There is no easy way to begin this post.  In fact, for me, there never seems to be a quite satisfactory way to begin any post – and this one least of all.  And that being said, I will just come forth with the most pertinent information of the update: 

The Dean clan will soon be leaving Japan.

We came to this decision after about a two month period in which we first through contemplating and weighing different factors came to conclusion that we would only make the right decision through prayer.  And by prayer, we eventually settled on coming home.  During a long period of continually and earnestly seeking the Lord about this we felt that He spoke to us and really confirmed that this is the right move to make.  This was one of the most difficult decisions we have ever made for several reasons.  It not only involves uprooting and moving our family for a third time, but it is also the end of what has been a dream for several years.  Ultimately, we know that obeying the Lord in the present and looking toward the future with Him is more important than striving for the fulfillment of the plans we made in the way we anticipated.  This has brought us many questions to sort out in our mind.  But we have settled our minds with the fact that we don’t always (probably don’t EVER) need to understand the WHY’s of God’s ways, and we don’t need the answers to all of our questions.  We just leave them with God and trust Him in what He is doing and will continue to do in our lives to draw us closer to Himself and use us for the glory of His kingdom.

Thank you so much to all who have been so faithful to support us financially, and through prayer and encouragement.  This has been your venture as well as ours, and it is our prayer that God has used this time to grow and strengthen your faith as He has done for us.  God has not only taught us to trust Him more in all things, but He has completely changed our perspective on life and ministry. (Not to mention our entire lifestyle….)   He has given us so many tools that we are looking forward to using in the next step and phase of life. 

Things don’t always work out as you plan, in fact,  they often don’t.  Our vision and purpose in coming here has not been fulfilled as we had expected, but God has a purpose for everything.  I like this line from a song of one of my all time favorite bands:  “I’ve heard it said that He wastes nothing, so beautiful to behold, the Author of my hope is writing, the greatest story ever told.”  And as we move forward, we are “confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6), and ” we are confident of better things” to come (Hebrews 6:9).  We are confident that as we walk toward the next step that God has for us, we will see many ways in which He will use our time spent here.  Even though things in so many ways have not unfolded as anticipated, we are so glad that we have had the opportunity to have the experiences of the last year.  And in everything we want to give all praise and glory to God.

Love and blessings to you all,

The Dean clan

!!LIFE – IT’S HAPPENING!!

Today is Sunday May 24th; right now it is (unbelievably) 4:56pm (the day seems to have flown by). It’s cloudy and pleasantly cool. We had a nice time at church this morning – although, as usual, we understood very very little of what was going on. We do know that it was the church’s one year anniversary. Usually we stay for lunch, but today we left after service because we wanted to go shopping for some of the things we’ll be needing for Claire’s coming baby brother or sister. This, as everything, proved to be more challenging that expected simply due to the fact that things are done a little differently. We accomplished a little less than we hoped, but that’s ok – such is life right?…… anyway – enough about the minutiae of today. Let me fill you in on a bit of the last month and a half.

Visitors :

Friday we picked up Suzanne (Gina’s sister) from the airport. She’ll be staying with us for the next couple months. It will be great to have her to help when it comes time for the baby to come.

My Hoogerbrugge grandparents also arrived the same day for a three week visit.  Last night (Saturday night) we all went out to a restaurant called Kappazushi.  It’s a fun restaurant where the booths are all lined up along a half height wall that has a conveyor belt on it.  The conveyor belt brings all kinds of sushi so you can just pick what you want and grab it as it goes by.  You can also order any of the items from the menu on a little touch screen and it will be brought to you by a little train above the conveyor belt.  It’s actually pretty fun, even if you find uncooked fish unappetizing; there are plenty of other options from which to choose.

After dinner everyone came back to our place for some banana splits, coffee, tea, and fun hang out time.  It’s SO great to have more family nearby, and our get together last night was very cheering. 

