October 2, 2011

I saw this new idol at a local stone masons shop.  The English writing (no Japanese) says The God of   things  as they  Ought to Be .  This god's name is Billiken.  Such a serene look on that face, but it can't see, speak or hear. It may be a cute object sitting there with all its toes, but it sure cannot answer anyone's prayers to make "things as they ought to be." 

October 1, 2011

Summer is over and cool weather prevails.  Such a pleasant change.  The garden is winding down; I have taken down all the tomato plants.  The Cosmos and morning glories are in full bloom.  Now to prepare for winter and next year's planting.

In mid September there was another typhoon that rolled through; it took about 5 days to finally cross Honshu.  We got buckets of water, flooded creeks and flower beds, but very little wind.  The wells will be stocked for the fall.   I added dirt to this flower bed and removed the iris as they have rotted the last two years.  That was just a couple of days before the storm.

 

This is the creek at the back of our property with the adjacent fields and streams flowing into it.  That was a lot of water.

August 21, 2011

Just finished this patriotic quilt for a U. S. military church in Okinawa.  It has a center panel from the Quilts of Valor collection bordered by 5" squares of military branches and patriotic fabrics, and finally bordered with RWB star fabric I found at the local fabric store.   The reverse is pieced with left over fabrics from the front and a blue stripped piece from my stash.   This was photographed hanging in the front of our church room.

 

Summer quilting lessons part 2

This week I was asked to speak at a ladies' meeting  at the Senri Newtown Baptist Church in Osaka.  I was to share my salvation testimony and then do a short patchwork project.  The testimony part was not that difficult as I had one already written out and just added some other stuff at the end.  The patchwork project was something else.  Fortunately, I had sewn up my box of scraps back in June and had about 100 pieces of 6x9 size crazy patches that would be perfect for Mug Rugs.  I set out to cut backing using various fabrics I had and the batting from a roll leftover from the class last week.

I chose about 10 of my quilts to show, three of my church quilts and other bed covers.  Pastor Ogawa's wife really likes my patchwork. 


My plan was to give away some of my pre-cut pieces so I prepared 50 sets of 20 charms.  There were 53 ladies that came so according to what the Pastor's wife told me, since there was not enough for everyone to have the same thing, we gave them a choice of either an extra mug rug set or a charm set.  

This group of ladies was not as meticulous as last week and I think most of them were able to quilt the sandwich fine and were working on a rolled binding when we had to stop.  They all said it was fun and interesting and enjoyed my testimony, especially about the part where I said when I first saw my husband I thought he was such a handsome guy.  :-) 

Pastor Ogawa was pleased with the turnout and had asked if I had done the same thing at other churches to which I replied no, this was the first time.  He said he was going to recommend me to the churches.  :-P


I gave the church one of the cross quilts I made.  It was actually a copy of their previous church logo that I enlarged back in 2004.   Now I get to make another one; just add it to my growing list of "want to do" quilts.

Summer quilting lessons part 1

I was asked to teach two separate lessons on patchwork quilting.  The first was August 1 and 2 over at the local Bible school.  Six ladies came with their machines. The class was 8 hours over two days.  I had prepared several quilt blocks for each of them to sew together.  One lady was really fast in assembling her blocks while the others were much slower.  They each carefully measured and drew the seam allowances and slowly stitched them.  On the second day these four had just four blocks finished so I gave them suggestions on what to do with those.  A couple made a 4 block sampler and two decided to make   individual finished blocks, like a large mug rug. The last lady chose some fabrics and stitched them in a checkerboard pattern.  I believe they were pleased with the results.  


Looking back, if I do this again, I would do something much simpler.  This class dealt with mainly triangles.  Perhaps doing just squares and rectangles would be better for beginners.  We shall see if I get asked next year to teach another class.    :-)

The Kings came to Japan

Pastor King and son Joe from Maryland came for a two week visit in mid-July. 

Their first Sunday here we had sukiyaki for lunch.  This is a Japanese dish cooked on the table in large frying pans.  It is thin sliced beef, cut up cabbage, leeks, onion, a clear noodle, and mushrooms with the sukiyaki sauce added and the whole pot is simmering on the table while your mouth salivates.  

This is a typical Japanese watermelon with a typical price-tag.  Put in a decimal point and add 20 percent.  

Monday night we went to the local Sushiro restaurant.  It serves individual plates of various sushi that comes around to your table via a conveyer belt.  Here Pastor and Joe are trying sushi. Joe had his first taste of wasabi.

