Ward Wanderings

First Snow of 2023

January 25, 2023, we woke up to snow on the ground, about an inch of thick and sticky snow, very rare here in Ono City. These are photos taken around the house.

Looking right out the front door

Our heater/AC unit with lots of little ceramic figures.

Looking left out the front door.

Driveway and our two vehicles

This is the garden gate of our

neighbor across the street

The corner of the house next

to the cars

Sunrise after the snow stopped

Behind the house

Our neighbor put old used carpets

on the ground to prevent weeds

This garden is in front of the

house next to ours. A huge

evergreen bush was cut down

last week next to the snow-covered

plate over the ditch

From the 2nd floor window

Lunar Eclipse November 8, 2022 Blood moon

It was a very clear night to see the blood moon. This is facing East out our backdoor in Ono . My camera and phone camera did not take the best photos, sorry.

Partial eclipse getting dark from the bottom

Here you can see the reddish moon

This was toward the end of the eclipse. It rose higher in the sky as the moon turned red

The roof at our previous church was leaking a bit, so Pastor Mawatari asked Henry to replace it. He had estimates from companies upwards of $20,000, so Henry got to work figuring out what was needed. He called some preachers and asked if they could help and many said yes. They have each done repair work at the Bible School and at our current residence in Ono City, so they knew what to do.

From the backside of the building before the scaffolding was put up.

October 31 the guys were able to remove all the old roof shingles and some of the plywood that was rotted. November 1 it was a bit rainy, so they did not get much done and covered the roof with tarps to keep the rain out. Nov. 2 the weather was great (for the rest of the week also) and they were able to get most of the roof shingled. Nov. 3 they finished two of the smaller roofs over the door (4 total). The last day, Nov. 4, they completed the new shingles and all the smaller roofs.

Mrs. Mawatari and ladies from INPBC made the delicious meals. I made pizza on Wednesday and several of the workers stayed for the Prayer service.

Several ladies helped with collecting the old shingles and other stuff from the roof. Then it was put under the house (to save the cost of having someone take it away).

On Friday a new missionary and his two sons came to help, so we put them to work tearing the large tarp-like sheets (I forgot the name, it was between the plywood and shingles) and put the smaller pieces into plastic bags so it could go under the house. Having three extra sets of hands was a great help. Then we went around the house and cleaned up the scraps of stuff and put that under the house.

We thank God the job went so well without serious injury.

Tearing off the old shingles and tossing them overboard.

Some of the plywood was rotted, so it was replaced.

The finished roof. A job well done. Thanks to all the helpers.

Granddaughters Fall 2022

Alora and Clarity celebrated their 5th birthday in August. This year's theme was Princess

This one is Clarity in Blue

Here is Alora in Pink top and bottom

Arianna's first day of school

She was so excited to be going to kindergarten. Here she is riding the church school bus.

The sign she's holding gives details about her

Ono happenings #2

Rice was planted in late May/early June

The rice is growing nicely in some very large fields

This looks like a dinosaur to me--it's vines growing up the electrical pole and onto the wires.

One of my gladiolas growing in the garden wall.

I saw this bus pointing to a berry farm. Have not gone there yet.

Harvest from the garden. The yellow/green thing is a zucchini, next is a huge cucumber, last is two tomatoes and a skinny carrot. :-)

I fried the large zucchini and substituted it for eggplant and made parmesean --baked in the oven. Very Tasty. found the recipe at All Recipies.com

For Father's Day we passed out 8,000 flyers and two new families came, one with a young boy. They are both from Tokyo and have been here just a few months and are Christians. Please pray they will come regularly and get involved in the work here. The last Sunday in July a new visitor came for the first time. He is my Japanese teacher and teaches at a local high school during the day. Friday nights there's a Japanese class for anyone who wants to take it (lots of foreigners in the area working at factories). My teacher speaks English and I invited him a few months ago. He said in August he could come when summer vacation starts. :-)

That catches you up on what's happening here in this part of Hyogo-ken

Some happenings around Ono

There are a few things I see almost daily around here and I am sharing the photos with a description.

This is the owner's shed in which Henry can store all his tools and building supplies, plus the owner's tractor to plow the fields.

About twice a year a big truck comes and picks up a huge metal meshed container containing non-burnable trash the owner has thrown out. It is interesting to watch the crane lift this heavy thing and put it on the truck to haul away somewhere.

The following are some sunsets and cloud formations on our drive to church

Some rare fog seen looking up our street; our house roof and driveway are on the left.

Purple iris bloomed in May. Next to it is the start of lettuce and green beans

This is the Kakogawa river about 1/4 mile from our house. It's flooded because of heavy rains back in June.

Across the river you can see construction equipment that is working on a new bridge to cross over the river. On this side is Ono City where we live. Once you cross the river it becomes Kato City, fyi.

This is the latest (July) work--rebar in cement on the opposite side of the river we cross. The road to the river will lead up to this and the new bridge which is scheduled to be completed on halloween. :-)