 

Church:

The last time I posted I mentioned that we had visited a church called Ushiku Midorino Chapel.  It was the second of  four churches we would visit.  Well, we finally made the decision to settle on Tsukuba Dendoujo as our home church.  It is a Baptist church that meets in a home.  We had been praying for guidance on which church to make our home and it feels very nice to no longer be wondering and wandering, visiting and evaluating.  This was the first time I had ever been in the position of choosing where to go to church.  I found that I really don’t like being in the position of more or less evaluating the merits of each church we visit.  Despite the fact that it was a legitimate activity, something we needed to do, it made me feel like I was being so judgmental.  In fact each of the churches that we visited are great churches, filled with people who believe in and love the Lord Jesus, but we needed to try to choose which place would be the best fit for us, and where we could be a blessing to serve.  We are very glad to be a part of the fellowship we now attend.

Yochien:

Claire started yochien (Japanese two year kindergarten program) last month.  It has been a great experience for her to meet friends and begin her language study.  I’m sure it’s been challenging for her teachers as they help her struggle to understand what’s going on, but she is thoroughly enjoying it and we are glad to see her learning. 

Claire's First Day at Yochien

Yochien has also been an opportunity for Gina to get to experience Japanese culture as a stay at home mom:  First of all –  PTA means something altogether different here than what we were used to.  It is mandatory, and it is quite a time commitment.  Fortunately one of the other moms speaks English and is sometimes able to help Gina figure out what’s going on.  The second major cultural experience has been the preparation of obento lunches.  Some of you may have been following along with Gina’s facebook ”obento creations” photo album.  If not, I highly recommend it.  Through Claire going to school we also made some new friends:  Claire’s friend Kay’s dad is English and her mom is Japanese – so she is bilingual and able to help Claire through the day.  Claire and Kay became fast friends.  We are so blessed to have met the Mayers family: Thomas, Izumi, Kay, and little Emma.

Claire, Kay, and Emma at Thomas's band's gig.

Trauma:

Wednesday May 13th, at about 8pm, Gina began to have a very severe asthma attack. Her inhaler was rendered useless, as was her nebulizer machine (I’m not sure if you are familiar with this, but it’s a machine designed to deliver a more potent and continuous dose of breathing treatment for more severe asthma attacks). So here we are, the nightmare is happening.  She had a similar asthma attack two years ago almost to the day and honestly barely made it through alive.  I had rushed her to Corona Regional and they had to intubate. She passed out when we arrived. She barely was able to walk up to the counter and was all blue and lost consciousness.  SO – that night, at about 8pm we begin the replay, but in a foreign country. I called 119 and tried to have a conversation with the operator and convey enough information to get an ambulance on the way.  They came within five minutes but seemed in no big hurry.  I urged them that she needed to be taken to the hospital immediately.  Finally they carried her out to the ambulance. I was thinking – “great, finally!  There’s a hospital 10 minutes away… in an ambulance, maybe 5 minutes.”  But this was wrong. I learned through this very scary situation, that here in Japan they don’t have the same concept of an emergency room as we have in the US.  The ambulance had to call ahead of time and see if the hospital would accept Gina.  So we sat in the ambulance for about 20 minutes right in front of our home.  All the while I’m watching my wife FIGHT for every breath – she is being tormented with the panic, and the fight of her life.  And no matter how much I beg and plead, the ambulance tech’s (can’t call them EMT’s because they seemed very limited in emergency care ability) didn’t do a thing.  It is by the hand of God and by the prayers of our family and friends and Claire and I that she is alive.  The attack miraculously improved slightly while in the ambulance.  I say its a miracle because once these attacks get going, they never stop on their own.  They usually just gain more and more momentum and get worse and worse until there is some sort of medical intervention.  If yesterday’s attack had progressed in the same way that the one two years ago had - she would not have made it; especially considering that once they found a hospital to accept her (the first three they called said no) it was about a 30 minute drive away.  Thankfully, she made it to the hospital and the attack was able to be stopped with some meds rather than having to intubate as was the case last time.  She was released a few hours later.  Praise God.

Two days later Gina returned to the hospital for an appointment with the doctor and received some new prescriptions to hopefully help prevent a repeat.  We know that there is no guarantee of the effectiveness of the drugs.  The last attack is a case in point since neither the inhaler nor the nebulizer helped to stop it.

