Goodbyes, Celebrations, & Disney!

Our last day together.. Bye Hlulani!

Heather, Leann, friend, Anna, Luke, me

So a lot has happened since I last wrote... maybe because I missed April (sumi masen- sorry in Japanese). The end of March came with some hard goodbyes. My good friend Hlulani headed back to Zimbabwe. We were studying a book together and sharpening one another here... I miss her but I know God has big plans for her back home!!  We also said goodbye to James & Heather.. as it was time for them to go back to Australia. They lead my life group and had come to help with the church.. they are missed yet the work they started is thriving! So I don't have a pic of James but Heather is on the far left. With the changes we had to switch around some life groups, so now I am with Anna & Leann in the picture and Ester (not pictured here). It's been great and I look forward to going deeper with these great women.

Right after saying goodbye I went to a wedding for two friends from church. It was lovely and since Greg is from England, and his family doesn't know Japanese, the ceremony was in both languages. Tomoko was a beautiful bride! Just after that I went to a celebration for my friend Daisuke, who is now officially a Dentist!

Posing for pictures as Man & Wife!

Cutest Program ever!

We both love being goofy...

See! Congrats Daisuke! Pray for him!

Get ready for a lot more pictures... I will do another blog soon to tell you more about what God is doing in me.. for now I hope you are enjoying this glimpse into my Spring so far...















So I had a great time celebrating at both these events. Daisuke is around all the time yet isn't sure about Jesus so please pray that he will find what he is looking for as he looks more and more into Jesus.

A street I pass on my walk to work!

Our Hanami group!

Tomoe & I after church.. so pretty!

With the start of April came the Cherry Blossoms!!! I passed many on my way to work so I got to see them from start to finish!! Such a blessing! Hanami is a cherry blossom (or sakura) party. My new life group had one at Tsurumai park on Easter before church. We did a picnic and I got to share about the Resurrection of Jesus with my friend Kaori, she had never heard it before. At church we celebrated that Jesus is ALIVE!!! And after church I went back to the park with my friend to see the lanterns come on.  

Meet Duffy & Sherrie May

They projected the scenes on this and Mickey was on top

Our hanami group was bigger but a few had to leave early. Kaori is on my left.  I have many pictures I would love to show though I am trying not to go too crazy here. I have posted many on Facebook and you can always ask me for more in a comment... just let me know. So, this was the beginning of April.


In the middle I went to Tokyo Disneyland and Disney Sea with my friend, and our new sister in Christ, Sachie, before she heads off to study abroad in Australia. We had a great time and I so love Disney! It was fun for me to compare the similarities and differences to Disneyland. We went the week kids went back to school in hopes it would be less crowded!! And it was! We got to do everything we wanted to and our longest line was maybe 40 minutes!!! We went to Disney Sea first. There I met Duffy for the first time. One out of every three people at Disney Sea was wearing, holding, or hanging Duffy and/or Sherrie May on their person. It was Spring Voyage so they had lots of flowers, including characters made of flowers. Tower of Terror, Indiana Jones, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and Journey to the Center of the Earth were all at Disney Sea... everything else was new to me. If you have questions about it just let me know. We finished the night with Fantasmic, which is my favorite show at home. I was very excited to see how they did it here. It was the same concept but done quite differently and Mikey and everyone were speaking Japanese, of course! I filmed a lot of it though it would take a lot of time to re-watch and edit.. so that might just be for me.  The thing Mikey stood on was also like a video screen and it looked like Mikey's hat at the very end. You can see the levels that rose up and down throughout the show depending on what they needed to show or do. So fun!

Entrance to Disney Sea

Almost done.. a few more pics of Disney and then you are home free ;)

Tower of Terror across the port.

I love King Louie!

New Orleans Goofy?

Thanks Walt!

The next day we went to Disneyland. It was a Monday so that is why is was less crowded, and I asked God to let us do all the rides and stuff so He might have helped on that too ;) I could go on and on about it but I will spare you. I'll just give a few more pictures. I hope you are enjoying them :).  They had an Easter theme going on so there were character eggs all around the park. We had fun spotting them as we went on all the rides. I have most of those pics in an album on Facebook. I am having trouble deciding on which pictures, so I need to stop before I put all of them here. It's been a fun, yet sometimes sad, past two months. Now it is Golden Week here so we get the whole week off. I decided take it easy and enjoy the people around me. I've had some lunches with friends, done a bit of shopping, a bit of resting, a bit of cleaning, and tomorrow I am off to the zoo with a group I don't know well... pray that the light in me illuminates as we enjoy what God has created!

Please pray for me. God has definitely been showing me a lot and some of it is not easy. Just pray that I keep growing and moving forward in who I am as a daughter of God! Thanks. Let me know if you would like me to pray for you too.