Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Kabocha muffins

Clark’s International Night Thanksgiving Celebration –
We celebrated Thanksgiving a second time this year at the Clark’s International night December 5th with many friends and students. We had a potluck style dinner and enjoyed many wonderful traditional American dishes including turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes,various pies as well as some new dishes like kabocha (Japanese pumpkin). This squash reminds me of sweet potatoes but even better. This may be my new favorite squash. I love it!

A great time was had by all  great time playing games, singing Christmas carols and hearing a brief message on the baby Jesus come to earth to save us. Mitsuki and Momo joined us for the celebration and stayed the night with our family. Always a fun time of laughter and games when they come for a visit.  
Decorating the Christmas tree
Friendly game of spoons
Christmas group photo
Reiko’s Birthday Puzzle Completed –
I told you about the great puzzle and frame Reiko gave Stephanie for her birthday recently. Here is a picture of them in Reiko’s bakery with the puzzle completed and framed. We really enjoy visiting her on our way to and from school and seeing her on Saturday when we buy bread from her bakery.
Completed  birthday puzzle from Reiko.
Roster Oven and Kabocha Muffins –
I am so grateful for this wonderful kitchen appliance and my newly found ability to bake! I usually bake a lot in the fall and did not realize how much I was missing the sweet smells of muffins, cookies and casseroles coming from my kitchen. I have been baking kabocha muffins, banana muffins and chicken, broccoli, rice casserole. I am one happy mama in my kitchen again with my roaster oven.

Who knew you could bake and roast in this wonderful portable oven.
The kabocha muffins are wonderful but take much more work than they would in the states. Pumpkin is outrageously expensive here and virtually impossible to find. Like $52.00 dollars for three cans if you try to buy it through the online Costco site. So, being determined to make pumpkin muffins, I bought a whole kabocha from Costco for 298 yen or roughly $3.00, cut, cleaned and baked my own in order to have kabocha puree to make muffins. They turned out great and though my family continues to encourage me to cook Japanese dishes, I think they were happy to see some familiar fall sweets in our kitchen again.
Kabocha - Japanese pumpkin
Much smaller and sweeter than our American pumpkin
Roasting to make puree for muffins
Banana holiday muffins
Update Regarding Stephanie’s biking injury –
Thank you so much for your prayers and e-mails of encouragement regarding Stephanie’s biking injury. She is now off her crutches and all stitches are out. She is walking slowly and we are still making weekly trips to the ER for followup care. Please continue to pray for no infection and a full recovery. She still has some discomfort and the injury sight is still healing slowly. We appreciate all your love, concern and prayers very much.

Stephanie won third price in the Bethany photo contest –
I wanted to share some fun and exciting news with you. Bethany International Ministries (BIM), our missionary sending organization in the states hosted a photo contest for missionaries abroad. They had three categories in the contest - people, scenery and ministry. Stephanie has been our photographer extraordinaire since arriving in Japan taking pictures of everyday things with a unique and fresh perspective. She has captured some amazing pictures and we submitted several to the BIM photo contest. The staff narrowed the entries down to a few in each category then staff, students and missionary families voted for their favorites.

Turns out Stephanie won third place in the scenery category for her photo "Forests of Japan". She will be receiving a $25 Amazon gift card for her third place prize. We are proud of her knack for taking everyday pictures and pointing out their amazing beauty. Congratulations Stephanie and thank you for pointing our the beauty around us every day!

Our Elf on the shelf Jane showed up -
Turns out Jane, our Elf on the shelf found us half way round the world and has been showing up in various places since December 11th. Well that is when we noticed her hiding in our little Christmas tree anyway. Since then she has helped her self to our Christmas cookie sprinkles and one half of a cherry candy cane. Alex is not thrilled to have her here and has threatened he will throw her out his window if she goes into his bedroom. 

Jane sampled our cookie sprinkles a couple of days ago
We had a couple of conversations that she knows our family would not tolerate the mischievous, naughty things we see other Elves doing at other people's houses. We guess that is why she has kept her misbehaving to a minimum at our house...