But the thing is – you know that feeling when you almost get creamed by a crazy driver.  And you just sit there for several minutes realizing your life was almost over…. even now, a couple weeks later, it is still sickening for me to think about.  The thought of such a situation ever coming up again is cause for real concern in my mind.  We did some more research and found out that this is a big problem in Japan.  Many many people have died because hospitals simply turn them away.  And not always because they are too full to accept or so busy that they can’t get to everyone – they literally just choose to turn people away.

Please pray for us regarding this – to say the least we are shaken; not exactly feeling full of peace.  We see that God’s hand was on the situation in rescuing Gina from what could have happened, but

 

Baby Update: (or Medical problem #2):

Last Monday Gina went to her doctor appointment and we learned that the baby had not grown in the last two weeks since her previous appointment.  The doctor seemed quite concerned and referred her to the Tsukuba University Hospital (the same place that took Gina for the emergency just the previous week).  Of course at this point we were feeling like “when it rains it pours”.  Why are these things going so wrong?!?!  After the appointment with the new doctor – we felt a little better as he seemed less concerned about the baby’s size, and confident that they would be able to handle the situation if there is a problem.  Nevertheless – we are a bit uneasy and continually praying that the Lord will keep our baby safe and healthy in the womb until the right time.  We certainly appreciate your prayers.  We’ll try to keep you posted on how things go from this point forward.

 

Going forward….

We have been enjoying Claire’s time at school as good language study time for us as often as possible, and just this last week we also began a language class that meets once per week.  It’s just me and Gina and the teacher – $10/person for a 10 week class.  Pretty cheap, huh?  The lessons are all given by volunteers.  We are hoping to start a Friday night English Bible study on June 5th.  Since it will be a while before we can effectively communicate in Japanese, we are hoping to reach out to those who can speak or at least understand some English.  There are plenty of people who are interested in learning more English, and we hope that perhaps a Bible study will be an opportunity of which they would like to take advantage.  Ideally, it won’t be long before someone coming to the English Bible study would be willing to translate so that it would become a bilingual Bible study.

 

God bless you, faithful readers, friends, fellow believers, pray-ers.

p.s.  it’s now 9:42pm and while I haven’t been working on this straight through since 4:56, i’m so bad at blogging, you see why i procrastinate on updating – it’s such a huge project because i’m so slow at it. sorry

Life wasn’t a cake walk for Jesus either…

Then [Jesus] said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death.  Stay here and watch with me.”  He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, “O my Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will but as You will.” …Again, a second time, He went away and prayed…He left them, went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words. ” Matthew 26:38-39, 42, 44

It is a great encouragement to us, to see the humanity and the humility of Jesus Christ.  This Man, who embodied the full essence and deity of God, was still burdened with the same human weaknesses that we are.  He did not struggle with a sin nature in the way that we do, but He endured the pains that we endure.  When going through a difficult time, struggling with a trial, it is not always enough for me to merely recognize and remember the sacrifice that Jesus endured and compare it to my own.  I cannot simply say to myself, “Myself, look at what Jesus went through.  This struggle of yours in nothing compared to that.  Now buck up; stop being such a baby!  Stop thinking of your own comforts and discomforts so much – but think of your love for God and what He has done for you”  Inevitably, I feel worse, not better after such a self-counseling session.  Because at this point, I no longer only feel the pains of the trial, but I feel guilty that I would have such distressed emotions at all.  Isn’t that just an awful, sick, (and truly psychotic) cycle?  I’ve seen it happen to other friends in the past – and it really did them a lot of damage.  Truly Jesus did suffer – and more so than anyone can ever comprehend.  The physical torture, coupled with the spiritual and emotional anguish of being separated from His Father, and from bearing upon His shoulders the weight and burden of all the sin of all mankind, was surely more than anything anyone ever has or ever will endure.  Of course it is so important for us to bear this in mind, to keep a perspective on things – if God would allow His Son to suffer so greatly, why should we, who are deserving of hell – cleansed only by His grace, escape enduring trials.  However – Jesus did not suffer so that we would compare our sufferings to His and realize how minimal they are.  He didn’t suffer to increase our guilt.  He “for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”  He suffered for the joy of pleasing the Father and of redeeming and reconciling us, His people, to Himself.  he suffered to free us of our guilt.  That being said – it was of great encouragement to me to see that Jesus did not want to suffer.  He asked the Father three times to let the cup pass.  He was willing to go on in obedience, but He didn’t have to like it!  And Jesus; He was most aware, more than anyone ever could be, of the reality of the eternal benefit and glorious consequences of His sufferings.  We so often feel that Heaven is so far away.  In Romans 8:18, Paul said, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.”  Yet at times, we lose that perspective and the treasures we are laying up in heaven, being presently so intangible, often feel very distant… or not real at all.  Yet Jesus could see and He knew so clearly that the treasure put before Him was very near - yet this did not dimish His desire to avoid the suffering.  Instead – it strengthened His resolve to obey the Father in spite of His feelings.  I pray that God would build into me such resolve.  I pray that He would instill in us such a love for Him that would keep us pressing on, pressing in to this Christian life and all the discomforts that accompany the narrow and difficult road.  I’m so glad to know that Jesus, the God-Man, asked three times to avoid the suffering He was called to.  He sympathizes and understands our weakness for He was “a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.”  Oh God, hold us up, because we can’t hold ourselves.

