We're in Japan!!!

GIG....God is Good!

...by God's grace and with your prayers and partnership, last night we arrived safely in osaka/kansai intl airport...at both ends of the flight, we were surrounded with love, prayers and support from family and friends...

...holding back the tears as we say goodbye to parents and friends at lax...

....kika, whom we met during asian access training, said bye to us and to her mother visiting from japan...

...during the flight, claire got her fill of tetris....

...even loaded with luggage, isn't claire just way too cute?~~

...after seamlessly clearing customs, we were greeted and embraced warmly (and loudly...which is not very japanese) by our new family in japan, the "new community church" family (we were later told, after spending about 10 minutes with them, that everyone had to travel nearly 2 hrs and pay heavy tolls just to come and greet us...that moved us deeply)...

...here we are being led in a prayer of thanksgiving and praise to God by the retired senior pastor of new community church (whose son is now the senior pastor of ncc)...

...below the gakeuntoshi chapel church planting team...God answered our prayers for an immediate sense of connection and joy with our new family...the two men (nishioka-san and kokubu-san are businessmen w/ an exceptional vision for japanese christianity....these two men in particular will become my mentors and teachers and co-laborers in christ...claire will undoubtedly bond well with the women!)

...for our first two nights in osaka, we're staying w/a family in our kansai church-planting team in their beautiful home in sanda: eric and sue takamoto and their two radiant children, owen and annie...

...ryuminations readers: you will be blessed so much in the years to come as we share stories about the takamotos...

...thanks to japan's hi-tech society, we can post fresh blogs wirelessly and sit on nice, warm toilet seats....we could definitely get used to this!~

...gotta go to our GROW group (which is the bi-weekly meeting of our kansai church-planting team)...there we will spend time w/ people who you will all get to know and love....for now, we'll leave you with a couple pics of the takamotos' beautiful kids, owen and annie...

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...THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR PRAYERS AND LOVE~!~! PLEASE KNOW THAT WE GIVE THANKS TO GOD FOR EACH ONE OF YOU!!!