 Those are bottles of Ginger Ale on the table and the stack of empty plates after dinner.  Each represents about $1.20

May 26, 2011

The Osaka Quilt Show was today and four of us from the Kansai Sakura Quilters group went to see it.  For me this was the largest quilt show in Japan that I have seen.  As with previous shows, all the quilts on display (all four of us agreed) were way beyond our skill levels.  The colors, blending, designs, hand quilting, and workmanship was superb.   I’m looking at all the quilts and wondering first, where do the designers get their ideas and second, I am in awe at how the quilts are done.   Since these were made by Japanese (as I did not see any foreigners among the entries),  the subjects of many of the quilts was Japanese culture like tamari balls, sakura, there was a Buddah and several oni or devilish characters. 

One of the vendor displays was of hand made mini kimono.  Looked like a small army of them.  Bigger than a baby or child kimono, smaller than a full size kimono.  The color spectrum was all in earth tones.  Here is a photo. 

There were several walls of mini mini quilts; about 18 inches square.  Many were done by members of the same quilting school so you saw similar designs and techniques.   These pictures do not show the intricate detail of each quilt.

We spent about half the time looking through the many vendor displays.  I bought a beautiful blue yukata for about $12.00 that I think I will turn into a skirt.  I found an Olfa rotary pinking cutter and it works beautifully.  Now to find replacement blades.  I may be cutting my fabrics with this blade for some time. 

One vendor sold variegated fabrics from yellow to green to purple.  Very pretty.  What to do with it?  I also found some Americana prints I can use in a quilt. 

On another note, I finished the blue/brown diamond quilt for the Gardner’s Bible camp.  Turned out to be king size and actually beautiful.  The quilting was very simple, nothing intricate like at the quilt show, but serviceable. 

May 2011

The first week of May here in Japan is called Golden Week.  It has a string of national holidays, so most people take a spring vacation.  One learns not to go anywhere during this week because everyone else is going there.  

There is a heron standing in this rice field.

On Mother’s Day May 8^th we had 12 people in church, no visitors.  We gave each of the moms a furoshiki (a square cloth used to carry items) made from purple or orange fabric from Senegal.  Matsumoto-sensei gave us several meters.  I received phone calls from each of the kids except Peter.  It was good to talk to them. 

Thursday, May 12, was Peter’s 24^th birthday.  I called him and he said he was doing great.  He moved to a basement apartment in a location that takes 10 miles off the commute to Virginia.  The rent is about the same that we paid back in 1995 for an entire house.  It would be nice to own something.  Be that as it may, Stephen turned 27 on the 16^th.  He is also doing fine, not much info coming forth.  The 18^th was my birthday and I spent part of the day with the quilting group making one for the tsunami victims.  It will be pretty when done.   Teresa and Matthew called and Stephen sent a short email.  

This peach or salmon iris is the only different colored one in the yard.  The rest are lavender or purple.  

 My set of ceramic sheep representing each family member.  They need a repaint job. 

 The common lavender iris in the yard.  One year recently there were over 100.  Something happened to most of them in 2010 and they rotted. Just a fraction remain, so will start the multiplication over.

 Frog friends are content to sit in the lillies.

 Ajuba is a ground cover with these beautiful purple flowers in May that last for a couple of weeks. 

This is our nightly frog song. 

April 2011

Spring has come to Kobe, Japan.  After an unusually cold winter here with more snow than normal, the sun started to shine and the sakura trees bloomed.  For about 10 days around here and at least 2-3 weeks in this area, the trees burst forth with delicate pink blossoms.  These are not at all like the sakura we saw in Okinawa in February.   So very refreshing. 

 

The garden has started to bud and bring forth their floral.  Most of my garden has purple flowers of various kinds.  Don’t know how that all happened when the garden was originally planted.  

This year I’ve decided to have a small vegetable garden, using the square foot method.  Much easier to manage the ever-present weeds.  Mostly salad items have been planted:  tomatoes, mini tomatoes, colored peppers, sunny lettuce, beets, chard, okra. 

Monday-Wednesday, March28-30, 2011

Spring Camp 2011
Seven Independent Baptist Japanese churches joined together for the annual Youth Camp for these three days.  This year the camp grounds were located in Tanbata area of Hyogo prefecture.  It was about an hour's drive northeast from our church.  It is a beautiful camp area in the mountains with running water going through it.  The local farmers use it for irrigation so we were admonished not to throw anything in the streams. The giant riverbed, however, was dried up.  Maybe in the summer it runs.

