Rusty & Amber Meridian!: Long Needed Update

Hey everyone, sorry for the time in between updates. I had planned on updating on Monday, but I'd just gotten busy during the whole week. I'm not sure on the actual date taken on a lot of events, but I'll try to post them in order from bottom, oldest to newest. Newest being on the top.

There's been a lot of fun in the last month, with a lot of pictures.

Before we get too excited and just look at pictures, I'll give a quick update on how we are doing and what we are doing. Right now, Amber is continuing to work at We Go Eigo Fuuchu (Rich's English school). She currently goes four times a week.

I teach English twice a week (at this point, looking for more). We help with the Koinonia Klub on Saturday nights and help with church on Wednesday and Sunday. On Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, a few guys from the church have early morning devotions that I attend to. One of them is all in Japanese, so wish me luck on those days!

Me and Amber (mostly Amber, because shes really creative and good with art stuff) made a flyer for the English school here in Tokorozawa (the one that I teach at) and as soon as I get it translated into Japanese, I'll be handing them out and sticking them in mailboxes.

I also have the chance to attend a Japanese class twice a week, a near 1 on 1 tutoring for only 1 dollar (about) for an hour and a half of good teaching/immersion in the language.

Me and Amber also are regularly (almost every week, about 3/4 times) helping out with Kid's Church on Sunday mornings. We also got amber a new bike at Costco for a great deal.

We are really doing great out here. We love it here and really appreaciate all of the prayers that are going into ministry out here. Thank you so much and please continue to pray for us!

Okay, Pictures!
(Description of the picture will appear directly under the picture.)

These are a couple pictures from the park (somewhat) near Rich's English teaching place. Sport's Day took place here as well (I'll show that after the next picture).

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Another park picture.

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This is We Go Eigo's (Rich's English school in Fuuchu) Sport's Day.

Sport's Day is pretty much just that. You get your school together, along with your parents, family and friends and go do a bunch of organized sports, races, relays, and other fun physical activities. There are a lot of games where even the parents are involved.

This was the group picture before lunch.

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This was a towel race that we had. Two people had to carry a towel together while holding a ball in the towel. Older kids and parents had to get an additional pair and toss the ball using a flinging technique, learned only through experience, to the other pair.

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This was tug of war. Tug of war happens at certain festivals and at most sports days.

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Another of the many games available at sports day. Throw the balls in the basket/hoop.

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Racing is also important on sports day. There are also many relays that take place.

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This is me taking last place behind some eight to ten year old's (I think).

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Amber led the routine morning exercises!

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The following series is from our trip to Kawagoe. The couple following pictures are from the big temple area.

This is the temple front.

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This is a shrine. Yes, the water bottle does have a meaning, though I don't remember what it is.

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From my understanding, these are fortunes that you've gotten and you tie them here to make them come true. It's supposed to be good luck.

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These are some statues. I can't tell if they are Buddha or not.

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The following series is also from the same day that we went to Kawagoe, the old town place.

This was a picture of some friends.

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Amber looking cool next to a restaurant's moat with some fishies in it.

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This is a shrine.

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This is a line of shops. They were on both sides.

On a side note, you can pay people to carry you around in a highly glorified wheelbarrow for fun, or for something. Maybe to be cool. But you can do it. It comes out somewhere near a dollar a minute (more because of the exchange rate).

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This is a really big famous tower that has been around for hundreds of years. Pretty cool.

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Another picture of the tower.

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This was actually the first picture I took of the Kawagoe trip. I uploaded it first, so it came out last. ;)

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Happy Birthday, Michael! Sorry for the blurry picture. I tried to get Kaoru (sorry if I spelled your name wrong!) in the picture as well.

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No, it wasn't Amber's birthday, but she was happy for Michael.

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The following pictures are from the Tokorozawa Matsuri (Festival). This picture...I think it might represent villages battling. But then again, I didn't have a guide and I have no idea. But I think given the context, it looked like a battle. There was no live violence.

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Sweet picture of this guy on the roof of the wagon thing at the "Battle."

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Yeah, there were a lot of people here.

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Seriously, there were probably a zillion people there. Or more. Actually, I hear that there are some festivals that far outdo the number of people here. There are a few that reach in the many hundreds of thousands of people, so I hear.

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Someone always gets hurt, or bitten. Just kidding. Parents were putting their children in the dog thing's mouth just for fun :)

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I have abosolutely no idea what was going on here. I don't think it was Japanese. There were a lot of people.

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This was part of the parade before it got to the actual festival site.

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This is another picture of a wagon thing before it got to the festival site. That's Ruben in the front. He goes to our church :D. Sorry if I spelled your name wrong.

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The following few pictures is from Travis' son, Evan's Sport's Day. Basically something like what I used to do as a kid - a track meet, except they do a lot cooler things, even the parents participate in relays and other racing games with their kids. The entire day is just filled with a lot of fun. Also, most of these kids right here are around 4-5. Japan has some pretty good organizational skills, even among kids.

Unfortunately, somehow I didn't get any pictures of Evan's race. He was easily the fastest kid out of anyone else in his age group there. I would also bet that he would be in the top ten fastest of some of the older kids that were there too. He's a quick boy.

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Here they were performing a little dance to a song. Pretty amazing for kids.

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Little kids doing a six person pyramid.

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The pyramid complete.

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These are some of the littlest ones at church on Sunday mornings. They're all so cute.

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For a couple Sundays, some of us at the church gathered at the park to play some volleyball. Unfortunately, I only remembered to capture some pictures after we were done with our organized playing. There were a lot more people before I took the picture.

Also, on a quick note, our park is really big. It used to be an American military base, but is now a giant park. It's really beautiful and a great place to go spend time there for different occasions.

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A picture of a walkway at our park.

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Another picture of a pathway in our park ;D

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Ninjas. This is at our park. Sometimes on Sunday afternoons a bunch of people who like anime (Japanese Cartoons just to be easy), dress up like their favorite characters and take a bunch of pictures....basically.

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This starts a series of pictures from our Family Camp vacation we took with the church over to Okutama camping place thing. We had a lot of fun and good fellowship. The following pictures will be of our cabin and some of the outdoor places that we were at (in Okutama).

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