Many thanks for your faithful prayers and support. We are grateful to be here serving and investing in our community. May this season give us pause to remember the real reason we celebrate and what a gift we have been given in the birth of Jesus Christ.

God bless you all,

K. Chadduck








Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Hope Chapel Thanksgiving

Our 18th Anniversary -
We celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary on November 22, 2015 by going out for a quiet breakfast with real cappuccino at a restaurant not far from our house. We then wandered through a local farmers market where I purchased a beautiful cyclamen that sits in my kitchen window brightening up the room.

Especially at this time of year, I am thankful for all that I have been given. I am truly grateful for my family and wonderful husband. Words fall short to express how blessed I am to be doing life together with this funny and adventurous bunch I get to call family. Love you all so much and am so thankful to be sharing in this great adventure with you.
Family photo taken in October after my birthday dinner.
Stephanie’s Biking Accident -
I have not updated the blog in a couple of weeks and wanted to be sure and communicate with our prayer partners and supporters recent events. On November 19th Stephanie was sneaking a ride home on the back of my motorized bicycle and caught her heel in the spokes of the back wheel. It was a pretty traumatic injury resulting in a trip to the ER and 20 stitches/staples. 
Ikoma City Hospital, Nara Prefecture, Ikoma, Japan
She is doing much better this week, getting the remaining stiches/staples out and is off the crutches. We are praying for no infection and the skin to heal together fully. The past couple of weeks have been stressful including trips to the hospital regularly for her follow up care and coordinating that care with translators from our small group and fellow teachers at KCS.
Ikoma City Hospital entrance and waiting room.
God has been faithful, providing the help we need but it has been trying for all of us to be sure. We are grateful to God her Achilles tendon, nor nerves were damaged and it is just a bad cut per the doctor. Those of you who know Stephanie will appreciate her struggle to be on crutches for a little over two weeks. This has really slowed her down and caused her to rely upon all of us for even her most basic needs.

I cannot fully express how difficult it was in the ER to not understand the physician who is caring for your child. I have prayed a ton since her injury and relied upon God very heavily trusting He is looking out for my child like only He can. I am grateful to God her Achilles tendon is intact and was not severed. This has been a whole new level of trusting God with my baby and leaning on Him for comfort and peace.

We are still going to the hospital weekly for her follow up care and pray she will continue to heal quickly, without infection and return to full activity soon.

Hope English Thanksgiving Dinner -
Onto a much more enjoyable and fun topic - Thanksgiving Hope Chapel style. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving celebration on Saturday, November 28th with our Hope Chapel community. Since the Japanese do not celebrate Thanksgiving to speak of, and the Pilgrim’s do not hold much significance for them, we worked on Thursday and celebrated the holiday on Saturday.
Jonah, Betsie, Alex and Eddie at the Hope Chapel Thanksgiving Celebration.
Some of you may have heard me bemoaning the fact I miss my American oven terribly and not being able to bake muffins, bread or lasagnas this time of year. I love fall and all of the amazing pumpkin recipes available when the weather starts to cool. Well, my wonderful husband set about locating a reasonably priced roaster oven (I say reasonably priced because if you purchase it here in Japan it is a small fortune) and had it shipped to the house a few days before our Thanksgiving feast. So, kudos to my husband for locating the best deal and planning for its arrival in time to roast a turkey for our celebration.
Oh so grateful for this wonderful kitchen appliance.
Several Kansai Christian School students attended the fun evening of great food, laughter and fellowship. Hope you enjoy the fun pictures and beautiful turkey. You have no idea what it is like to pull off a traditional Thanksgiving dinner in Japan but we did it!
Let the turkey and pie eating begin!


Kansai Christian Students and Hope Chapel guests at the Thanksgiving celebration.
Thank you to all of our prayer partners and supporters. We have leaned heavily upon your faithful prayers the past couple of weeks and have been encouraged by your e-mails and many acts of kindness.

Many thanks and God bless you,
K. Chadduck