations ever make it seem humanly possible. There aren't any working formulas that I know of--every solid convert to Christianity that I know of moves because they've had an encounter with God Himself. So, we keep praying, and keep loving, and keep speaking--and wait for the Spirit to move.

We circled with the other Christian volunteers in our church parking lot after waving goodbye to the last bus, and the Baptist pastor lead us in prayer. My eyes filled as he asked God to do so much more to protect the kids' bodies from radiation, but to lead all who didn't know Him to the Lord. It was a good reminder that this is why I came back, and that this is why I stay: to be down on my knees before the Father for these people, to tell them about Him, and to love on them for Him. Some days it costs more than others, and sometimes the way to do all that seems so foggy it's impossible to imagine HOW one prays and tells and loves. But moments like that, it seems as simple as can be.

Just keep following. Just keep praying. Just keep listening. Just keep speaking. Just keep loving.

"Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." ~Galations 6:9

God and Natural Disasters

In 2008, I happened to be in the middle of a 24/7 prayer week when Myanmar was hit by the deadly cyclone that killed many people. I have to admit, I was totally uneducated about Myanmar's political situation. (I still am--I am horrible about keeping up with the news!) I knew almost nothing about the country itself. But I found my heart unable to focus anywhere else, and began crying out to God that this disaster would open the nation up. I was shocked hours later when I began to research Myanmar and found that this seemingly random prayer request seemed to fit the situation so well. I continued to be amazed by this as the government of Myanmar refused to let in aid for its people in the weeks that followed, and so I continued my prayers that the doors would open, for both aid and the gospel.

The Sunday after the first prayer experience, I shared in our church's English Bible study that I felt excitement for Myanmar, because I felt that God was going to use this disaster in a big way for the country. I was immediately chastised, and a key church elder told me that I was 'testing God' by trying to claim that I knew God was the one who had sent the disaster. It turned into a rather fierce conversation without my meaning it to. Every last person around the table felt that I was far, far out of line.

That night, I wandered around a pond and told God about the struggle. I finally settled down on a park bench and flipped my Bible open, and it fell to Amos 3. I began reading, and was shocked to arrive at the verse, "When disaster comes to a city, has not the Lord caused it? Surely the Sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets." (Amos 3:6-7). It was one of those beautiful prayer moments that feels like kisses from heaven. 

But let's slow down here, because when we read the verse, "When disaster comes to a city, has not the Lord caused it?" I'm fairly certain everyone has a very strong impression of what that means.  Some people will be unable to justify this verse with their idea of God's love, and they will find some way to say it means something different, or was only meant for a given context. Others will feel almost eerily happy about this verse, smugly confident that they are on the side of God's armies and God is wiping out heathen sinners from the face of the planet. 

I was very struck by the polarization of these two views while reading this article that a facebook friend posted about the Waldo Canyon Fire. I have been closely, closely following this fire ever since a college friend texted me to say that her parents had had to evacuate their home, the home she grew up in. I found myself drawn to it not only because of the friend, and a handful of other people I know in the area, but also because I know about the Christian presence in Colorado Springs, and the number of praying people who are there. I had a feeling that God was doing something "strategic". Another friend, who also lost the home she grew up in in the fire, wrote to me that she felt sad at the news, but that she really felt God was in this. She added that she couldn't believe she was saying something that sounded so uncaring, because of how many people were suffering. All of this has left me with a strong desire to pray for Colorado Springs, and a strong desire to know what God is saying to the city so that I can align my prayers with that. 

So, after all this thinking, I couldn't help read the article, even though I suspected that I would struggle with the content. I ended the reading feeling very sad. It seemed to me to say that Christians who believe that God causes disasters and has reasons for them are only of the smug type, and generally only see God as being angry. We are left with the alternative of serving people after disasters, to show the world that God is not angry. I felt that the underlying idea in all this was crippling to God's power. It makes it look like all He is in the middle of a deadly situation is a warm, comforting cup of tea. 

That's a long intro, but this message has been burning on my heart all day ever since reading the article. 

It's so important when we are observing anyone's actions, be they a person or the God who created the whole universe, that we have some idea who they are, what their character is. I think we often feel the need to "throw out" God as the cause of a disaster because we really have no idea how deep His goodness goes.