The grounds itself have a small pond and a flock of ducks (or is it a gaggle?) and the lone mascot--a wild boar in a cage.  He looked so sad being cooped up in a cement-floor cage...no dirt around at all. 

A very bored boar.This video was actually the last day of camp.  The brothers sang the theme song Press On! with the teens from Senri New Town Baptist Church in Osaka. 
The Herbster Trio, Matthew, Mark and Mike, were the camp speakers; each spoke twice and challenged hearts every time.  Each speaker emphasized the importance of serving God when you are young and letting God use you to impact or influence the people around you.  Good, solid, Bible preaching.   Several teens made decisions to follow Christ and put Him first.  On the last day, five of boys indicated they were called to be preachers.  They range in age from 17 to 25 and one will be starting Bible college in a couple of weeks.  Let us pray this is the start of a revival here in Japan. 

The group activities were a blast!  We first played volleyball with a huge ball and it was so fun. It did hurt the wrists the only time I got to hit it.  The kids loved it.  We had a Blue Team headed by Mark and the Red Team headed by Mike.  The Blue Team won that contest. 

  Big Ball Volleyball

We next played a game called Tagalot.  One team is sitting back-to-back in chairs spaced about 2-3 feet apart down a long line.  The other team is to run between the chairs trying not to get tagged by a baton the sitting team uses.  The baton holder cannot go through the chairs buy has to hand it to someone seated and then take his/her place.  The new baton holder tries to tag the runner and it goes until that happens.  It was tons of fun and very tiring.  The Red Team won that one. 
  Tagalot
The second day after the morning service we went to the ball field and played Three Ball Baseball.  The object is that three members at a time of the batting throw or kick a ball to the outfield.  Then they run the bases trying to make it to home plate before all three balls are thrown to three people from the opposing team and put into a bucket near home plate.  If the runners stop at second and third they get points and 5 points for making it home; no points for standing on first base.  The Blue Team one that one.
 Three Ball Baseball
After the evening service there was a Bible Quiz game of sorts.  The questions were all about the messages the Herbsters preached.  The first one to stand got to answer the question and if it was correct, they got to play a computer game called Sorry, Pig!  The winner could choose different colored circles and if what was behind it was an animal with a number, they got points, or double or triple points.  They could choose to stop or try again.  The animals kept moving around so it was not certain where the Sorry, Pig was.  If you got that, you lost all your points.  The Red team won that one.  

The last game of camp was dodge ball. The Red Team won Dodge Ball. Actually this photo is from the Red side looking at the Blue Team. 

We appreciate the Herbster Trio taking time out of their schedules to minister to us here in Japan.  They were a blessing to everyone; their singing was superb and harmony was great.  They have such a happy, fun, positive attitude about Christ and life in general that we hope it is contagious to the Japanese who tend to take a more serious and fatalistic approach to life.  We pray God will use their time here in a great way so that the church can see an increase for God's Glory.   Thank you for coming! 

These two videos are of the Herbster brothers singing in Japanese.   They did a good job!

Mike and Mark singing Be Not Afraid in Japanese. 

This next one is the Herbsters with Isaiah on the left and Elijah Ogawa on the right singing It Is Enough. 

Friday, March 25, 2011

 Henry and Mark Herbster

This is the final day of the Bible Conference.  Mark preached this morning from Ezekiel 3:17 about being a watchman whose task it is to see and speak.  He is not to save the city, but to warn of danger.  The gospel tells us everyone is to preach the gospel, simply proclaiming what God has done for you.   Tell people they need to change course to go to heaven.  We are accountable for our own obedience.  It is not just the job of the pastors and missionaries.   Mark was encouraging in this message as he got many excited about sharing the gospel. 

Mike preached second on 2 Cor. 11:15 on being masters of ministry.
1)  The joy of ministry is to see people we have led to the Lord serve God on their own, continuing with strength and power.  2) the duty of ministry is to spend and be spent.  Keep telling the gospel to a lost and dying world.  3) the disappointment of ministry is true, but we need to press on  and keep telling people how to get saved.  It is not our job to save a person; we cannot.  It is out job to warn and tell and God will do the saving.  

At the end of the morning service, Matt told how he came to write Lord Send Laborers.  As he toured many foreign countries his heart was broken for the lost people and the song was written as a prayer for God to work in Matt's heart and send him to the foreign field if that is what God wanted.  He then led the congregation in singing that song in Japanese.  It was a very fitting end to a wonderful week.  

At the graduation service in the evening, several special songs were sung.  Matt Herbster preached the message.  First though, he gave Kato-san a Wilds Camp T-shirt.  He said it was the smallest one they had (it was too big for Kato-san).  Mind you, Matthew is 6'6" and Kato-san is about a foot shorter.  

