Well my friends, we made it! After being awake for over 24 hours Josh and I finally made it to Edmonton. Upon arrival at the airport we were picked up by our dear CLBI friends Andrew, Kara, and Andrea, and then immediately went to Sherwood park to watch CLBI's easter choir and drama performance. It was one of the best I have seen to this day.

For the last couple days in Japan Josh and I spent time with Cliff and Marg in Tokyo. Having completed our goals on the construction projects in Karuizawa, we felt like we could really relax and enjoy the remainder of our time in Beautiful Japan. One evening we went to see the Tokyo symphony orchestra in Suntory music hall. We celebrated Marg's 65th birthday at a Japanese home in typical Japanese style, and we spent a day in Yokohama with Cliff seeing the sights and eating ice cream (fantastic stuff I might add). Overall our trip was a huge success, and I am convinced that it wouldn't have been, had we not had the prayers of possibly hundreds of people backing us. Here are just a few of the many answered prayers: Josh an I are still friends (probably better than ever), We were able to play a big part in leading a fellow Canadian to the Lord (who knew that God would send us to japan to minister to someone who lives in the same country as us?) We were able to bless Cliff and Marg both through the work we did, and through Just really enjoying each others company (I stick with my verdict: they are much younger than they look) Finally, we thank God so much for those of you who sent us on our way entrusting us with your finances, We feel so blessed and loved by you our church families!

In closing, Josh and I will each be giving a presentation at our home churches within the next few weeks. Thank all of you again for showing an interest in our ministry.

God Bless You!
-Flo

Finish Line

Here we are back in Tokyo for the last time.  We are wrapping things up and soon to come home.  It is Sunday afternoon and we are lounging around at Cliff and Marg's place before we head home on Tuesday.  We will leave here around 6PM and arrive in Edmonton around 4:15 on Tuesday, wow wouldn't it just  be quicker to go in reverse two hours?!?  It will be a long of travelling but we will have some good friends at the other end as we will head into Camrose to spend a few days before I return up to FSJ for Easter weekend.  This Friday was Marg's birthday and we celebrated if with lot's of laughter as there usually is when we are together with them.  We have been so blessed by Cliff and Marg whilst here in Japan.  She has done a good chunk of the cooking for us since Phil and Sue left a while back.  The Lord has been at work in my life over these last few months.  This trip has been a good get-away for me to slow down, put alot of business aside and start reprioritizing my life.  

I have been on the go now straight from one thing to the next for the last few years, and I believe this time has been a blessing from God to straighten out some of the bad habbits I have developed while never having a steady lifestyle to count on.  Since We came and even long before, God has been stressing the importance of prayer on my life.  I realized I was preaching prayer so it has been time to pull up my bootstraps and start prying more regularly.  I have begun to do a more deliberate morning prayer and devotion.  This has been a bit tough for those of you who know me I'm sure you've figured out I love mornings....... But it has been going well none the less.  Daily prayer and readings in the word are what ground us to our convictions and commitments for the Lord.  This has been an amazing trip for Flo and I and PS we still are friends after spending everyday together since January 10.  I am so glad the Lord and Flow have given me the opportunity to broaden my horizons and come to Japan. 

 In case your anxiously wondering about what we got done with the cabin I will now inform you.  Flo worked on many different cabins during our stay.  He tiled beautiful entry ways in about half a dozen cabins and a hearth around Cliff's firplace which had to be ripped out after Kerosine spilled all over the floor soaking into the wood and needing replacing.  As far as cabin 5 I am happy with what we accomlished.  It is not finished yet and there will be a fair amount of work to come but my goal has been accomplished.  When we started and through out much of the rebuilding process there was never a fine line on what needs to be done, it just does.  So my main objective if nothing else was to get the cabin to a place where, when we leave the people after us can just finish it without trying to figur out how and where and what would be done. 

