Leaving Japan

So I hope everyone didn't give up on us. We have much more to share about our time in Japan. Even though it has been more than a few days since we've come back we want to share a little about how our last week in Japan went.  

Of course we were busy with saying goodbye to everyone and packing all of our stuff.  As is par for the course, we ended up with a lot more stuff than we left with.  Travelling with 5 people gave us a luggage limit of 10 checked bags along with all the carryon we could take, and we went to the limit on our baggage.  By 4 am the day we left we were at a point of dumping everything leftover in a big box which served as our last piece of luggage.

But besides all the trouble of packing up and saying goodbye, we still had a great week of ministry.  We had two visitors from the US who came to help us out, and we did a special 1 day English program (sort of like a 1 day VBS) for the elementary school students at 3 of the preschools.  The kids had lots of fun singing English songs, listening to Bible stories, making crafts, playing games and eating snacks.

In addition to doing this English program and packing up, we had the added bonus of giving a whirlwind tour of our area of Japan to our visitors.  We managed to pack a lot of touring in the little free time we had.  We did a (long) day trip to Hakone, a resort area near Mt. Fuji.  We also had a great tour in Tokyo, visiting Tokyo Tower, doing a river cruise, and visiting a large temple before having supper with some friends we hadn't had a chance to visit with yet.

All in all, we really enjoyed our time in Japan, and it was hard to leave, but we know in our hearts that someday we will return again.

This is not the end of our blog, by the way.  We hope to upload more of our pictures and memories of Japan in the next few weeks.  Come back soon to check it out.