With the arrival of October, we are exiting the busy summer season and entering into the even busier fall season. This update is coming a little later than I'd hoped, but a lot has happened over the last few months! Since my last newsletter, I turned another year older. I had my 30th birthday which feels like a big milestone. Looking back, I spent the majority of my 20s either living in Japan or trying to get to Japan. I've learned a lot in that time.

I always think that summer is going to be more laid back, and every year I am reminded again of how crazy it can get! These last two months have been filled with many exciting things. Probably the most exciting thing has been the arrival of a new teammate! Kevin and Jane had their baby girl Emma Yumi on June 11th! Including all the kids, our team now has a total of 23 people.

April started with cherry blossoms blooming around Tokyo and ended with a week off from language school, so it was a pretty good month for me! I love the spring here in Japan because nature's beauty is really on display in a way I haven't seen anywhere else. It's very common for families, friends, and coworkers to gather and eat together among the blooming flowers, especially the cherry blossoms. There's even a word for it in Japanese, 花見 (hanami), which literally translates to flower viewing. This year it was really special to celebrate Jesus' resurrection on Easter and then that same week see all the new live popping up on the trees around us.

Happy Easter! It was raining almost all last week and then suddenly on Sunday the weather was perfectly sunny and the warmest day we've had in a while. I think it was really fitting! We had such a great service outside at Koganei Park. We sang worship, listened to an Easter message, ate lunch together, and enjoyed a lot of great fellowship. The four small churches in our network gathered with a lot of new people too. I think we had over 50 people which is the most for any of our celebration services!

In many ways I feel like I've stumbled into the new year. It's hard to actually believe that it's February already. Last year felt so packed and then these last two months have somehow been even more busy. Thankfully I'm coming into this year with some good experiences, some needed rest, a few new ideas, and an eagerness to push forward!

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving a few weeks ago and are having a great Advent season so far! I think you hear this from me every update I send, but it has been a busy couple months! In October my church went on a retreat which was a really special time for all of us. In November we had a Tokyo City Team retreat, I finished out three months of intensive Japanese classes, our team hosted a large Thanksgiving dinner that over 40 people came to, and we had a couple days of team meetings to think more about the future. So far in December, I have hosted church at my apartment, took the Japanese Language Proficiency test, and we had a team Christmas party.

Autumn has arrived but we are not feeling it here in Tokyo yet! Japan has had it's hottest summer on record and only this week are the high temperatures finally seeming to break. With the nonstop heat, I feel like I've also been running nonstop throughout the summer. It has been a busy few months.

After preparing for nearly two years, our summer Apex team finally arrived in Tokyo on June 9th, and they have been here for a little over three weeks! It has been so good so far. I'll be sharing more at the end of the summer and reflecting on the Apex students full trip here, but already half way through there is so much I could share.

It's currently Golden Week here in Japan which is a series of holidays that are lined up to give most people the week off. I've been enjoying the break from my language class to rest more and catch up on a few things like sending out this newsletter! It's been a busy couple months.

I've always loved the mountains and have really resonated with mountain imagery probably because I grew up around them, so I was excited to be heading to the mountains again this past week for a missionary retreat called Grace Week. I really knew nothing about the content of the retreat and went on the recommendation of my team leader. Mostly, I thought it would just be nice to get outside of Tokyo for a while and take a break from the busyness of the city. God really knew what I needed though in bringing me to Grace Week, not just to have refreshing time in the mountains to hike and enjoy nature, but also to hear more about his grace and my identity in him.

Hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving and are excited to be entering into the Christmas season! This is always a busy season for me (and I'm sure for many of you too), but this year was especially busy with my transition back into Tokyo. In my last update, I shared about how God provided me with my beautiful apartment. I thought that would be a big jump towards adjusting to life here, but that was just the first step! In the last two months, I've furnished my apartment, got reconnected with my church here, joined some of the team's ministries, helped welcome a new teammate, and started full-time Japanese classes!

I am in Tokyo! The past month since coming back has been packed. There were a few bumps along the way in the weeks leading up to flying out with getting sick and having to reschedule my flight, but thankfully once I was on the plane, it was pretty simple from there. I landed in Tokyo, my teammates picked me up, and my AirBnB was waiting for me.

I have my visa! I picked it up from the Japanese Consulate in Boston on Wednesday. That was one of the last major obstacles to going back! Only a few more weeks left until I fly out. It's still hard to believe it's finally happening. We've been working towards this for almost three years now. All that is left is to pack and get a covid test 72 hours before I leave.

We did it!

Thank you all so much for your prayers and support over the last few years! I'm excited to share with you that I have reached my funding goal and I bought my one-way ticket to fly back to Tokyo on August 8th!

I hope you had a happy Easter! It was a blessing for me to spend Holy Week with my church family at New Heart Church here in Grand Rapids. It was all a lot of fun and I am so glad to be a part of a church that is so dedicated to preparing people for the real joy and celebration that comes from Jesus' resurrection on Easter. It just keeps getting harder and harder knowing that I will be leaving New Heart Church soon. I know that my time here will be a huge benefit to my ministry in Japan though.

It’s been an exciting start to the year. It finally feels like things are starting to come together. It's been a long nearly two and a half years of wandering through the wilderness to get here and this journey isn't done yet, but it is really cool to look back at how far I've come and where God is leading me next.

Hope you had a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I had a wonderful time in Vermont for a couple weeks with my family, but I am back in Michigan and excited to see what 2022 brings. One of the things I'm most excited for this year is finally being able to get back to Tokyo! I'm confident that it will happen soon.

Hope you had a happy Thanksgiving! This year as I've been reflecting on where I'm at in life and in ministry, I have a lot to be thankful for. I know I say it often, but I am really thankful for all of you, especially as you've stuck with me through the challenges of the last couple years! This past October marks two years since coming back from Japan.

I am continually amazed at how God has provided for me and blessed me in ways that I couldn't have imagined before. The last few months have been full, and I mean that in every possible way! My schedule has been full of activities and travel, my brain has been full of thoughts and ideas and plans for the future, and my heart has been full from all the encouraging connections and opportunities I had to see friends and supporters.

After the slowness of the last year through the pandemic, things have really picked up this month! I arrived here in Grand Rapids, Michigan on July 1st after a relatively easy drive from Vermont. I was able to split the trip over a few days to visit a church and spend some time with one of my good friends from college. Since arriving in Michigan I've been getting settled and figuring out what life looks like here in the city.