We insulated using a variety of North American and Japanese insullation.  There were many different types of walls and ceiling spacing, some 16" oc and some 2' oc and some 18" oc center which was actually a spacing in Metric, all this just to use up as much materials that they already had as possible.  We put a nice Laminated Beam in and I wanted wood ceilings so that the beam could be finished and tie in with the rest of the ceiling.  It worked out beautifully.  I used prefinished Ceader T&G for the ceiling I love it!  The Next person will do all of the drywall and then the finishing.  This will most likely be in the charge of Nate our new friend.  He was here for a few months earlier this winter and has now returned to spend 1 year taking over Randy's old job running the rebuilding of Team Center cabins.  He is a young guy like us and we had a great last week as we got to know him.  One last Onsen last Wednesday before coming to Tokyo this weekend, wonderful as always. 

Dear supporters you have been such a huge blessing to Flow and I as we have glided through our Time in Japan.  Your prayers have made all the difference here.  There is much God is doing here and there is much he will do in the future please continuing for the salvation of the Japanese people.

Love Josh

Paul Brandt is quoted as saying "all you are, is who you've been".  Who are you? And what will you be known for?  This is a question that apears to be posted all around our world.  Everyone is trying to make a difference in one way or another but in the end what is many of their concerns. People will say;  I want to make an impact on the world, society, someone!  All they hope for is that somebody will remember them for good, and that their short existance on our "lonely planet" will not have been spent in vain.  The question that has really been impacting me lately is:  What is hope?  Do you have it?  I rest assured my salvation has given me heaven that awaits me once I pass from this earth.  I wonder and struggle with the fact that so many are willing to continue in an oblivious state, stumbling around refusing to think beyond the simple gratifications of the flesh and the now.  Where is the sense of meaning?  Why are people so concerned with the fact of right and wrong yet simply believe that it is merely human tendancy to want to do good.  This doesn't appear easy nor does it serve any purpose besides the satisfaction that comes from praise of man.  In a world so filled with hopelessness how many are actually willing to listen to a word that brings hope and meaning to a life that is otherwise tainted with the wrongs of humanity.  And beyond the simple questions comes a much tougher one.  Who will be so bold as to allow the Holy Spirit to empower them and deliver this great news of hope?  What use are we unless we are fulfilling our purpose defined by our Creator.
God Bless
Josh

Peace and the pursuit of Hope

Hi Everyone

Just a few hours ago Josh and I dragged our tired butts from the train station up to our cabin in Karuizawa after another 8 hours in the Shinkansen (bullet train). Our grand total is now 36 hours spent in trains in the last 7 days, and many thousands of kilometers under our belts. Travelling on the Shinkansen however is very relaxing, it's like sitting on a plane, even the cabin is pressurized to avoid ear popping. Even though we never got to ride the fastest shinkansen (Nozomi) ours still hit an impressive speed, nearly 300km/h

For the second leg of our trip Josh and I chose the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to explore. First on our list was Hiroshima. Our first thoughts after pulling into the station were "this looks just like every other city we've been to" but we soon realized that this is a very different city than most in Japan. The streets are much wider, and the layot has a very western feel. The first spot we visited was the A-bomb dome, museum, and peace park. I must explain: The A-bomb dome used to be the Hiroshima government building, and it's preserved ruins is the only thing left of the city from before 1945. The only reason it survived was because it was located almost directly beneath the hypocenter of the explosion 580m overhead.

The museum was an extremely sobering experience for me, but also a very eye opening one. In it we saw wreckage from the bomb, pictures from before and after, many sickening photographs, and even a stone staircase with the image of a human being burned into it from the intense heat. In the park there is also a burial mound with the unidentified remains of 70,000 people in it, including Koreans, Chinese, Austrailians and Americans from the POW camp that unbeknown to the A-bomb target comittee was in the city at the time of the bombing.