One of my favorite stories to show God's character during times of destruction is Jesus coming into Jerusalem. It says, "As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, "If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace--but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you." (Luke 19:41-44) How often do we miss that God is weeping over the suffering inflicted on His people, even as His hand is in it? And, even as Jesus is prophetically declaring the destruction coming on Jerusalem, He is coming in to die, sacrificing His life to be "what would bring peace" for the sake of these people. This is just one specific example, obviously if I kept going on everything I could find about God's character with suffering, it would turn into a whole book! But I chose this example in particular because it is the aspect of God's character that I have been the most "aware of" during prayer times for the Springs. I don't often cry over disasters, but when my friend emailed me the second time to say that her parents' home had indeed been burned, I just cried and cried. I cannot get my mind off God's grief, even as I simultaneously cannot get my mind off of the belief that He is in this.

There's another key beyond knowing God's character in the second part of the Amos verse I used earlier. "Surely the Sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets." We might be tempted to read every disaster that happens through the lens of our favorite ideas about God without ever consulting God. But God has a *long* history of combining disasters with prophetic words. Sometimes, he is saying, "Repent and turn back to me and this will stop." (The book of Joel is a good example of this kind of message). Other times, God is saying, "This is happening because of your sin, don't seek me for deliverance. I'm determined to do this." (See Jeremiah 11-12). There are times when God is stripping away earthly treasures so that we are left with the treasure of Him alone, to teach us that He really will provide everything we need, and to test us (See Deut. 8, and, in a different sense, the book of Job). And this is certainly not an exclusive list.

Because of these different messages, it's plain to see that we cannot make a judgment call about whether the people suffering are the greatest sinners or the most righteous. Unless we know what God is saying, there is vast history of Him sending hard times to both groups.

Disasters shake us up and make us think about God--they're meant to! What would we learn and how would we grow and what blessings could He give us if we chose to stand in the tension and pain of the disaster and humbly look up to Him for His words? And this goes for far more than the disasters that make national news--how much more so the quiet suffering that tempts our hearts to doubt or despair on a daily basis. What would happen if we sought His face?

Perhaps He would send us out to minister to the hurting, armed with His actual heart and Spirit inside of us as strength, rather than our own weak good intentions and failing human love. 

Perhaps He would call us to pray, and break our hearts for what is breaking His heart. Perhaps He would teach us about faith that moves mountains.

Perhaps He would speak hard, but life-giving words of truth into our situation by calling us, and those around us, to wake up and follow Him with all our hearts again. 

Perhaps He'd tell us that our supposed loss had saved us from death, because he was cutting away strangling thorns of worldliness to make way for a fruitful garden in our lives and cities where faith, hope and love could thrive and spread. 

Perhaps He would whisper how He is about to bless us by teaching us, through taking so much away, that He is the true provider--ushering us into a season where things we haven't worked for are mysteriously given, and we know in our hearts that He is not poor, and can take care of us no matter how far we follow Him into the desert.

Perhaps He would call us to learn to live more vulnerably within our own community during the time of pain, and give us the treasure of fellowship with dear friends who have stood with us through the darkest times. 

Perhaps He would tell us that we really are innocent, and we need to continue to stand true to Him and live in righteousness even if everyone else refuses to turn to Him so that the pain must continue.

Perhaps He would ask us to trust Him and to wait out the pain in worship and thanksgiving without knowing the reason behind it.

How will we know if we don't seek His face and listen? How will we know if we write off the disasters as coincidences and keep God in a safe box? How will we stand in the light if we always assume that we are on the side of the angel armies and those being destroyed deserve God's wrath? What will we miss if we just find the one answer to human suffering that calms our own heart the most, and do not step into the dialogue with the living God, who is not safe, but good?

If my people will humble themselves and pray

I just came home from setting up the fifth prayer room I have been privileged to participate in or lead. Our 10 days of prayer will start early tomorrow morning.

This journey has probably been more rocky than any of the other prayer rooms I've led. The whole process started with discussions about who should lead it. Tears. Trying to get the church council to accept it. No dice. And, in the end, the decision to be faithful to the call to pray, even if there were very few people along for the ride. Also, the decision that we as missionaries needed to seek God about our own issues before we started trying to push others into prayer. We decided to pray on our own. Last Sunday, however, the pastor pointed to me and asked for an update on the prayer room. I wasn't really prepared to present the idea to the congregation (thinking we had settled that that *wasn't* what we were doing!), but the pastor very firmly declared that it was the five missionaries plus he and his wife who would be doing it. We told the church that there was room for them to pray too. We'll see who God brings!

