Exploring our region

Reiko’s Bakery –

We have befriended Reiko, the owner of our local bakery close to our house. Stephanie visits with on a regular basis and drew her a picture as a thank you for her kindness. She has amazing fresh baked cheese pizzas and other wonderful baked goods which are among some of our favorites. She hung Stephanie’s thank you picture and pipe cleaner flowers on her bakery wall as you can see in the picture below.

The last time we stopped to buy bread, Reiko informed us she would be the kids’ “Japan Grandma” since they do not have grandparents in Japan. On the way home from school yesterday she stopped Alex to give him Grandchildren gift bags for him and Stephanie. The bags contained an assortment of Japanese candies and treats. She has been so warm and friendly to our family and really has been a bright spot on my way to work each day when she comes out to greet me and say hello. 

Reiko's Bakery

Reiko and Stephanie 

We continue to visit new churches each weekend looking for a home church. Last week we traveled with a KCS teacher and her son to New Hope Osaka. It was a really nice church, with the service in English and translated into Japanese. They also had youth group after the Sunday service. We spent the rest of the day in downtown Osaka seeing the sights.

Downtown Osaka –

The sea of people in downtown Osaka made it feel like a city of almost 9 million. You can see from the pictures the roads were totally full of pedestrians and I think we only saw a handful of cars on the roads until we were on the outskirts of town.

Downtown Osaka, Japan

Popular photo spot in Osaka. This is an ad for an ice cream company. 

 I tried my first Ika (deep fried squid) at a local Osaka restaurant. It reminded me of deep fried clams and honestly, it was really good. I ate more than just the obligatory piece, I ate a few because I genuinely liked it to my surprise.

Deep Fried Ika...Yum!

We went on a hike over the Silver Week holiday with the Clark’s and some of their grandchildren to a local national park. The park reminded me of the Olympic National Forest with a lot of ferns, moss and lots of hiking trails. There was a huge climbing wall at the trailhead near the concession stand. The climbing wall is the largest I have ever seen, maybe three times as tall as the Valley YMCA.

 

Climbing wall in the national park

 There was a really cool suspension bridge about 60 meters over the valley floor. I was a little unnerved as I surveyed the bridge. This was especially true when it started to sway from all the pranksters who thought it oh so funny to rock it back and forth.

Alex and Stephanie on the suspension bridge

So cool to look over the trees in the valley.

Suspension bridge over the valley from the top of the mountain.

You can see Kyoto and Hirakata in the distance from the top of the hiking trail. This is quite a ways North from where we live. We had a picnic at the top of the mountain after enjoying the amazing view.

Kyoto and KIirakata in the distance

When we arrived, a fellow missionary gave me some great advice. She told me to just try stuff. She said, “You will make mistakes, but don’t be afraid to try.” The adventures to the post office, to buy groceries, to converse with the crosswalk guard on my way to work and even answer my front door, are not for the faint of heart. Each week I find I am more comfortable in the grocery store, I have successfully mailed a few packages now and am learning some key Japanese phrases to get by.

Some days I am more courageous than others. Some days to be honest, I prefer not to venture out because I cannot read the street signs, labels in the grocery stores or understand what they are saying on the train much less have a conversation off the KCS campus.

All that considered, we are growing in ways we can see and in many ways we can not yet see I am sure. We are grateful to be here and see God at work in the larger "church". We have been blessed to fellowship with others who are strong in their faith and passionate about Jesus. The students at KCS are such an encouragement to me when I see their zeal and fire to serve the Lord. 

We really appreciate the generosity and kindness the KCS families, staff, students and the larger faith community have extended to us. Thanks be to God for His faithfulness and wisdom for putting us just where we needed to be in Japan. What an amazing God we serve.

In Christ,

The Chadducks

First full week of school

We have all officially been back in school one week and are still adjusting to the early start and longer school day. School begins at 8:15 and lets out at 3:15 each day. The kids are up at 6:45 and out the door by 7:30 to be at school on time.

They are enjoying new friends and both say they really like it here. I am not sure if Miss Yamada’s class rabbit, Gracie, the turtles the 5^th grade teacher is getting and oh yeah, you can share food at this school, have anything to do with their perspectives.

Bob and I are busy with lesson plans and teaching. I have two classes and spend about as much time prepping as Bob does for 3 times as many classes. I am really enjoying my English class and made my first vocabulary test yesterday. We will take our first test in my class tomorrow. The students are great and the staff really supportive. We are glad to be here and establishing a new school year routine.

We attended Nara International Christian Church (NICC) on Sunday. The Sunday service is in English and translated into Japanese. We are looking for the right church and plan to attend a few more in our area. There are not many churches with English services each week and many are an hour or more away by train or car.

The pastor and his wife hosted a BBQ after service that lasted until 4:30. We met many wonderful people, ate great food and even met a gentleman who attended Eastern Washington University when I was there. Amazing how small the world feels when that happens. He is a huge Seattle Seahawks and Mariners fan, go figure!?

Donna Reddington and friends at the NICC BBQ

Please pray we will soon find a church community where our whole family will thrive.  There are not many Sunday school options in English in our area. NICC has forty members and is pretty large for a Japanese Christian church. I anticipate we will be back again in the next couple of weeks since we all liked it so much.

Still waiting for our car and internet service but we are making progress. We now have the parking space approved and they are coming next week to pull the internet cabling into the house. Not having a car or internet service is inconvenient but we are managing. Just means more planning and prep time on our part for grocery shopping, getting to school and all internet communications must be completed on campus.