While in Hiroshima we also took a ferry over to the island of Miyajima, Where we saw the famous "shrine on the water" which appears to be floating during high tide. On that Island there are also countless other shrines and high places, and Josh and I contemplated the hoplessness of these man-made temples and idols. A passage in the Bible also came to mind: "Acts 17:22-23 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you." The reason this came to mind is that daily we witness the worship of gods, ancestors, animals, and plants, and yet none of these things bring any kind of certainty of salvation, and to top it off Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the world. Very very sad,

At the end of our trip we went to Nagasaki, which was definately one of the most amazing places we have been to yet. It is grand harbor city with amazing views and big ships. There we also visited the A-bomb museum, getting yet another perspective on the depravity of mankind. The most horrible thing I saw there was a the bones of a human hand embedded in a melted bottle.

Nagasaki is also the birthplace of Christianity in Japan, and the site of the Crucifixion of 26 believers. Even here satan has been allowed to pervert the truth as they have a shrine to worship these martyrs instead of their Lord that they served to their bitter end.

Well tomorrow it's back to the grindstone, Thank you for your prayers, we had an incredible trip.

-Flo

The Great White North

Hi everyone!

This week Josh and I are vacationing, and just got back from part one of our trip. On Friday we left Tokyo and took a bullet train and some other trains north to the island of Hokkaido. On the way up there we stopped by the seaside for a while, and then took a very small (1 car) local train through the middle of nowhere to the resort where we were going snowboarding. Upon arrival, the owner of our lodge (an austrailian) picked us up from the station, and really went the extra mile to make us feel comfortable and give us helpful advice. The first thing we noticed about Hokkaido was the vast amounts of snow! I don't think I have ever seen it to these epic proportions! In some places the snow was banked up 10 feel on either side of the road, and I saw several old buildings that had simply collapsed under the load.

The next morning our host dropped us off at the foot of the lift, and our amazing day began. Unfortunately the snow was not fresh, but because of the fact that we had a pass that allowed us to board 3 different connected ski areas we soon found some great, relatively fresh runs through the trees. Towards the end of the day we went to the board park and watched part of a slopestyle competition, which was pretty impressive. When we got back, our host and 5 other austrailian guests invited us to go out for supper with them, which we really enjoyed. They were a super fun group. And as we had the night before, we enjoyed our favorite part of Japan, the hot springs.

In the last little while I have been having a bit of a tough time, but I am learning that Got loves me so much, he is bigger than my problems, and He loves to give good gifts. When we were at the ski hill we prayed for snow, in the morning we got a dump, then we prayed for clear skies so we could enjoy the view, He also gave us that. I am also so thankful that I am surrounded by great people, My great friend Josh, Cliff and Marg, and the other great people I have met along the way. Well tomorrow it's off to Hiroshima, and then Nagasaki, so until next time!

Sayonara!
-Flo 

Springtime mud

Hi everyone!

This week has been quite a blur for me. Josh and I have been working separately all week because we had a big fight and..........Just kidding! I have been doing tile work in some of the other buildings while Josh has been finishing up the interior framing in our project cabin. It's been really good to do what I am good at for a while, and Cliff gave me freedom to be creative, so I have been doing each project slightly different. This week has been an absolute mud battle, all the snow has melted and there is black mud everywhere. It's been great having Cliff around again, and the 3 of us went to the onsen (hot springs) again yesterday. I don't know what I am going to do to soothe my sore muscles when I get back to Canada and don't have a hotspring so close by. We are truly blessed to be serving God in such an amazing place.

Tomorrow Josh and I are riding down to Tokyo with Cliff where we will begin our epic 7 day adventure all over Japan. While we were still planning our trip to Japan Josh and I purchased 7 day rail passes which are only available to nonresidents. These will enable us to take trains wherever we want for that amount of time. We have decided that first we are going up north to hokkaido for a day of snowboarding some apparently amazing snow. Then we are travelling back south to the 2 cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and will hopefully stop in Kyoto for a few hours on the way back to Tokyo.

