Thanksgiving week, 2011

On Wednesday the 23^rd this week, was the Japanese thanksgiving holiday.  I was able to secure a space at a recycle market at the local sports park that was held on this day.  The weather was threatening rain on Tuesday night. The morning dawned a bit cloudy, but the sun came out and it was a go for the day.  We packed the van with the items we were going to sell and headed out.  We had a vehicle space meaning we could set up shop out of the van.  We set out a plastic sheet over the ground and put out the items.   The crowds started coming just before 10:00 a.m. 

The weather was cloudy all day, just a few drops of rain fell.  Why Sara has her hand over her face, I do not know.  :-)

Across from us was a petting zoo and pony rides for 100 yen. There were numerous activities for the kids on the inner ballpark field such as a mini train ride, games, big taiyo drums playing.  Plus there was plenty of Japanese food and long lines.  One interesting thing was seeing people eat something wrapped around a stick.  Not just any stick, but a small branch cut from trees—rough cut.  There were several open fire pits with people holding the sticks wrapped with bread over the fire, similar to roasting marshmallows. I don’t know, but eating it off what looked like a not-so-very-clean stick did not appeal to me.  These pictures are the petting place, the bottom picture is of two rabbits.

Anyway, back to the recycle market.  Sales were slow going until about 1 pm when I lowered most of the prices by half.  Nothing was originally priced over $15 and most was under $5.   Sales picked up and as I told more than one person I did not want to take the stuff back home, so many got a good deal.  I had made three large pine cone wreaths which all sold (yea!) and about a dozen or more fabric ornaments which also all sold (yea, again!), plus several handmade quilted bags and coin purses, most of which sold.  There were a bunch of beads and jewelry that actually sold well this time.  Clothes did not sell except maybe three items.  Fabric pieces did not sell, so they went back into my stash at home. 

Bottom line was I cleared 12,000 yen or about $130 which was way better than I thought would happen.   It was a good day.  

November 17, 2011

Good news.  The cost to repair the damaged car will be about $300 or 26, 250 yen.  This was at least half of what I thought it could be.  The work is being done by the same place where we purchased it last December.  The man said the entire rear door would be replaced instead of just the window as that is cheaper.  Thank you, Lord, for this blessing in a blessing.  Perhaps by Saturday we can get the car back.  God is good all the time.

November 14, 2011

 

The morning was chilly, dew on the windshield, as I took the non-burnable trash up to the collection cage.  Normally I do not pull as close to the cage as I did this morning.  There are two small buildings to the side of this place and a driveway on the far right as you face it, and I usually backup to turn around there.  However, this day as I was backing up and turning the wheel to the right, I was aiming for the driveway but misjudged and hit the building instead.  I heard shattering glass as the rear window broke into a thousand pieces, easily a 1,000.   Oh, great, just what I need!  I did not get out and inspect the damage mostly because it was just me out there and I hit a building and not a person.  So, I returned home and woke up Henry and told him.  “It will be OK,” he said.  I was not convinced. 

After breakfast about 9:00 a.m. I walked to the gomi station to clean up the glass, armed with a dust pan and broom and trash bag. I forgot the camera.  A pile of black glass was around the corner of the building and in front of the sliding door.  This building is the local bulletin board.  I could see a crack in the wall by the door frame which went into the foundation about an inch or two, but nothing else.  Now, whether that was there before, I do not remember.  So it took about 10 minutes to clean up the broken glass from under rocks and around the door.  Since this trash could go out with the non-burnable stuff, I put it into one of the bags I brought up earlier.  Then I returned home and explained the damage I saw to Henry.  I thought it would be easy enough to repair. 

 

The frame has scratches, above, where the car hit it.

About 10:00 a.m. Henry took the van and the camera and inspected the damage.  The pictures showed some glass shards on the bulletin board frame that I did not see.  There was little damage to the car itself.  When he got back home he called the police and was told to go to the local station and file a report.  We drove the car to the Upper Hata Cho station, a little outpost really.  No police were there, but a phone was available and he called; someone would be there shortly.  About 10 minutes later a cruiser with flashing lights pulls up and two young officers step out.  Immediately they notice the back of the car—no window.  I noticed that one of the men was left-handed, which is really rare in Japan.  He said “southpaw!” when I said I was one also. 

 

After exchanging information on the car and my license, we led them over to the gomi station.  They determined that the car apparently hit the bulletin board frame and not the building where the crack was.  It was not a city building like the one next to it, so they would have to find out the owner and the owner would contact us.  They said not to worry about it as the apparent damage was very minimal. 

So that was the morning events here in Kobe.  Now to find out what the replacement window will cost…

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.