We made it through our first typhoon. It was not as exciting as it sounds. We had rain for 9 days straight and yesterday was just like a really heavy rain storm. We shuttered our windows only to have a friend tell us Heguri does not get that kind of typhoon activity. Because we are in a valley and virtually land locked, and typhoons generally mean heavy winds and rain our way. More frequently just A LOT of rain. So our shutters are now open again, and it has stopped raining this morning.

This past week one of my favorite people and biggest fans passed away. My grandmother, Sheela Stevens died September 2, 2015 at the age of 90. She was an amazing woman. She was so strong, loving and caring. Her support and love have been constants all my life. I lovingly nicknamed her “Plain Grandma” as a child because I did not want to explain which grandmother I was talking about when I said grandma. In my mind Plain Grandma was grandma Sheela. She signed my birthday cards and notes, “Plain Grandma” all my life. She loved well, whether it was baking your favorite cookies, attending a special event or remembering your birthday. She made you feel special and deeply loved.

I will miss her notes of encouragement, blessings and reminders she loved me. She was the kind that hugged you so tightly you just knew she could not get enough of you. I am grateful she is at peace now, free from her earthly body and with the Jesus. I admire her for so many reasons and I rejoice knowing one day I will see her again in Heaven. May we all love as well as she did. I am indeed blessed to have been loved so richly, fully and unconditionally by her. I love you my dearest Plain Grandma.

Grandma Sheela aka "Plain Grandma" at her 90th birthday.

 One last note, thank you to our faithful supporters. We really appreciate your commitment to pray for us as well as your generosity. We are grateful for your partnership and are excited about what God is doing in Japan and at Kansai Christian School.

In Christ,

The Chadducks

Highlights since my last entry

I am writing to you overflowing with joy. I was just at Kansai Christian School (KCS) this morning for the start of the 2015-2016 school year. There were introductions of new staff, students, a time of worship, a brief message by the school Chaplin as well as announcements regarding fall after school activities. What an experience to be in the midst of parents, teachers and students representing six different nationalities all joined together in unison worshiping the Lord. It was amazing! We are so incredibly blessed to be a part of what God is doing here at KCS.

So many new experiences and adventures it is hard to select only a few. I would like to tell you everything but I know it would be boring compared to living it so I will just give you the highlights.

We were blessed a week ago to have dinner at the Magner’s. They invited new KCS staff and their families for taco rice. It was a wonderful chance to interact with families in our community and socialize with other new teachers. Since then, the Magner's got us in touch with a mechanic friend and found us a car!

The Chadduck' New (Used) Car!

The car thing here is really hard to understand. Basically this family is giving us the car for free and we need to pay the shaken (maintenance so it will pass inspection). This shaken is no small deal though and it can be fairly costly if the car is old but ours is a 2003 with only 75K on it! The shaken comes due every two years and must be completed in order to license a car. Seems like a great deal to me. This car would sell for way more in the states. Apparently the general rule is most people would rather purchase a newer car than pay the shaken to maintain an aging car that is still running with low miles.

This is a HUGE answer to prayer and we hope to have the car in a couple of weeks. Also, get this, we had to obtain a form from the police station verifying we have parking space. Apparently the police will come to our house next week and measure our parking space to confirm our car fits in our carport. I guess that is why houses and streets are neat and tidy around here.

We made a few large purchases for the house this week from the Recycle store (thrift store with all kinds of housing items). One being an electric washing machine and I for one am really grateful! I had to do laundry by hand this week. No, I am serious, and as I type this I cannot believe I did it! It took over two hours and then I had to hang it out on our balcony to dry. We are having unseasonably rainy weather which makes drying clothes outside virtually impossible. It took two days for the clothes to not feel damp to the touch. I am so thrilled to have this washing machine! The limiting factor now is I may only wash as many loads as I have space to hang up on the balcony. Oh well, definatley first world problems right!?

All the controls are in Japanese but I am figuring it out.

The other item I am thrilled to have is our kitchen hutch. We were desperate for additional counter and storage space. Now we are able to move the microwave (given to us by another teacher for FREE) and our toaster oven off the gas stove. We had them stacked one on top of the other and had to relocate them each time we needed to use the stove. Amazing how you take things for granted until you do not have them. 

Kitchen hutch with additional counter space.

We had one last bit of summer fun last Friday and went to the Osaka aquarium with two former home-stay students.The aquarium is one of the worlds’ largest and it took about four hours to walk through. They have a whale shark on display that is about 20 feet long as well as a really interesting jelly fish exhibit. We enjoyed taking the hour train ride to Osaka as well. There is a really long tunnel we travel through to get from Heguri to Osaka through the mountain.

The population of Osaka is roughly 8,894,000 and I was so impressed by the cleanliness and organization of the city for its size. I knew we were in a huge city because of all the concrete, trains and roads but it was so orderly and quite for being so enormous. Really exciting to actually be in Osaka after looking at it for months on Google maps. So cool! I still cannot believe we are ACTUALLY here!

Osaka Aquarium

Amazing Jelly Fish Exhibit

So as I mentioned earlier, school started today, Wednesday, 9/2/2015 at 8:15 a.m. The kids packed up their backpacks last night with new supplies, put on new clothes this morning and we walked to school. They were pretty good sports about my traditional first day of school picture in front of our house. Truth is I think we were all pretty excited to start the school year.

First day of school 2015 - 20216 Kansai Christian School

I could go on but I will save the rest for next week. May God bless you and keep you. We think of family and friends often and send our love you.

The Chadducks