So dear friends you can pray for Josh and I that we won't get lost, or hurt, or robbed while we are adventuring this next week

Thanks for praying

-Flo 

   

Today is the day that the Lord has made

Today we slept in as usual for a Sunday.  Flow and I had a friend from SYME school come to visit last night named Seo K Wu.  He is a Korean guy who is iterning with SYME Japan right now.

He speaks awesome English and we all really enjoy getting together and laughing or whatever might come up.  Seo and I stayed up untill 3:30 this morning having a great Theology talk.  It has been a while since Bible school days when I would stay up all night dicussing God's greatness, and our confusion with his word.  It is fun to really get into the Bible for things, really examining why we believe the things we do.  Seo has only been a Christian for two years I believe but I was just astounded with his extensive knowledge and memory work of the scriptures.  It was quite encouraging to see how his life had been changed and how much he cares to learn. After church we were rushed outside to the sight of snowball fight of epic proportions.  It lasted probably in the nabourhood of 20-30 min and involved just about all of the almost 30 people congregation.  Young and older(nobody to far clear of 50) partook in the great time, involving snowballs, facewashes and fullout tackles.  After our grand fight our German friend Jon came over and we had store bought sushi and watched some TV.  Even sushi from the grocery store is very good quality here.  A full stomach and a good day, time for bed before we start another week of work.

Josh

OUR PICTURES

Warm February Air

Things have been going pretty well this week. We are continuing our work here and things seem to be going smooth. Florian has been doing some of his Professional Tile Setting and I have been banging away doing the interior framing (walls and ceilings) I plan to get started on the front portion of the roof next. We are having a vaulted ceiling in the front portion of the cabin. However this means that the two old logs supporting the roof will be coming down to be replaced with 2x6 roof joists, we think maybe this will create a little more rigidity than the existing 2x2 that is there now. Cliff had his Japanese Electrician friend come over today and much like Cliff had warned us in the past he said. 2x4 walls hmm this is quite the waste of wood isn't it?

To me what seems like average interior framing is quite excessive compared to what they are used to. However we also have insulated the floor with styrofoam and we will be insulating the walls as well. This is a huge difference to heat , the cabin that we are working on like many others are not insulated at all at this point. And the fuel bills will greatly appreciate this fact for years to come. Cliff went back home to Tokyo this afternoon and will be bringing Phil and Sue to the airport tommorrow (Friday). My sermon went well last weekend, I spoke on the Lord's Prayer. There are some christians and some who have not yet recieved the Lord at our church but it is a great little community in and of it's self. We attended a going away party for Randy after church last Sunday.

It was a great time especially when we all split into goups and played a game. It was a game Jessica made up where Samurai's had to fight each other. So each group recieved a bag of balloons and a new pair of pantyhose. The balloons were filled and stuffed under sweater around the torso for armour and the pantyhose were filled with balloons and placed on the fighters head for a helmet sort of thing. Maybe they looked a little more like multi coloured caterpillars than warriors, but it was a blast to watch two puffy guys attempt to pop each others balloons sometimes without hands at all. Wednesday Sue and Phil took us out for our last meal together before leaving for Tokyo.

This morning we said our goodbyes and watched them leave for the train station. We really enjoyed getting to know them. Having them around was a blessing. Looks like we might have to start cooking for ourselves a little more. Oh well, it was good while it lasted. Thanks Sue!

Thanks for following and praying!

Joshua Klassen

It's Official

Florian has went through with Air Canada and changed our return flights.  We will now be staying a little longer and not flying out of Japan untill March 30.  Today we managaed to get all the windows installed.  This is great news for our chilled fingers and toes.  It was a little bit on the cold side today.  Cliff said it wasn't much colder than minus 5 but we still felt cold.  This means one of two things: either we are declimatizing from Canada or the humidity actually does make it feel colder out!  There are new pictures on Picasa our photo album link.  Thanks for the prayers and we ask that you continue to pray for us as we witness to a close friend.  Cliff gave us a new budget this morning and once again it appears we still have yet to conclude our paper trail that was supposed to lead us to Japan not follow us here.  Or at least thats what I had thought.  Oh well it comes with the territory I guess.

