Backtracking a bit...

Konbanwa!

Chris and I are now safe and sound in Japan with the Deans. I was pretty happy to get here... and see my good friends the Deans and the beautiful Suzanne Rizzi!

Josh took a picture of us as we were leaving the airport.

To my great joy, my feet did not swell this time! Instead, I got ridiculously congested and feel like I have a cold. Ugh... Stupid allergies! I was more than a little paranoid that they would think I was sick and lock me up in a sterile room for the duration of my stay to make sure that I don't have swine flu! I put all my strength in to not sneezing or sniffling, and safely made it through the quarantine station. After that I was home free!

There were cool obentos waiting for us in the car. We enjoyed them on the drive back. The Deans' apartment is really cool! Japan is much different than I expected. It really has a far more western feel than I though. Maybe it's just from the contrast of just having left Thailand!

Dinner was AMAZING! We went to this restaurant where you order a meal with uncooked meat and then you cook it yourself at the grill on your table. It took a little while to get the cooking/sauce combination just right, but after that it was AWESOME!

I did want to take a moment and backtrack because I never had a chance to blog about the time we spent with Susan. I think the Epic of the Cankles (thank you Becca for correcting my spelling!) distracted me a bit.

Susan showing us the girls home.

Susan works a childrens home that helps out children in bad family situations or who's families are too poor to send them to school. My feet kept me from being able to do much on Wednesday, but on Thursday we were really able to spend some cool time with everyone.

We started it off by taking all their staff out to lunch. I think it was a real encouragement to them, and huge blessing to me.

Eating dinner together with the staff

This was one of the dishes that one of the staff ordered...
As gross as this is, it was cool to see how much they loved eating it.

Later, we took Susan out to the Mexican place in town. It's her favorite. I was impressed that it actually tastes like Mexican food!

Yes... Mexican food in Thailand! It was actually good!

After that we walked down to the dock on the river where we could look across and see Laos. We spent some time there praying for the Hmong people who are suffering in Laos and the Hmong in Thailand and for Susan and the Childrens' Home.

The view across the river to Laos.

After that we went back to the Children's Home and had a worship service together with the kids! They spent some time in worship and then I shared a Bible study. It was a great time.

Chris at the worship service.

Chris took a group picture after the service.

Anyway... only a few days left! Keep prayin!

In Christ,
Brian