Anyway the message was from Deut. 8:11 and warning us to beware not to forget God.  We forget God by acting if sin never happened.  when we live contrary to God's commands it means we have forgotten God.  When we are proud, we have forgotten God.  2 Tim. 10:17 says let him that glory, glory in the Lord.  We forget God when we are consumed with other gods.  Lastly, we need to teach our children, the next generation, about God or they will forget and that generation will be lost.  

Kato-san received his diploma and everyone stood and clapped.   Afterwards, there was a reception at the Bible School.

 

Next week we go to spring camp and will hear the Herbster brothers encourage the teens to stand for God.   May it be a blessing to everyone going.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Isaiah Ogawa leading Saved by the Blood of the Crucified One---one of my favorites in both languages.

This morning Kato-san, the only graduate this year, preached from Isaiah 55:5.  I did not take notes in my Bible, so I do not remember what he spoke about.  His delivery was good and he will be effective as an assistant pastor at his home church. 

The singing was great, the spirit is good and God is moving.

Mark Herbster preached the second message this morning from Genesis 39 about Joseph and fleeing temptation.  He faithfully served his master and had a good testimony. Satan wants to ruin our testimony any way he can.  The time of temptation is when we are strong.   The truth of God is persistent, persuasive.  Joseph repeatedly told Potiphar's wife NO, daily.  Joseph had decided in advance that to sin against God would be worse than doing any sin.  He recognized the consequences of disobedience.  "How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?"  When the wife finally caught him, he fled and left quickly.  Run as fast as you can in the other direction.    Joseph is an excellent example of putting God first and asking Him to help in time of need.

Ron White preached in the evening service from Isaiah 43:18 which admonishes us not to remember the former things, neither consider the things of old. 

1)   The promise is for now.  God is getting ready to do something.  We are not to be discouraged about what has not happened in the past, as far as the work here in Japan is concerned.  God is ready to do a new thing.  Phil. 3:13 and 2 Cor. 5:17.

At the end of the service, all the graduates of KIBBS who were in the service sang the final medley.  They had NO practice.  Jenny Harris played piano and Ron led.  

March 23, 2011

David Harris interpreted for Mike Herbster

The first to preach this morning was Mike Herbster, the younger of the twins,  who preached from 2 Tim. 6:11-12 about being a man of God. 

First we must flee sin—the danger of sin—stay away from it.

Second, follow the things of God:  righteousness and godliness, faith, patience, endurance.  Thirdly, fight the good fight of faith with the right spirit, follow His steps. 

Matthew Herbster also preached again this morning out of 2 Tim. 3:10-17.  The point was that we should expect persecution as a Christian.  Paul admonished Timothy to remember what he was taught by his mom and grandmom.

Persecution involves these:

1)   Purity is given by God  2 Peter 1:20

2)   It is Profitable, beneficial and valuable  Isaiah 55:5

3)   Purpose of persecution is to make us perfect

This is the theme song of the Conference written by Matthew Herbster.   It is called Lord Send Laborers.  It is a bit shaky as I was trying to keep Pastor Hiraoka in the camera site.  He is a very energetic song leader! 

March 22, 2011

This week is the KIBBS Bible Conference.  The Herbster Trio are the speakers at this annual event at the Bible School at which Henry teaches English.  This year there is one graduate, Kato-san.  The videos I will upload are just of some of the music sung there, all in Japanese, of course.  You will probably recognize the hymns.

The oldest of the three brothers, Matthew, spoke this evening with Ron White translating.  His text is Nehemiah 1:1-4.  A brief outline follows.   The main point was now is not the time to stand still or retreat.  

1)   Compassionate man.  Nehemiah saw the need of rebuilding the wall around Jerusalem. He was a man of prayer and supplication.  When he was told of the condition of Jerusalem, he wept.

         

         

2)   Consistent man.  2:1  As the king’s cupbearer he was never sad in front of him.  The king took notice and asked the reason.  Then Nehemiah told him and God moved on the king’s heart and he provided what was needed for the rebuilding, plus safe passage to Jerusalem.

3)   Courageous man.  Somebody needs to do it.  He had a plan and put it to work. Even in the face of constant opposition from two people in particular, he did not quit and kept working until the work was done.

4)   Contageous man.  He was excited about the work.  He started praising God.  He was persistent.  His excitement got everyone motivated.

   The title of the song is Keep the Race Before Us sung my Mark, Matthew and Mike Herbster