Evan had a birthday!

On saturday, Evan had his birthday party! He turned 6 on monday or tuesday last week, but he had his party at the church on Saturday so all his church friends could come. And not being ones to turn down a good party, me and Rusty headed on over.



Just about all the church kids came and it was a good bunch of faces. Everyone was so excited for Evan. Even the littlest ones.




They played lots of balloon games and never seemed to run out of energy.


We also played Musical chairs. After the kids, we had the adults play too.

I guess it got a little rough...

(just kidding its face-paint)

So we took a breather and played the famous, Pin-the-Tail on the Donkey. I think we had 2 winners.

Just waiting for that chocolate goodness (or maybe for what comes after cake; presents?)



This kid is set on sugar for a few months.

And to wrap things up, their was a massive game of balloon volley ball. Hosted and sustained by the kids.
I think he had a very, very happy birthday.

Something other than monopoly...

I forgot to throw these up, so here you go.
Most saturdays at the Koinonia Klub, we play monopoly with whatever kids show up.
We only have one girl who comes, her name is Haruna.
We both went bankrupt pretty early, so we spent the rest of the night doodling. Here are some of our compilation creations.



^ note the Balloon. Rusty made it into the masterpiece. Oh and there you go, get an eyeful of my japanese handwriting and spelling hahah. Haruna said it was legible and the spelling at least somewhat comprehensive. *phew* My kanji on the other hand....well, lets just say i made the attempt that it woudnt make it into the pictures to well.


This one is all Haruna. She drew a picture of me

Ice Skating Adventure!

On Monday, Jiai and I took the girls group out ice skating in Higashi Fushimi! We got our ice legs and before we knew it we where skating like the pros (minus all the jumping and fastness...)

It took us a few minutes and some international shoe sizing, but we got our skates on.

I had black ones and so did Jiai, but Angel and Sayaka had red ones.

Off they went! This was Sayaka and Angels first time ice skating, but they picked up on it quickly!!

We stayed at the rink for a few hours, so when our feet started to hurt, we played a game. We had to guess what we had on our forehead by asking yes or no questions! We had a pretty good time, and just for the record; Team Amber won by 5 points!!


I had Tinker-Bell


Angel had Bell



Brittney had Arel (do i see a theme?)


And Jiai had Jasmine. She really got into the part.

Unfortunately i wasn't quick enough to get Hitomi or Sayaka with the paper on their heads!

It was a long day, and to be honest, I was a little sore the day after, but it was well worth it. We had a good time, and no one broke any bones.

Praise the Lord!

A Warm Welcome

"Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good;
Blessed is the man who trusts in Him!"

-Psalm 34:8

The Lord just loves to bless us, and here is just another testimony.
Be encouraged and know that the Lord desires only good for us. We where blessed with a Heater/AC unit!!!

We don't know who provided for us to have this, but the Lord does and we are making sure to praise Him for it! We've had some chilly nights here in Japan, but God knows our needs.
Praise the Lord for his provision!
We got everything installed on Saturday (within an hour! those guys are fast!!) and had a nice and warm nights rest.

-The Spearmans

Mid January Blessings

Well guys, looking back its just short of a month, so here's whats been going on with the Spearmans.

(get ready for lots of pictures)

We're back in full swing at the Preschool in Fuchu. We thought you might like to take a peek at some of the faces.

I guess 'Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes' is an exhausting song.

Runa and Kana, what a pair!

Also, the morning class is much different than these older kids (not older by much) so i would like to introduce you to just a few of our morning crew. We see most of these kids 2-3 times a week (some every weekday) from 9am untill 2:30. We have a blast!

Masafumi!! Our manliest man.

Karina, sporting the newest Burton outerwear.

Yuichi, our little thinker.

Anghous. This little guy has a language all to his own.

Haruki. One of our most fluent kids. And not to mention, one of our biggest Pink supporters.

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Shortly after the New Year one of the families from the church invited some people over for lunch. Their house is beautiful and was designed by the father. Wow!!
We had Sukiyaki. My first time eating raw eggs!

(the cooking process)

Checking in on the foods. And yep, a whole egg gets cracked into your bowl. (but, i suppose its optional xD)

After Lunch Rusty and Travis gave us some live entertainment. It looks like Travis is a little grown out of his Violin. lol (it's belongs to the families two youngest)
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After church on sundays, all the kids run over to the small park by the church and play soccer, and a bunch of other outdoor games. Even in the bitter coldness, they still go faithfully.
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Saturday Koinonia club is going pretty good. We're still goin' strong on Monopoly, even if we did loose all the game pieces. The clue figures seem to be working well.
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God blessed us with a couch!!! One of the ladies from our church moved back to her parents home town and she asked us if we could take her couch! Well, we have been waiting on getting a couch and the Lord decided to pick one out for us, for free!! What a blessing it is, really to be taken care of by the Lord. We had looked at a lot of shops for a sofa, but nothing seemed to fit right with money or size. But this one is perfect. Its a sofabed also, which is exactly what we wanted.

