Clumsy twins

Today, as usual on Tuesday mornings, I taught a kindergarten class full of 18 five to six years olds. I’ve been teaching these kids since I came to Japan, and they have a very special place in my heart.
Well today, for the first time, I noticed that two of my students (or at least one of them) are clumsy. They are twins - Naoki and Masaki - and they are so identical that even their teachers who teach them every single day get them both confused. And they are always dressed identically.
These two boys love to play in their own little worlds, building stuff with tissue boxes and toilet paper rolls and really never paying attention to much else. They are quiet and never much of a hassle.
We played a very typical game today called fruit basket. Each student is given a fruit card and they all sit in a circle. The person in the center says a fruit and whoever has that fruit gets up and tries to sit in another chair so that they aren't the last one. We played this game for about 15 minutes today.
For some reason, near the beginning of the game, I was watching one of the twins and he full on fell right out of his chair! He just shifted a little and plop! - he was on the ground. I had myself a little chuckle until my attention was quickly turned back to the game. Not even a minute later, I saw of the twins running for a chair because his fruit was called and he tripped and fell right in the middle of the circle. I don't know who noticed, but nobody laughed but me. He picked himself up and kept running like nothing happened.
A couple of minutes later, I was watching one of them and again he fell out of his chair, this time knocking his head on the knee of the kid sitting next to him. The kid he hit acted like it was nothing atypical and so did the fallen twin. He picked himself and his chair up and sat back down like nothing happen.
I don't know if this was the same twin I saw fall everytime or if they took turns falling, but everybody certainly acted like it was nothing unusual.
Is that what I look like when I fall all the time?

It's BEAUTIFUL, people!

Here I was again tonight sitting across from a good Japanese friend of mine – a 32 year young woman with impeccable English, a very kind spirit, and a beautiful yet tired smile. We have been friends since we were introduced to each other about a year and a half ago, trying to go out to dinner and talk about life when there was time in our busy schedules.
And here I was again tonight sitting across from her and praying like crazy to God to use me. Ever since I have known her she has been seriously thinking about entering a relationship with God. I met her about the time in her life when the divorce to her husband went through – a time where she was at rock bottom where she would remain for a little over half a year. In her great time of despair, anger, loneliness, and immense pain, a Christian couple (the very missionaries who began the small country church that I attend every Sunday morning) who had known her for a while reached out to her and took her under their wings. They supported her, provided so many things for her, and showed her real, Christian love. From them, she began to be very interested in the One True God.
When we met, I could see the sadness and brokenness in her. I remember a whisper inside of me that said “Invite her to lunch and get to know her.” And so, when her busy schedule and my busy schedule had a day a couple of weeks down the road when we could both meet, we met for a lunch that ended up being three hours of emotional conversation about despair over a broken marriage and then hope in God.
Tonight, almost four months later, I sat across from her again, knowing where she has been and eager to know where she is now, and finding that she has been slowing getting up off of that rock bottom, cold floor, that God has prepared her heart through her trials, and that He will grab it soon. He is going to grab it soon, people!
I need you to join me in prayer for her. She is holding back because she doesn’t understand some things, and she feels that she’s got to understand it all before she makes the commitment. She is asking, seeking, knocking. Pray that God will answer and open the door for her.
Being the dufus that I am, I forgot my Bible tonight. But we discussed things from it anyways and God has opened her heart more. We are going to meet again next Tuesday (I will NOT forget my Bible this time) and we’re going to hash it out together.
Y’all know that I am not the best person to convey complete thoughts to other people. I have not been used by God through the majority of her long road to Him, but hopefully God can use me a little now since I will be meeting her again next Tuesday.
Are you praying yet?
I can’t express to you how beautiful it is to be able to witness and to understand what God has done and is doing to bring a life to Him.
It’s beautiful, people. BEAUTIFUL!
Please pray.