All my other prayer weeks have been 24/7, and this one will be close. But unless God decides to bless my socks off, this week will probably not be non-stop. Though the space will be set up for 10 full days, and we'll get all the time with God that we can fit into our schedules. :)

I was strangely reluctant to leave the church tonight after set up. With everything set up to pray, I was feeling eager to dive in even after a very long day of (procrastinating, last-minute) set up. And I was reflecting as I walked home on some of the amazing blessings that God has given to me personally through times of extended prayer.

The first prayer room I ran was how God taught me that I could trust Him to be my partner in whatever He called me to, even if no one else was there to help me. In the weeks leading up to this first prayer room, I was given two gifts randomly that amounted to $200--the only monetary gifts I have ever received for mission work and within $20 of the exact amount I needed to run the room generously. I had crazy chance meetings with young Christians who joined us to pray. I unintentionally walked into a board meeting of a Japan Christian organization that just happened to be discussing the Global Day of Prayer, and the news of my prayer room was broadcast out to all the Tokyo churches with lots of other Global Day of Prayer events. I had a mysterious man I only met one time sign up to pray from midnight to 4am every single night of the week. I never saw him again after that. There was exactly one slot in the whole week that it looked like was going to be empty because of a last minute cancellation. I was ready to go on positively even without having made it perfectly when a non-Christian student of mine who had not shown up to pray earlier in the week walked in the door at exactly that time asking if he could pray. He was the only random drop-in all week and just happened to be in the only slot that needed someone for our prayer to continue. So I *know* after this experience that God can provide whatever is necessary for His will to be done.

Each prayer room has been drastically different. The second was much harder work than the first. I needed to spend many more hours praying to fill time slots. On top of that, it was an incredibly emotionally exhausting week. While my heart was nearly bursting with joy throughout the first prayer room, the second prayer room seemed to be all sorrow. God used that time to pile up many hard situations and emotions that eventually pushed me to make a prayer request from the bottom of my heart that I had rarely (if ever) uttered in any kind of seriousness before. It's the only prayer I can remember from hours and hours in that room: a 3am heart-cry for God to give me a husband. That prayer scared me at the time, because I knew that I had Meant it. More than meaning it for myself, I knew that I had Meant it for the sake of God having His way with me. That is a kind of prayer that I have never had go unanswered, and usually the answer is swift. That was July of 2008, so, the wait was a little longer than normal. ;-)

The other two aren't quite as memorable. One was a prayer room at a church I was only loosely connected to, and I had a great four hours wandering around their sanctuary talking with God. I remember being blessed by a simple line that someone had written in the notebook of prayer impressions: "God wants to do so much more with us than He is doing now." By the final prayer room I know I was getting tired. We were praying in an environment that was prayerless and isolating. We had less help, it felt like. After running this prayer room, I was ready to be done praying 24/7 for a long time.

Somehow, though, after years of just feeling an inner grown when thinking about 24/7 . . . I have found myself *so* excited to be back in this again. After setting up the room today, I think this is only the second time that a prayer room has really had my heart. In the end, Joel and I planned it together, with several parts added in from our missionary friends. We're praying in the church sanctuary instead of in a small room, so we got to have fun creating different prayer stations.

The first stop is a simple alter that we've placed in front of the door with cushions for kneeling. We're asking that people go no further until they've laid down anything that is between them and God, and then that they enter His presence free of shame, with confidence.

Next we're going through the Bible, reading one chapter or more at a time and then passing the Bible reading 'baton' on to the next person.

The prayer room itself has spaces to be tucked away and feel more 'closed in', but the room is big, and so we've left room for pacers to walk around the space. We have an art corner tucked away with paints, a scrapbook for impressions of what God is saying to us, and origami paper. We have a board for intercessions and have gathered many different colors of ink so that people can show they are praying for others by putting a fingerprint on the request.

I'm not sure what God will do with this time. The past few months have been tumultuous and confusing. I am often comforted that the earth is still shaking here. I should give the disclaimer that I have *always* loved earthquakes. Don't get me wrong, I was deeply saddened by the deaths after the Big One. But earthquakes are a frequent event here--deaths are not. The earth shakes probably about once a week, often more, occasionally less. I've tried to put my finger on it for a long time--why the earth shaking brings me a deep sense of peace. Usually it seems like the earth is giving us a good shake to remind us that it is not the steady rock we're standing on--God is. And I think that is part of the peace. But beyond that, I think it is because so much is being shaken for me right now in terms of identity, community, family, and jobs that the earth shaking feels like it fits right in. The earthquakes make me look up at God and say, "Yep. You're still shaking the world all up." So much in my life can still be shaken, because so much of my identity still rests in earthly things. But as He shakes, more and more, I feel like He is drawing me more into the identity that rests on the Solid Rock--into the peace and identity in Him that cannot be shaken. There is so far left to go, and I pray He'll keep shaking until I'm fully His!

