I'm back

It's been a busy couple of weeks over here. Last week was the CPI (Church Planting Institute) conference near Mt. Fuji, for all missionaries, tent-makers, Japanese pastors and lay people, and anyone else interested in church-planting in Japan. The conference started on Tuesday and ended Friday at lunch. I definitely benefited and was challenged by Josiah Bancroft, whose seminars were the ones I attended the most. He spoke about Grace, and how grace works itself out in our relationship with God, with our families, with our teams, and then in our world. (Josiah has been a missionary to several areas, including Ireland) I was very encouraged and energized by the people who came from the States to serve in various capacities at the conference. They were great fun to be around. I also had the joy of meeting some new people (to me) who are working in Japan, including 5 french-speaking Europeans! I thoroughly enjoyed speaking French throughout the week and realizing, to my great relief, that I can still sound French.

Before and after the conference our missionaries from Hokkaido came down, some before, some after, for some fun times. When you're from the States living and working in Japan, you take advantage of the times you get to eat American food. So we feasted at Outback Steakhouse, TGIF's, Wendy's, and El Toritos. Yum!

Now it's back to work and classes this week and it's going to be full. I have classes today; Wednesday is always my day off; Thursday I have classes; Friday is yet to be finalized; Saturday my Starbucks ladies (Tomiko and Junko) are coming over for dessert and coffee, after which Tomiko and I will head to the Good News church for the Gospel music workshop. Sunday will be church and who knows what else; next Monday is my longest teaching day; and then next Tuesday the Wright family from my church in Chicago is coming to visit!! As you can maybe see...busy, busy, busy.

When life moves faster than we can humanly keep up with, it's absolutely vital to grab hold of the fact that we are human and in great need of a supernatural, super-energetic, super-organized, super-restful, super-enduring and purposeful God. I hope you can claim that too, as I imagine every one of you is getting busier by the minute with Thanksgiving and Christmas just around the corner. :-) As my friend Chris Wright always tells me....don't forget to have fun!!