Please pray

My brother Jon and his wife Brandy found out Monday that they lost their unborn baby. Jon and Brandy were married last June and were excited when they found out about three months ago that a baby was on the way.
Please lift them up in your prayers. They are young and this was their first, but it is always very difficult to lose a child, unborn or not.

What to look forward to

This is not a very comforting news article, especially since they have been expecting the ‘big one’ for a while now.
http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/national/news/20060216p2a00m0na024000c.html

Happy Valentine's Day

Almost 2,000 years ago, the apostle Paul wrote this prayer in a letter to the Ephesian church. Today, this is my prayer for you, whether you know your Creator or not:

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in you inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Praise the Lord!

I woke up with the first verses of this Psalm in my head:

Sing to the Lord a new song;
sing to the Lord, all the earth.
Sing to the Lord, praise his name;
proclaim his salvation day after day.
Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvelous deeds among all peoples.
Psalm 96:1-3

Then I found this one:

Praise the Lord.

Praise God in his sanctuary;
praise him in his mighty heavens.
Praise him for his acts of power;
praise him for his surpassing greatness.
Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet, praise him with the harp and lyre,
praise him with tambourine and dancing,
praise him with the strings and flute,
praise him with the clash of cymbals,
praise him with resounding cymbals.

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord.
Psalm 150

Today is a beautiful day - outside my window and inside my heart. I can't help but think that many days will be quite the opposite of this day, but God will take care of me no matter what and I praise Him that I have Him to cling to.
I don't know if you believe in our Creator or not. My prayer today is that you do and that you will feel the praise in your being on the beautiful days and that on the ugly days you will feel peace and comfort as your soul clings to Him .

Courage

One of my 8th grade students wrote this during a short writing assignment yesterday in class. I think it is awesome and I wanted to share it.
I can't help but imagine what he needs courage for. I know that I need it, also.
I love it when my students become my teacher.

Some random things

Yesterday at lunch time, after I finished drinking my milk, I began folding my milk carton as usual. (In Japanese schools, the students fold up their milk cartons before they throw them away.) Well, I didn't realize that there was still a little milk in it, so when I folded the bottom and pressed it against the body of the carton, milk squirted out of the open end across my desk and two other student's desks. The milk only got on one boy's hand, but it was all over the desks and their food (luckily it was near the end of lunch so they were pretty much finished eating). All of the six students in the lunch group that I was eating with immediately stopped talking and stared at me dumbfounded. Then I busted out laughing and so did they. We all continued to laugh as we broke out the tissues and cleaned up my mess. I kept saying sorry in between fits of laughter and they would tell me it's okay in between fits of their laughter. It was a pretty humorous occurrence and I'm still laughing now as I write this.

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Yesterday was a pretty exciting day. Not only did I squirt milk across my student's desks, but we had a pretty good earthquake and several aftershocks after lunchtime. It was a pretty shaky afternoon. I counted four pretty good-sized earthquakes, but a friend of mine counted six. Earthquakes never cease to amaze me, or to make my heart stop beating. I am kind of getting excited about them, though; similar to the feeling I get during those stormy days back in Oklahoma.

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Almost every night this past week I have gone out with Japanese friends. I want to spend time with so many people before I return to the States, so I'm cramming weeknights full of dinner at restaurants and I'm hoping to get some karaoke in soon. I tell you, there is no other way I would rather be spending my nights right now. I love these people so much and I am going to miss them. I keep telling them they should come and visit me in Oklahoma City and I could show them around (I know some of you scoff at this because you think there is nothing to see in OKC, but you are wrong. There is a good days worth of stuff to see....).
Anyways, after leaving their company, I have found myself praying a lot. Praying for them and their lives and struggles and thanking God for blessing me with them.