I pray that whoever you are that reads this are blessed.  Updates on the haps here with our family to come soon.

We know many of you are praying for us – this means a lot to us, and truly is the power that is needed to keep us going.  Pray for the power of the Holy Spirit to come upon not only our lives, but the town in which we live.  Ushiku needs Jesus so much, as does Japan as a whole, and all the world.  Thank you thank you thank you – can’t thank you enough, those of you who pray.

Blessings in Christ to all

~josh

Ushiku Midorino Chapel

This Sunday we visited another local fellowship.  We actually attempted to go to this church before, but weren’t able to find it.  It was a very different experience from the other church we went to.  This church is celebrating 25 years, whereas the other is a fairly new church plant.  The one we visited this Sunday has a fairly large building, the other meets in a house.  There were a few missionaries at Ushiku Midorino Chapel, at least two are from Canada.  I’m not sure where the other was from.  Though the churches were very different, at both places we enjoyed a very warm welcome in the love of Christ. 

“There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.”   ~Ephesians 4:4-6

We were directed to this church by our friend Yuka whom we met in Okinawa.  She is originally from around this area, and recently moved back.  It was great to fellowship with her as well as the missionaries, and other Japanese believers we met. 

We have felt very welcomed at both places, but we may still visit more churches just to meet more people, establish connections, and get a feel for the spiritual state of the church in our local area.  It is difficult to decide where we will settle and what church we will make our home.  We need the Lord’s guidance in this as we believe it will be important for us to have a home base as we begin to move towards the ministry God has called us and will lead us to (whatever it may be!).  Thank you for your prayers for God’s guidance in our lives and ministry.

Beautiful Sakura

For about a week and a half in the spring, the Sakura (Cherry blossoms) bloom and a lot of people try to get out and enjoy them. They start blooming earliest in the south and gradually work their way north. In fact they were already starting in Okinawa before I left in January. They have been blooming here for about a week, and have really come into full bloom the last couple days. There is an old winery (built in 1903) called Chateau Kamiya right here in our new hometown of Ushiku that has many very tall and beautiful Sakura trees. We have gone to check them out twice. Once at night, before they were in full bloom, as well as yesterday afternoon when they were much fuller and of course easier to see in the daytime. I just thought we would share the pictures with you. Click the links to see the full albums.  Enjoy!

Chateau D. Kamiya – Sakura at Night

Sakura in full bloom

A good word…

This morning I was reading some of the Psalms and was really encouraged by this verse:

“All the ends of the world shall remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations shall worship before You. For the kingdom is the LORD’s and He rules over the nations. All the prosperous of the earth shall eat and worship; all those who go down to the dust shall bow before Him, even he who cannot keep himself alive.” Psalm 22:27-29

It just encouraged me to see that one day, every person will hear and bow to the Lord. It will one day be made plain that this is HIS earth.

Just a little goofiness for your day…

I don’t know what came over me, but I thought I would record a video of myself being a doof.

Before you watch, let me explain what an onigiri is.  It is a smal triangle of rice with something in the middle.  Sometimes there’s some kind of sea veggie, and I don’t even know what all else they come with; I don’t like to experiment to much: mine always have tuna in the middle.  Then this rice triangle is wrapped with nori, dried sea-leaf.  Please don’t think less of me after watching this video haha…..

