At the end of the first year.

Spring break is almost over and I can hardly believe I'm already approaching my second year of teaching. Unexpected (but not unhappy!) things have arisen and my duties have increased quite a bit from this point last year. Even so, God has taken care of us and provided for our needs at church and at school.

Fukuoka Tower.

The paradox of blogging about my experiences in Japan is that the things about my life and job that I thought I'd write more about are so mundane to me now that I'm afraid I'd bore you with the details. Inputting 300 students' grades into an Excel spreadsheet and vacuuming dead leaves from the houseplant I keep forgetting to water do not an interesting blog entry make. But on the other hand, if I only blog the Kodak moments, it'll give you a severely incomplete picture of my life. Being a foreign missionary has taken me halfway across the world, and recently up to Fukuoka for a JELC Kyushu district meeting, but missionaries are no jetsetters. (We took the 2½-hour discount bus, not the 30-minute bullet train.)

Day's end at Myoken-ura in Amakusa.

And that's what I've found J-3 life is like: long weeks full of scrambling to make grade deadlines and design Bible studies for college students with little to no Christian background, punctuated by sporadic getaways with friends to Amakusa to watch the sun set over the ocean, all with a liberal coating of prayer. It's never boring, but it does make figuring out what to blog about kind of difficult.

Sakura trees near downtown.

I've been debating about what kinds of entries I should write next. Luther High School history? Another food post? (I don't subsist on just yakisoba anymore.) A day in my life? J-3 program history? Crazy student stories? Strategies I've found for getting green tea stains off white coffee mugs? (Rub it with baking soda and a little water! It works every time.)

So, my question, as I head into my last year as a J-3: what do you, the reader, want to hear about? Let me know in the comments or via email; I really am interested in hearing what's interesting to you. Meanwhile, I'm going to sort through my photos of the blooming cherry trees around Kumamoto Castle and scrub the mildew out of my shower drain.

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Ephesians 2:8-10 (NIV)