But what a better moment than this to spend lots of time in His presence. I hope that many others will come to the prayer room and be blessed. But even if it is only me and the handful of people who also want to come along, He's taught me to have a high sense of expectation when we clear our calendars and give all our free time for a short season to Him. Whether the blessings are of the tangible kinds you can point to--or the silent kinds that move mountains in secret places inside one's heart and Spirit--you know He loves it when His people pray, because He shows up!

A day in Pamela's nursery school English class

My life in Fukushima involves a lot of children. Joel and I actually teach about the same number of kids each week--which is pretty amazing, considering that he has his spread out over hours and days. I teach English to about 70 kids in between 1-5 years old, all within 2 hours total class time.

This Friday morning, I arrived to teach at a nursery school with 8 students, aged 1-5. I was immediately surrounded by excited little Japanese bodies. "Kamera Sensei!" (my name almost always comes out of little Japanese mouths this way) I had wondered before walking into the room if they would remember their "homework". I write newsletters to their parents every month, and I'd asked them to bring family pictures for class today. The kids are jumping up and down, and one boy shouts over their shouting that he's going to "introduce" his parents to me today. Their teacher has wisely tucked the pictures away until the appropriate time.

We go through our everyday routines. I show weather flashcards and ask, "Is it RAINY today??"

They vigorously shake their hands, nearly falling off their chairs, "NOOOO!!!!"

"Is it SNOWY??"

"NOOO!!!"

"Is it COLD??"

This one is usually cause for great debate. The girls and I are usually firmly of the belief that it is cold, while the boys, lead by a boy I'll call "Carl"'s bravery, insist that it is not.

We go through a few more weather cards, and then move on. These kids continue to stun me, and convince me that all children should start learning a second language in preschool. I've been teaching them half an hour once a week since October. In those five months, the kids have mastered colors, weather, body parts, fruits, articles of clothing, and family members. Considering we have two hours a month, this means they have learned all of this in 10 hours of English lessons.

Because their brains are such amazing language sponges, I've started trying out simple grammar. We're learning plurals by putting paper fruit all over the ground and then whacking the correct fruit when I call out "apple" or pile of fruit for "apples". By using simple sign language along with the words, the kids also easily remember phrases like, "I have a ____" or "I like ____". In this way, the kids were able to proudly "show and tell" pictures of their families yesterday. The older ones speaking along with my sign language to say, "I have a____" and then shouting out DAD! The younger kids seem to know the words "dad, mom, etc." with flashcards, but revert to Japanese when looking at their own parents and siblings. :)

My favorite part of class is the end, when I have each kid come and sit, answer a question, and receive a sticker. Because we know colors and body parts, some of the most motivated students can carry out whole conversations in English.

A three year old I'll call "Daisy" came up to get her sticker yesterday. I was amazed at how persistent she was at using English.

"What sticker do you want? There are blue ones, red ones, yellow ones..." Most of the kids will grab the stickers, but Daisy always uses English. Yesterday, she chose a blue one, and then she changed her mind.

"Where should I put it? On your hand? On your nose???"

"Orange." We repeated the whole conversation again, because I didn't get where "orange" was supposed to be. Finally I realized she wanted an orange sticker. And, lacking the English to say anything more than "orange" she was resiliently holding to what she knew. As soon as I switched to the orange sticker, she grinned and answered my second question, "Cheek!".

In this way, laughing and relating over preschool lives, we learn English.

Carl insists on putting his sticker under his hair on his forehead and races off to show his teacher, stumbling back to shout "thank you" as I'm going through the same routine with a new student.

Class ends, and I get the joy of being an English teacher in Japan vs. in America: hugs and physical contact are totally allowed at this age. The kids rush into line to say goodbye...sort of. Four of the students high five me and then race to the back of the line so that a perpetual high five train keeps coming, while the little ones crawl under my legs until I reach down and toss them up in the air, all giggles and grins. Some of the kids take running leaps into my arms, nearly knocking me over, and I somehow pack up a bag of teaching materials in the middle of all this action and affection. This continues all the way to the door, and little hands are often still high fiving through the crack as I cautiously shut it to go home.

I'm so thankful for these kids. I often think they give me much more than I give them. :)