Shoji Clinic

Monday we had our tour/orientation to the clinic where our baby is to be born.  There are two English speaking doctors and a few others of the staff also speak English.  This makes it the ideal place for us.  Although, for some reason, Gina’s doctor has a problem with sharing the sex of the baby with his patients.  We still have no idea why, and when we have asked about it, he really avoids the issue, just sorta ignoring the question.  It’s ok though, because its better that we are able to communicate clearly about all the other issues associated with pregnancy and having a baby. 

During orientation, we were very pleased to find out that they are very accomodating to the fathers of the new babies.  They will provide an extra bed for me in Gina’s room for no extra charge, and will even provide meals for me if I choose to attend their mealtimes.  Being a clinic, and not a huge hospital, there is a different style: the meals are eaten together in a dining room (though available in your private room if requested).  The babies are primarily left with the mothers rather than spending most of their time in the nursery.  In some ways, we get the feeling that medical technology and practice is a little behind what we are used to in the States.  I can’t even necessarily put my finger on exactly what gives me the feeling.  Perhaps its just some of the equipment and accomodations didn’t seem as nice, comfortable, or new as when Claire was born.  But, on the whole, we feel like we are getting the best care available to us here.  And of course, as always with all things, it is most important that we seek and trust the Lord to handle all the details. 

One unfortunate thing we learned was that this clinic is more expensive than most other hospitals, and, strangely, pregnancy and child birth is not considered a medical issue and thus not covered by medical insurance here.  We don’t really have many other options available though, since Gina is already pretty far along, AND we really don’t want to give up having an English speaker doc. 

Thanks for your prayers for our coming child’s health and growth; please pray for God’s provision for all the costs.  It’s really exciting to see the devolopment as the baby gets bigger.

Josh the English Teacher

Last week I had an appointment back at the language school where I am now officially employed.  The meeting had been set up in order to provide me with some training in order to prepare me to be an English teacher.  I was definitely very glad for that.  Though I had hoped that just being an English speaker would be enough to get me the job, I knew in my own mind that this fact did not equal being prepared to lead an 80 – 90 minute class every week.  Being able to use the English language is sooooo much different from being able to explain it or understand the all the rules.  (and this has become even more clear to me)  So, Gina, Claire, and I were standing in the genkan (entry area where shoe wearing stops when entering your house and shoe wearing resumes again before leaving home), getting our shoes on, about to walk out the door so Gina could drop me off at the train station, when my cell phone rang.  It was the office manager of TIA (Tsukuba International Academy – my employer), and he was just wondering if it would be ok for me to give a short presentation of a class for them today.  “Of course, no problem” I said.  But what else could I say to my new employer?  I was expecting to train and maybe sit in on a class or something.  Though I had the textbook for the class I’ll be teaching, I hadn’t even given any thought to preparing a lesson.  I was given the impression I would be returning at a later date to give a sample of my teaching, today was just supposed to be training and observing.  So of course, this phone call on the way out the door, slightly perturbed me, and it got to simmer during the train ride to the school.  I arrived, still expecting some form of training to precede actually presentation giving.  I don’t really think one could classify a quick tour of the teachers resources as training.  I was given 20 minutes to throw together my first ever English lesson that I would have to deliver to the office manager and a 15-year-experienced English teacher.  Perhaps many of you are like me and if you imagine yourself in such a situation understand the great degree of discomfort I felt.  As I opened the book to prepare, I realized I was not all that confident in my ability to explain the difference between past simple versus continuous past, and give a clear description of when and why to use which.  ANYWAY – to try to make this already long story a little shorter,  I’ll just say that, though I felt like I kinda struggled my way through the sample lesson, my two observers said I did alright and gave me a couple pointers.  I returned the next day and got the opportunity to observe a class which helped a lot in giving me an idea of how it should flow. 

