What?! 6 Months!!

Today speaks of the duration and continuation of our adventure in the land of Japan. 6 months have flown by like the wind, without notice. Our busy teacher lives have consumed 6 months of joys and hardships while still looking for more to feed upon.

"Japan has truly been a worthwhile adventure," states Travis. "We continue to seek the will of the Lord in our daily life, looking to His strength and faith, which is truly unending."

Many days have been traversed without the sight of family, and the longing of the corn fields haunt the minds of both as they wonder the orchards of Aomori, the Blue Forest as they call it here. "Nothing tastes as sweet as a Hershey's kiss in my mouth," describes Mrs. Appelgate. Both look yonder to the day of return to the home land and the hope of refreshment from those dearly left, but not lost, 6 months ago to this date.

Words can describe the action packed days spent in the foreign lands, but time cannot. "We have learned so much, like how to cook the choiceiest chahan (fried rice) and homemade cheese," exclaims Travis, "but there is more to learn, like how to speak Japanese...yeap...still working on that one..."

The loved ones wish to send their friends and family all the love of the Lord, in hopes that they will be remembered in dinner time prayers and bed time thoughts. "We are still alive!" shouted Angie with excited intonation.

In other thoughts, the two spent the day in celebration of all that the Provider has given. "We know that home is the Lord, and He is continually with us," said Travis with solemn committment. They celebrated joyfully to forkfuls of spaghetti and mouthfuls of bruschetta at a local chain Italian restaurant, after which they enjoyed their favorite local deserts of ice cream and crepes. "How appropriate for Japan," stated Angie, "considering that our first time out to eat in Japan was Italian!"

Thanks be to all those who have placed us in God's care while we be so far from the arms of our loved ones, as we remember a time will come when we will never depart.

p.s. thanks for putting up with reading interesting English; "It's my only escape," cries Travis, "I am forced to speak in such broken English all day!"

English Club Fun!

Teaching English might be difficult, but teaching English Club is more like hanging out with our friends! Most students care little to learn English, but the students who do care are lots of fun! Here's an update of our English Club activities.

Last month we had a BBQ at Haruna's house. We ate lots and lots of meat and of course yummy desserts sent from America by our most wonderful families!!! Needless to say the desserts were the biggest hit :D

Of course, a BBQ wouldn't be a BBQ w/o some fireworks!

We also went bowling with a few of our English Club members. Angie did the best (of course being a retired bowling leaguer helped!) but our students also did very well and had a lot of fun!

Tonight, we decided to have our entire English club over to our apartment for dinner. The main dish was half-cooked/half-burnt spaghetti with not-so-good sauce. We found that it was quite difficult to cook for 20 people!!! Then we had some salad with American Ranch dressing! and some fruit salad, and of course yummy American desserts! Since our apartment is teeny-tiny and our number of English Club students has tripled since we had our first Appelgate dinner (a few weeks after we arrived) we decided to carry the food to the park and have a picnic!

After the picnic we enjoyed desserts and games. We played some assassins, watch Sponge-Bob Squarepants (Thanks Team Johns!) and even sang some worship music!

Please be praying for our English Club students. They are the reason God brought us here and are the students that we can show who God is the most. Please pray that their hearts would be softened to God and they would begin to see God's love for them.

We are alive!

Just thought we would blog to let you all know, yes, we are still alive, despite the fact that we have not blogged in about 3 weeks! We have been quite busy at school since we got back from summer vacation and have had little time to blog! We have been helping 4 of our students prepare for the Aomori speech contest and have been working late most nights.

Hopefully we will be able to blog more soon! We love and miss you all very much!