Thank you to everyone reading I hope you are enjoying this!!
And once again any comments, suggestions or concerns please feel free to drop me an email at j_j_klassen@hotmail.com  I would love to here some feedback.

Joshua Klassen

Tokyo Break

Hi Everyone!
This week Cliff took us to his and Marg's home in Tokyo for the long weekend. He said we could use a break, and I agree. I feel that a big part of doing a short-term mission trip is to enjoy the culture you are immersed in for the time being, and since we haven't had many opportunities to do so yet this weekend was a real treat :) Because Cliff and Marg were gone for the first 2 days of our stay in Tokyo, Josh and I decided to take over the city on our own. We were quite impressed with our public transit skills, as we only took a wrong train once. We found lots of parks, free museums, interesting shops, and some very delicious food in some small, obscure restaurant. On friday afternoon cliff took us to electric city, the dream of every electronics junkie, nerd, and computer whiz in the country. Basically it is like the strip in Las Vegas, but instead of casinos, there are computer, camera, appliance, and gaming stores as far as the eye can see. This leads me to an interesting aspect of Japanese culture. In Japan there are approximately 1,000,000 "hikikomori", these are young men who basically spend their entire life indoors on their computers, and have no social life except that obtained online. It is a very interesting and very sad subculture, and Marg lent me a book about it that I am currently reading.

Some other things we did this weekend was: Take a ride in a rickshaw, which, embarrasingly enough was pulled by a young woman who did it as a part time job. Josh and I felt a little awkward being pulled around by a girl, but hey! at least she spoke english! Marg took us on a boat ride down the river, led us through the old black market (which is now an open market) through a touristy section of the city, and finally to the memorial for aborted babies. This was a very sobering experience for me, because they have hundreds of little baby statues set up with brightly colored clothes on and pinwheels in their hands. Just seeing these hundreds of snuffed out lives (a fraction of the actual number) was almost too much to handle.

On sunday We attended Cliff and Marg's home church, and were very warmly welcomed. Marg translated the message for us on paper, so that was very helpful. After the service the young people invited us to have lunch with them. They took us to the convenience store, and we let them pick out food and drinks for us, which, for the most part were delicious. Good job people!

In closing, sunday evening Josh and i went up the tokyo tower to admire the city at night. To our dismay we forgot it was valentine's day, and so you can imagine who the majority of people in the tower were. It was spectacular despite this slight annoyance :)

Pictures soon to follow

-Flo

Sunday of Snow

        Today we slept in as we usually do on Sunday mornings.  Always a real treat(Tim that was for you if your reading this).  On Friday evening we went night snowboarding at the Prince ski resort again.  Kaitie a girl who is living here and attending language school was planning to go so Phil, Flo and I piled into her new (Very small for four people, two snowboards) vehicle and headed off for a couple of hours of fun.  A few new rails and a big new jump in the snowboard park kept Flo and I entertained for a while.  Yesterday we spent quite a while researching looking at different attractions in Japan, by the end I had an internet trail that seemed endless, and yet it felt like I had hardly accomplished anything.  This is just another joy of limited translated Japanese sites and a Canadian at the keys.  Today we were invited up to SYME after the church service.  It is a language/ Bible school that the majority of our english speaking friends from church attend.  To get there we needed to transfer into a four wheel drive Nissan van before making the trip up the mountain on snowy, icy, sharp switchbacks they call a road.  Luckily we had a driver who faces that road nearly everyday as Kevin is involved with the school.  As I was finishing eating dinner it was time to take a detour half way back down the mountian to help a lady who got stuck in the ditch.  About 9 of us piled into the van and headed down to push or dig her out.  She was on her way within about 5 minutes and we all got back into the van this time litteraly pilling in I think we had six guys in a heap on the back seat. 