Blessings

My students, or kids as I affectionately call them, are great. I'm not worthy to be blessed with such great students to teach everyday, especially since my first thought every morning last week when I woke up to my alarm was "I don't want to go to school today." But that was last week and God has once again showed me how blessed I am with my job, everything that He has given me here, and His Awesome Love. So this week has been a lot better. Here's why.
Almost every time I open the sliding door of an Elementary school classroom, I am greeted with huge smiles, an air of excitement, and sometimes exclamations of excitement like "Jessica sensei da!" (Yeah, it's Jessica teacher!) Of course, my kindergarteners and first graders are the happiest to see me, and the older the students are, the less excited they are to learn English (naturally). So I never get the reaction from my Junior High classes, but even my fifth and six graders mostly are excited that I've come to teach them English for a whole hour. Several of the fifth grade classes actually cheer when I come (can you guess why they are my favorite classes?).
For some reason, some of my elementary school students, when they see me all the way at the other end of the hall, yell "Jessica sensei!" and actually run all the way down the hall just to breathlessly say "Hello!" to me. This phenomenon still amazes me, but it makes me feel loved. And for that, I am very thankful for those precious, crazy students.
The more Japanese I'm learning, the more I can understand of what my students are saying (duh!). It's kind of like a whole new world opening up to me. Here is a conversation that two of my second graders had together and then with me while we were eating lunch together.
Natsumi to Daigo: Miss Jessica speaks really good English.
Daigo: Yes, she does.
Natsumi to me with Daigo slurping his ramen while watching the exchange: Miss Jessica, you speak really good English.
Me, said in simple Japanese with a hint of "No duh!" in my voice while I set my ramen bowl and chopsticks down: Of course I do. I'm from the U.S. and we speak English there.
Natsumi and Daigo in one accord with serious looks on their faces and in the tones of their voices: So de o ne. (This phrase could be translated as "I guess your right." or "That's right." or "Oh, I see.")
As I broke into a fit of laughter, Daigo and Natsumi looked at each in utter confusion as to why I was laughing so hard.
Maybe this simple exchange between me and two of my students isn't funny to those of you who have never been to Japan, but for those of us who live and teach here and are constantly getting complemented on how great our English is, it's pretty funny. Or it could just be funny to me.
Here is another conversation I had with one of my students last week. This student is a sixth grade boy. He can say to me all the time "I want you to be my girl." but when I ask him any review questions of the English he supposed to know like "What's your name?", "How old are you?", or "How are you?", he looks at his friends and says in Japanese "What'd she just say?" So this little sixth grader whose name is Satoshi was obviously excited that I got to sit in his lunch group and right next to him for a whole lunch period. Here is our conversation in the middle of lunchtime, in Japanese of course:
Satoshi to me kind of out of the blue: Let's get married.
Me, finishing the bite of rice I was in the middle of eating and calmly replying: Okay. When?
Satoshi with a bit of excitement in his voice: Tomorrow.
Me, about to take another bite of rice: I can't, I'm busy.
Satoshi, not in the least bit phased: The day after tomorrow?
Me, after finishing the bite of rice I just took: Nope. Busy.
Satoshi: How about Saturday?
Me: Busy.
Satoshi: Sunday?
Me: Busy.
Satoshi, starting to catch on: Anytime next week?
Me: Busy, busy, busy.
Satoshi, obviously shattered: Oh.
And so went the first marriage proposal I have ever received. Sure I initially led him on, but he deserved it considering the only English he ever speaks/yells to me is "I want you to be my girl." Satoshi didn't seem too shattered (deterred?) because later when I saw him after school he once again yelled to me his token phrase.
These great things are just the tip of the iceberg. My kids make this job worth it. Nothing else could. They are great and everyday they teach me something new. And they never, never cease to amaze me.
Here is something else that blessed me, and I want to pass it on to you. Before Christmas time, we took a break at the Elementary schools from the regular teaching and gave the students a blank stocking to draw a Christmas image on. As many of you may or may not know, Christmas is a very secular holiday here in Japan. So you could imagine my surprise when I saw this picture:

I must've seen at least 1000 of these drawings from this Christmas and last, and this is the first one I have ever seen like this. Of course I gave her drawing first place.
My prayer is that you are continually seeing God's blessings as I have been.