Happy Birthday, Yume!

The daughter of my wonderful friend Beniko Iwakura celebrated her 4th birthday recently. We thought it was funny that her store-bought cake read, "Happy Birtday."

A beautiful hymn to fight the legalist within

Lately, I have come to understand once again what a HUGE struggle I have with legalism. It occurs most often when I hesitate to come to God in prayer because I have fallen short of God's commandments. I had to repent this past Lord's day for insulting the cross by thinking lowly of the work of Jesus Christ on the cross; I forgot AGAIN that it is always by grace that I come to God in prayer. This hymn moved me to tears last night as I thought, "Was not Christ's work enough?" I imagined all that Jesus suffered in the garden and on the cross and cried as I thought that Christ has secured our way to God not only to salvation but also to bold prayer. I LOVE THIS HYMN!

Come, ye sinners, poor and needy, Weak and wounded, sick and sore;
Jesus ready stands to save you, Full of pity, love and power.

Come, ye thirsty, come, and welcome, God’s free bounty glorify;
True belief and true repentance, Every grace that brings you nigh.

Come, ye weary, heavy laden, Lost and ruined by the fall;
If you tarry till you’re better, You will never come at all.

View Him prostrate in the garden; On the ground your Maker lies.
On the bloody tree behold Him; Sinner, will this not suffice?

Let not conscience make you linger, Not of fitness fondly dream;
the fitness He requireth is to feel your need of Him.

Lo! the incarnate God ascended, Plead the merit of His blood:
Venture on Him, venture wholly, Let no other trust intrude.

I will arise and go to Jesus, He will embrace me in His arms;
In the arms of my dear Savior, O there are ten thousand charms.
- Jo­seph Hart 1759

Old photos of friends REVISITED

This is Chiemi - she taught me Japanese for six months before I went to Japan in 2001. We are still good friends and she is coming here for a visit in December! Hooray! She taught me how to bow, how to use chopsticks, and a lot of basic Japanese before I went to Japan in 2001. In this photo we are eating ramen, my all-time favorite Japanese food ever!!This is Naohiro Ito, my cutest student ever! He was a joy to teach and could pronounce English well since he already spoke German and Japanese!
This is my precious host mom Kikuko and her son Yotaro. She was my dearest friend who I left behind in Sendai. It hurts to be so far from this dear friend.
This is my friend Mayumi. She lives in South Carolina now. We are eating cow tongue in this photo.

Great memories...

What I'm reading

I LOVE to read. Right now I am reading The Power of Prayer in a Believer's Life by Charles Spurgeon and Heaven: Your Real Home by Joni. There are a million books I want to read. I especially like biographies. Right now I am really getting into reading about Charles Spurgeon. Last night I read about his amazing childhood - AMAZING!! IIt is such a joy to curl up with a good book before going to bed and reading about men and women of the past who served God with their whole heart and soul.

Thoughts about Japan

Well, after posting a lot of photos and remembering different experiences and friendships, I feel very thankful for all the friends God has blessed with me over the past five years. In August 2001, I had just arrived in Sendai, Japan and started a journey of learning to love and understand the people of Japan. I cannot imagine what my life would be like now if I hadn't spent those two years in Japan. It was truly a life-altering experience. I've been back in the U.S. for about three years now. The first two years were difficult with the tremendous pain of re-adjustment and reverse culture shock. Making Japanese friends here in the States has been the biggest help in learning to readjust to life in the U.S. They understood what I had experienced and I could understand their frustrations and confusion about understanding and interpreting American culture. Some differences in culture we could laugh at and both found equally bewilidering, such as the tendency of Americans to blow their noses very loudly, the huge portions of food at restaurants, and the overall terrible customer service here. In addition, my own self-study of Japanese culture through conversations and reading books has left me with a sense of wonder that our cultures are so totally and completely different. Also, language study seems less formidable to me than it used to. About two years ago, I found a wonderful Japanese teacher who has helped me immensely in speaking and writing Japanese. God has grown my love and passion for the Japanese language, and it has become a real joy to study it. That is 100% God's work in me, because when I lived in Japan, I was not a very disciplined student and really hated learning kanji (a form of written Japanese using Chinese characters). Right now I am working very hard to improve my reading ability in Japanese which is very poor, I think. To read a newspaper, one needs to know about 1,850 Chinese characters, and at the most, I know about 500-600 characters. I have a long way to go. I am also attempting to read as much as I can about Japanese history - very interesting!
I love the people of Japan, and I believe God Himself has given me this love for the Japanese people. It warms my heart to think of God loving the Japanese people through someone as flawed, weak, naturally selfish, and messed up as myself. It is a joy to meet Japanese people and learn about their lives and to tell them about the God of the Universe who is a compassionate, loving, forgiving, merciful Savior. It is the desire of my heart to spend the rest of my life minstering to these lovely people in some form, whether in the U.S. or in Japan.

Photos of Japan/ Friends from Japan

shrine in winter
Sendai Station
in front of a shrine in Niigata
with Kaoru & Kei in Sendai

with Shiho in New York City
kids' class in Nagamachi, Sendai (2003)

Photos of Japanese friends

Here are two photos of me and my wonderful friend Saori. We went to Mexico together in April 2005 and had a great time! Saori was so adventurous and learned quite a bit of Spanish in only eight days! This was a fun party! None of these friends live in Philadelphia now...I miss them a lot.


These are my dear, dear friends Saori , Shinji, and Hiromichi. Saori now lives in New York and Shinji and Hiromichi went back to Japan after graduating from U Penn. Isn't the photo with Hiromichi holding Elisabeth Cummings the cutest?

Isn't God amazing to bring such wonderful friends into our lives?

El Salvador 2004

I have been thinking a lot of El Salvador lately. I felt like posting some photos of my 2004 trip. It brought back lots of memories!

with baby Moises The beach that I went to in El Salvador had black sand!

Wow, I am missing El Salvador these days...I went to work in Shalom Children's home near the city where I was born. It was my first time to be back to El Salvador since I was adopted at two months of age and it was a profound experience. I helped take care of babies and young girls. I still keep in touch regularly with two of the ladies I met in the home. I enjoyed looking just like everyone else for the first time in my life.The lovely young lady above is Estela Gomez - she was a very special young woman and I miss her terribly! She's 15 now...I hope I can go back to El Salvador in 2007 for a short visit!

Farewell, Summer!

It was a good summer...here I am with Hitomi and Ayako. It was their first time to eat water ice, I think.
I was sad to see the summer go. I had so much fun with my Japanese friends.