Nothing like Bible school bonding for you!  Then it was back up the jill oops I mean hill to hang out for a while at SYME with students, and english teacher and Kevin(There were others there from church also but I just figured I tend to ramble and I could spare you all the minor details of who else was there and everything we did, saw and shared).  Kevin is also the leader of the english church we attend.  I plan to preach there this month.  We had a great time hanging out with some our friends from KIF the Karuizawa International Fellowship(church).  We take time to pray for a different country each week as part of the service we break into different language groups of our heritage and we take time to pray it has been quite neat attending andf getting to know some people our own age from Korea, Japan, and Germany. 

 To spend time with them now over dinner and fellowship this evening was a real blessing.  We had a great time laughing, listening and just plain old hanging out over coffee really creating some relationships with these neat people we had only known at church. 

 Tommorrow morning it is back to work for a few days before we head off with Cliff on Wed to go hang out with him and Marg in Tokyo for a few days to explore and find some adventures.  Flo and I still are searching whether each of us or both of us will end up staying a while longer.  We thank you for remaining faithfull in prayer for us we are so blessed by it.  Please feel free to pass on the blog address to anyone interested and feel free to send me an email if you have questions or would like to talk j_j_klassen@hotmail.com Oh ya and I'm almost a hairdresser now I cut Flo's hair and didn't completly destroy it!!

Joshua J

Hello everyone!

This week has been great,  There was a ladies retreat at Megumi Chalet (a Christan conference centre nearby) so we lost our cook for monday tuesday and wednesday. Luckily Cliff came to the rescue, and fed us very well for the time Sue wasn't there. It also snowed earlier in the week, and evrything just looks incredibly beautiful! 

On the work front, we have been making pretty good progress. we have the exterior housewrapped, and the facia and soffit completed. Also we tore out the old floor and some of the old beam in the floor and are now in the process of building a new one out of treated lumber as well as insulating it with 4 inch styrofoam. When Cliff showed us our options of what kind of plywood we could use for sheeting Josh and I were in awe. The thinnest sheeting they use for floors is one inch thick, but most of the Japanese use plywood that is over 1 1/4 inch thick! it has no flex whatsoever! who even needs floor joists with that stuff?

We are thoroughly enjoying having the freedom to drive around a bit now that Josh has his international driver's license and we are hoping that we can do our own snowboarding trips now and not have to sucker one of the other people into driving us.

Both Josh and I have began to seriously consider staying for another month (till the end of march) but have not made a firm decision yet. We feel that it would be a real blessing to Cliff and TEAM if we could get more than just the early stages of our cabin done. Please pray for us as we make this decision, neither of us are depending on the decision of the other for our own final call.

Till next time, thanks for praying!

-Flo

Tennis & A Dark Drive

This morning was Sunday and we slept in as usual.  Flow was up and about with headphones on as I awoke to a knocking at the door.  After yelling come in and not hearing the door open I started to get curious in my dazed state.  After Flow asked what was up I told him that someone was at the door.  Upon opening it he told me FedEx was here with my package.  I abruptly awoke and ran to the door in my PJ pants.  I signed the paper excitedly.  Today was the day my International Drivers License came in the mail.  A real God send after a week and a half of struggling to figure out if it was even possible to get one without being in Canada.  Needless to say it cost me quite a bit extra but it made it here safely and quickly.  We then got up and after I made some breaky for the two of us we walked up to the laundry shack and got our clothes we forgot in the dryer from last night.  We then decided it would be a great idea to play some tennis in the miday warmth about 5C in our PJ pants of course.  After sorting through a few rackets and a couple dozen dead tennis balls we had a fun little match.  A quick shower and off to church we went in the new shirts we picked up yesterday at this neat store called Octopus Army.  Good deals and severly vibrant colours!  Yesterday(Saturday) we worked a half day and then took a gander down the touristy street only five minutes down the road from us.  This is the first time since we've been here that we have actually made it down there to look at some of the stores.  Anyway after another fun church service in broken English we brought our German friend Jonathan Mueller over to spend the afternoon.  He is working with a different mission organization working at a Christian camp across town from us, doing alot of cleaning in the off-season right now.  He is here for a year from last sept untill this Aug.  He is about our age and a fun time.  So after Cliff and Marg got up here from Tokyo bringing back Sue and Phil who spent the weekend up there we had a great supper that Marg prepared for us.  Following this we attempted our first outting on the wrong side of the road............In the dark.  With my fresh new IDD in pocket we set out on some back roads to bring Jon home; which was fine considering we had him to give directions.  On the way back however.  Actually we did fine haha not even one wrong turn, missed stop sign(They are red Triangles), or terribly missed gear in the right hand drive (Left hand column shift) truck the mission has.  Over all a fun time upon this new feeling of freedom.  Upon returning we thought we would (quickly) tell Cliff of our safe arrival when we ended up going in and visiting with him and Marg for a few hours, lots of fun and laughter pretty awesome connection for 40 or so year difference!  Now time for bed considering I have work tommorrow.  Thank you all for following our stories feel free to comment if you would like or have any questions.  Thank you all for your prayers, we are doing great and loving Life!

