Back to Japanese Studies and a Trip to Karuizawa!

Liz and I at Denny's having breakfast and getting back to our Japanese studies.

It’s been almost two weeks since I’ve posted, but after the last one I spent several days inside trying to shake off my head cold.  I’m feeling much better now and I’m out in public again.  We have been having cold weather and snow here in Nagano City, although it doesn’t seem to be as much snow as last year so far.  We started back with our Japanese lessons this week, so I’ll take my first kanji test of the new year next week.

Laminated kanji posters on the wall of our bath.

I got an unusual birthday gift from my wife this year, kanji posters.  She found the first through sixth grade kanji on posters at our bookstore.  She had the posters laminated and put them up on the wall of our bath. The walls of our bath are magnetic, so we are now surrounded by kanji.

Liz at Karuizawa train station. You can see the ski slopes in the background. The retreat center we stayed at was about 10 minutes from here.

We were invited to a three-day training in Karuizawa this past week.  The training was on helping us learn to make disciples who follow Jesus, and to be an effective witness for Jesus.  Jesus gave us clear commands to do these.  The training was really good and I appreciate being able to participant.  We met people who had travelled there from Brazil, Peru, Taiwan, South Korea, and the US.  We met old friends and made new friends while we were there.

During the past couple of weeks, I’ve been able to meet up with Koji and Saiki for coffee.  I’ve also been able to sit down with Shinichi and go through one of Jesus’ parables called “The Rich Fool” which is found in the book of Luke.  Our friend, Eugene, came over one evening to share about his vacation to Taiwan.  He had a very encouraging trip, meeting up with friends, and sharing about Jesus with people there.

During the training time, we had many opportunities to break into small groups and discuss what we were learning.

Liz started back teaching this week, so our routine is getting a little back to normal.  But with all the wedding plans and talks, it won’t be a normal routine for a while now.

I started a new book that was given to me by Sara and Bill at Christmas titled The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham.  It’s a huge book at almost 600 pages, but I’m looking forward to reading it.  Hopefully it will help me become an intelligent investor.  I’m still reading in Genesis, Psalms, John, and Romans.

With my friend, Gary, who invited us to the training in Karuizawa.

This afternoon an acquaintance I’ve made here in town dropped in.  We got into a discussion of the church and following Jesus.  We talked about how the church is the people who follow Jesus and how it can get confused with a building that those people meet in.  He said that he could now understand this for the first time.  We then had an encouraging talk about Jesus.  Today it was snowing with the sun shining.  This seems a bit unusual to me, but we have seen it happen a few days this winter.  Well that’s all for now from here in Nagano on a cold winter day.

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