Looks like its already getting put to use!!
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This picture is a bit harder to explain. Japan is kind of like disney land...just kidding. At the Local park, a club visits about once a month on sunday afternoons. They are mostly university students all enrolled in clubs (a BIG deal in japan). These guys are cosplayers. They all make costumes of their favorite fictional characters and meet up and take pictures (sometimes with professional photographers)
This group is from the video game Final Fantasy 10.
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This may look like cosplay, but believe it or not; this one isnt!! Last monday was a national holiday, so me and rusty went down to Ikebukuro (part of the more city side of tokyo) and popped into Sunshine City. Before that we went to Patisserie Swallowtail. (click the link if your interested in more info) and got a sweet. The clerk is wearing their standard company uniform. Japan is a country filled with all kinds of attractions and specialties. This is just one of them. Click here to see the guys uniforms. (as seen pictures on dolls)

We also stopped by NamjaTown, but we didnt go in. This an amusement park developed by Namco, the video game company. We just didnt have enough time to do an amusement park today.

Its the 23rd already? what??

So i realized today its been a long time since we updated. And we have done a lot too. Including my birthday and christmas parties. All without posting a picture. We don't have too many, but for all of your sakes, we will share a few images from our busy, busy month.

We will start with my (amber's) 22nd birthday.

(From the left: Karina, Fardin, Meri, Me, Koudai, Haruki)

I started the day off going to work, and was suprised around lunch time. The kids (and their moms, and rusty) all threw me a party with a big cake! Its about an hour and fifteen mins to commute to the preschool, so i was pretty amazed to see rusty at the school. And it was a real blessing to have the moms of these little guys come too. They are really sweet and they even made me a card.


Rich and Candice gave me the rest of the day off, so rusty took me out to dinner in Shinjuku! We went to this great place named Mokuola (pictured above lol) and we got some awesome burgers and fries. We also go to know our waiter a bit. He spoke great english, so we have a few short conversations with him when he could spare a moment (it was pretty packed)

We then closed the night with some coldstone. They sang us a special welcome to tokyo song and everything.
It really was such a wonderful birthday and i feel so blessed to have such a wonderful husband to spend it with. The Lord is blessing us way more than we deserve or could have asked for.

Next up was the Tokorozawa WeGoEigo Christmas party. The picture is Mike and Jiai sharing the christmas story to the kids in full details. They don't really know much about christmas other than santa, jingle bells and special (really expensive and tiny) christmas cakes. So we wanted them to know the christmas story and also ended with the easter story. Pray that these kids will remember in their hearts as they grow older.

Lets see what next?


Taco Rice!
We totally got blessed by a family in the church with some taco seasoning and fixings, so we got right to making our "Okinawan soul food". Taco rice is always a welcome site in our house. (and you can see our christmas tree, just barley in the background! That was ALSO a gift from another family from the church! [also note the box of ornaments, still left unhung. we'll get to that christmas eve hahaha])

Just last saturday we went a few stops away to Tachikawa with a few people from the church and saw the Christmas Illumination. It was cold, packed and shiny but a good time. Lots of lights and some beautiful fireworks to end the evening.

This whole display is all champagne glasses with lights under it. Pretty cool huh?


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Well again, im sorry for the delay, but for now this is Merry Christmas and Happy New year. Keep looking at Jesus for 2010!

-The Spearmans

Kitchen and Rooms Video

I got the video for the kitchen and rooms.

Once again, thank you so much everyone who is praying for us. The Lord has been so faithful to provide for every need that we have, both physical and spiritual. Thank you.

I'll try to post up other events soon!

House!

Hey everyone! I have so much to say and it seems so little time.

I threw together a quick video to show the outside of our house, I should be updating soon with the inside, with all of our new household things inside!

Also, I have some pictures of some Christmas events that have happened, I'll try to get those up soon too.

Quick Update!

Hey everyone, just wanted to give a real quick update on things (sorry I didn't have time to get pictures up, but hopefully tomorrow I can post em up.)

So, by God's grace, we got the free-standing house for rent! We were/are in the process of getting everything moved over and getting all of the small things that are needed for daily living. We were surprised when we realized that it just seems like there's a million different things you need to buy for convenience when you move into a new place (tape, band-aids, silverware, dishsoap and sponges, towels, bathroom stuff, everything that you *can't* think of when you are shopping for it ;) ).

For a quick update on our weekly schedule (rough update), We Go Eigo Fuchu (English school across town) we go to five times a week. I go monday and wednesday and Amber goes Tues, thurs and fri. We both have We Go Eigo Tokorozawa classes during the times we have off from Fuchu as well. I attend a pastor's devotion on Tuesday morning and Amber attends the Women's Wednesday on a Weekday (I just right now named it that, it's still unofficial though). Saturday nights we have Koinonia Klub, and Sunday we both are in weekly schedules for helping with kid's church.

Also, We'd like to sincerely thank all those who have put Amber and I up into a place and have helped us out - as far as actual housing goes. Don't worry we are also sincerely thankful for different kinds of support that others have given as well. But right now we would like to mention my parents, Pastor Tommy and Pastor Travis for specifically putting us up into a place until the Lord moved us into our own.

Thank you so much for your prayers and support, please, please continue to pray for us!

Again, this was somewhat of a quick update, I'll try to post back within the next day or two WITH pictures! Thanks everyone!