God Bless
Josh

Things are well. We have been busy at work lately on the cabin making alot of decisions as to how to restore the frame that is holding up the roof. Some to rebuild, some to rethink, and restructure in North American ways rather than Japanese. Things are going quite well at this point. We have sucessfully replaced all of the exterior walls, house wrapped and now have started installing some new Hardy Board-facia, and soffit. Today we tore out the pre-existing floor and raked up the decaying leaves of the past 50 years. It is looking like the new floor will be much easier to replace than I had once expected. We will be putting in a new 2x6 floor frame with 1" plywood. It is quite something to get used to, between the mix of North American and Japenese materials we have been supplied with. We are both healthy still minus minor allegies to mildew and the like. It is extremely humid in Japan in the summer leaving anything wood (Houses) musty smelling. It has not been a major deal thus far(Thank's God). We went to the Onsen(public bath/hot spring) again this week and we think that we might have to make it a weekly thing. SOOO RELAXING. Sue and Phillip are in Tokyo with Cliff and Marg for the weekend leaving us to cook for ourselves for the time being. The jumping spider population has been decreasing steadily since Flow and I moved in a few weeks ago. It seems that we average about one aday for the last while. It took us quite a while to figure out how to squashthe jumping critters untill we made a conection between the bug zapper and the airborne creatures. AH HA what a great way, they are fast! The other creature that has caught our attention is the wild boars. They come into the mission at night and tear up the moss in search for a meal. We too have been thinking about a meal! We cornered a small one the other day untill it slipped under the fence. We are thinking that we might play some tennis this weekend there is three courts on the mission, right below our cabin and one court has now melted of enough to play. Tommorrow we plan to continue on fascia and soffit providing it is not raining like today. Tonight we just got back from a Kaiten-zushi. Kaiten-zushi are sushi restaurants, where the sushi dishes are presented to the customers on a conveyor belt. Customers can freely pick the dishes that they like as they pass in front of them or order dishes which are not available on the belt. In the end, the number of plates is counted to determine the cost. There are usually a few kinds of plates (differing in color or pattern), each being associated with a certain price of typically 100 to 500 yen. Kaiten-zushi tends to be less expensive than usual sushi-ya. Lots of raw fish and rice, a little wasabi and tea means a great meal and a fun experience. Flow and I went with Randy our site manager and Jonathan our German freund from church. That was in Saku which is the city close to here where one has to go for most resurants or building supplies. Randy is always running around for supplies, most places here are smaller scale and therfore a person has to know which store to go to for various different types of specific supplies. He has been a real blessing to us becuase he frees us up to just work while he does alot of the searching for things for us. Randy has been here about 4 years and he is done at the end of February, heading off to Korea next to work for the next while. He is about 50 with the energy of a mid 30 year old, he is an amazing guy that we love to hang around with.