Last Friday, I taught my first two classes as a substitute for one of the full time teachers.  It was a little less nerve racking than expected.  It helps that I know and can be confident that, compared to the students, I am a master at what they are trying to learn.  This is not to say however, that I’m completely comfortable with teaching quite yet.  So the nervousness about my upcoming class still remains.  The first of my two substituting jobs went ok; it was an intermediate level class. I think maybe I was a little boring, and the people in the class were also a little quieter and don’t mesh as a group real well. The second group, on the other hand, was super genki and pretty fun. I think they enjoyed it a little more. I spent more time preparing for the first class because it was grammar that was more difficult for me (present perfect…using past participle, it was confusing for me) but then everyone in the class seemed to have it down completely (though not naturally) and used the correct form almost every time.  The second group, being a little bit lower of a level (and more lively), was more fun to me. I got to take more time explaining simple things.  This was less stressful because I didn’t have to worry about how I’m going to fill up the time.  Plus it’s a little awkward to explain something as thoroughly as possible, and then find out that it seems everyone is already well acquainted with the concepts being explained as was the case in my first class.  All in all, it was not a bad first day, but I’m still a long way off from feeling at ease about the whole thing.  The class I’ll be teaching at a business begins this Thursday. Then this Saturday, I start an every other Saturday one on one class with an advanced student who just wants to practice conversation.  So basically, I’ll sit and chat for two hours. I’m hoping he’ll want to move his classes to a casual setting some day, like McDonald’s or Starbucks or something.  If we’re just gonna chat, I think it would be kinda fun to go do it elsewhere.  I’ll have to check with the school if they are ok with that.  They might get worried that he’ll just stop paying the school…….. and start meeting up with me independently.

So, now I am an English teacher, learning on the fly and winging it.  I see lots of potential for fun with this.  I am also really hopeful about this as an opportunity to start building a network of contacts and begin outreach.  Who knows where God is going to take this, but we know He can use all things for His glory.

God bless all of you!

~josh

 

p.s. – I’m just curious, if you have time to comment, I’d like to know how many of you know just off the top of your head what Present Perfect Tense is?  or how about a Past Participle?  Or which words we use to describe quantities of countable items versus non countable items?  It’s amazing how complex the English language is, and we just naturally use the appropriate tense and quantity words!

Calvary Chapel Japan Conference

Last weekend, from Thursday March 19th through Satruday the 21st, we attended a conference for Calvary Chapels in Japan.  The conference actually started on Friday, but because of the distance from us, we were able to spend the night there Thursday night.  It was held at a retreat center called the Hachioji Seminar House.  I think it’s usually used by university groups.  There was another retreat going on at the same time, and there were a bunch of college age people as part of that group.  The theme of the conference was Love.  And what a good all encompassing theme for a conference.  In attendance were of course many Japanese Christians, but also many missionaries.  So the theme of love is of course applicable to everyone.  It was such an awesome time being around fellow believers, getting to sing familiar worship songs in both Japanese and English.  So far at church we’ve only sung hymns in Japanese.  We were so blessed to see Pastor Tom, Joanna, Kayo, and Naoko from Calvary Chapel Ginowan.  This trip was my second time driving in Tokyo.  Although this time was even more chaotic because it involved the Expressway.  The expressway makes me think of the movie I-Robot.  It like a freeway (except not free) that is continually elevated with big electronic street signs that look like confusing and complicated maps, consecutive forks in the road forcing you to make a series of split decisions, then a tunnel that takes the whole road underground for a couple miles.  It was a miracle that we made it there and an even bigger one that we made it home.  Our directions said two hours, but it was four to get there and five to get home due to traffic and some wrong turns.  We were sad to leave the conference, but encouraged at the reminder that we are not the only ones.  Encouraged to remember that we are part of a bigger plan that God has for Japan.  It would have been easier and more comfortable to have moved right near another Calvary Chapel and plugged in there, but we believe that we are where God wants us and that He will open doors for the ministry here.  Thank you all for your continued prayers and for your support.

Pastor Travis from Calvary Chapel Tokorozawa leading worship.

Pastor Tom taught a great message from John 12:1-8 about worshipping the Lord with passion.

 

There is a Costco close to the conference center, so we got to enjoy a little taste of America.  It was just like a Costco in the States.  I never would have thought going to Costco for lunch would be such a treat!

Costco Chicken Bake

Costco Hokkaido Sofuto Kurim