JAPANticipation - northern cal style

"hey donovan, do you know where japan is?"
"yeah, abigail, i think it's the thing on the map that looks like a seahorse swimming next to korea"

.....we had our fourth "JAPANticipation" event today from 5:30 to 7:30 @ stephen and amy (and haley) jo's house in castro valley (thanks to the entire jo-har family for your hospitality and help!)...on the heels of the other boston and l.a. japanticipations, we had a light japanese meal, followed by...

...a brief devotion from psalm 51 (main point: God's mercy moves us from the misery of our brokenness (vv. 1-12) to authentic and humble ministry or mission to a broken world (vv.13-17))...

...then a quick testimony from both claire and me re God's call on our lives (past) leading to our state of preparations (present) and the kind of work and team with which we will be involved in osaka (future)...

....after the devotion and testimony, we had a 15 minutes silent reading period...

...which was meant to inform and transition into a time of corporate prayer....

...all in all, God answered our prayers by making japanticipation iv a rich time of family fellowship (unlike other j-events, we were blessed with the joy and laughter (and crying) of children!), a concise time of team building, and free space for friendship (re)connecting...for our partners around the country, here's a gallery of our no-cal team partners and dear friends....

...we will miss all of our no-cal friends but we will definitely pray for you and build on our friendships...

...here's my good friend from college, diana, with her husband and fellow bruin aaron and future bruin son donovan (u may remember him with the "sea horse" answer)...it's so wonderful to have such missions-minded friends!

...and jeff, jane, and son jonathan...praise God for reconnecting us...of all the people who came tonight, jane has known claire the longest (jr. highers @ fpcoc church)...

...here's dear friend heidi who is a stream of joy in our lives...

...and the kangs (ted, sandy, abigail and isabel) who inspire us with their heart for china and love for each other...

...and jason who has always been a barnabus-like encouragement to us...

...and sung and joo, a fun-loving soon-to-be-married couple who u saw reading earlier in the post...here they are beaming after they aced our pop quiz ; -p...

...and finally, we were so glad to spend time with our gracious hosts for the evening, stephen and amy jo...

...haley was all zzz's by the time we took our goodbye pics, but of course we had plenty from earlier before...