Just Some Pictures

Hey Everyone! Wow a week has already passed, and it feels like we have been here a lot longer. We are making good progress on the cabin, and we hope to have all the exterior walls framed in by the end of this week. Last sunday we went to the english service at the language school a few blocks from where we are living. It was very cool and very diverse, represented were people from Korea, Japan, Canada, Germany, U.S., and some other places. I immediately made friends with a German guy named Jonathan who is around my age, and we are now planning to do some stuff together, maybe some hiking or snowboarding. Also, on tuesday Cliff took us to the public baths, which was a great experience. Basically you go in naked (guys and girls seperate) and wash yourself, then you just soak in the hot water. When you are done you scrub yourself clean and out you go. Seriously, rarely have I felt so clean and relaxed. Anyway, everything is going really well, Thank you all for upholding Josh and I in prayer, we believe that your prayers are the backbone of our trip, things could really go wrong without it. Until next time.



peace

-Flo

Working Hard, or Hardly Working

Good day to you!

Flow and I are just sitting here in our new place where we will be living untill March. We had originally moved in with Sue and Phillip when we arrived in Karuizawa becuase there was a lady from Tokyo who was still in our cabin untill friday night. Now we have truly discovered why counter space is important. Our kitchen is about 4' by 8' with about 3' of counter space(a microwave has decided to claim that space). I think we can live with this however becuase lucky for us Sue has so graciously offered to do our cooking for both lunch and supper. If you would like to check out a little bit about Karuizawa I found this sit ethat gives a brief overview:

http://www.japan-i.jp/explorejapan/chubu/nagano/karuizawa-yatsugatake/d8jk7l00000006g5.html

Right now it is 11:00Pm Sunday and we are on days off for the weekend. It is 7:00Pm Saturday night for you guys making us about 16 hours different. Flo and I started working Thursday morning after arriving at the retreat center on Wednesday afternoon. We have now pulled apart the whole interior and the front exterior wall on the cabin that will be our project while we are here. When we got here it still had stuff in it like a sink and furniture. We started by emptying it out and then proceded to rip it down one piece at a time. We now have the whole front of the building ripped out so that we could replace a rotten 4 by 4 beam and rebuild it. We plan to redo all of the flooring, framing and all the way up minus the new roof. The reason we have to do it this way is because the mission can rebuild the cabins without a permit providing the whole thing isn't taken down. A little bit of a pain except getting a permit here is more difficult, so thats the way the cookie crumbles. We now have to try and draw up a final plan of what the place is going to look like. We have some drawings from Nate the guy who put the addition and the roof on but we might have to rethink some of it now that we have all of the posts and beams exposed. Yesterday (Saturday) we slept in and then in the afternoon Flow and I went for an adventure. We began to walk up the mountain that we are near the base of and after about a Km or so of road we found a pedestrian bridge and we decided we would take a snowy foot trail and see where it would take us. We ended up coming out at the top of the mountain after a short break to climb some trees and take some pictures of Mt. Asama (Volcano). Much to our surprise we found that there was a whole developed lookout point with benches statues and a English speaking Japenese couple. YESSS! As we decided to take the paved path away from the lookout, we were once again surprised as we found a villiage right there! It was mostly shut down as Karuizawa is a primarily summer getaway for many. We found a very interesting looking temple of some sort however the one english sign in the place said NOT TO TAKE PICTURES so we tried to respect them. Some beautifull buildings and carvings. We came back to the Bachelor pad and had some noodles before going to the Prince snowboarding hill for some night snowboarding. It is about a 10 min drive from here and cost us a total of 1,000 Yen apiece. Now before you get carried away thinking that is so much it isn't. 1,000 yen is about $11.33 Can which is amazing and it was a pile of fun. Not a huge hill but there was about four different chair lifts running and for mostly man made snow it was very soft about -5c. The snowboarding scene here is just as much of a fashion statement as in Canada, pants to the knees and jackets about 4 times to big. The English church service is at 2PM today so now I must go for lunch.

Josh