(mary) christmas

...who says tupper"wear" can't actually be worn?...

...being "worn" out is a feeling not foreign to many of us this time of year...while the christmas season presents meaningful times of community to celebrate and reflect on the meaning and mystery of Jesus the infant-immanuel, it also presents the tension between balancing personal enjoyment with ministry expenditure (or exhaustion)...

...that tension surfaces in the well-known narrative of two sisters, martha and mary (luke 10.38-42)...each sister takes a different approach to hosting jesus for the evening...martha serves to the point of distraction, anxiety, and resentment...mary sits at the feet of jesus and hears his voice...

...these days we have sensed this tension (and the events haven't even taken place yet!)...martha-like times have surfaced, but, by God's grace and through his word, we have been able to enjoy a very mary (merry) christmas...

...today's asian access grow group meeting was a wonderful time to reflect on and respond to the meaning and mystery of Jesus the infant-immanuel...with everyone facing the expected fatigue associated with a heavy ministry schedule, the group -- under sue's thoughtful leadership -- devoted unhurried time and space for the meaning and mystery of christmas...

...we also congratulated the takamotos on eight years of marriage and ministry!...

...we love how our kansai family counsels one another...

...collaborates with each other...

...and cheers for one another...

...because our train rides to sanda are long and expensive, we agreed with our supervisors that we will meet twice a month with our japanese supervisor, pastor fuji, after grow group meetings...

...in our first meeting today, we were so encouraged to hear fuji-sensei's vision to see the gospel take on various forms vis-a-vis the particular needs of a given community...learning from and serving with japanese workers like the fujis is central to asian access' paradigm of ministry and we're so thankful to God to be getting our first munch of this mutuality...