Here's More Pics

Mark and Yuiko, the leaders of the Machida church plant that we are working with, and their daughter Hana.






Hannah reading to Hana




The first one is Jesus name in katakana, the second is my name in katakana, and the third is me, Becky, and Hannah's name in katakana.



here's the homework sensei Brad begged the Japanese instructors for. We each got 42 pages of this....yeah, thanks alot Brad :)





Here's a couple pictures of me.





Becky





Here's Hannah on her computer.





This is Becky...she's trying to crack her back.










Hopefully sometime in the near future I'll have a chance to give you an update on what's going on over here. Stay posted for more.

Finally...the pictures you've been waiting for!!!

Sorry it took me forever to get these pics up. Had problems getting them on the computer, and then had trouble getting them from the computer onto the blog. But we finally figured it out I hope. Let's see if this works.

These first two pics are specifically for my brother Justin. He loves legos. This me and Hannah saw at the Chicago airport on our way to get food. It is a somewhere-around-eight-feet-tall statue of liberty made completely out of legos. Yeah it was cool. Thought my brother might want to see that one.
























This is our shower. That's all it is. We have to first turn on the gas, then the flame, then the heat, and finally the shower. Quite complicated at first. But they definitely have hot water here. Don't have to worry about a cold shower unless you forget how to turn on everything right.























This is me and Hannah's bedroom.





















This is our kitchen.





















This is a good explanation of what Japan's like. This is a bike-parking lot. There are barely any car-parking lots, but tons of these. Everyone rides bikes everywhere. A nice quote one of us missionaries said that we've kinda picked up on is "Everything in Japan is small, except apartment buildings and bike parking lots.




















This is "Life." Our grocery store. Other than this place, we will also be shopping at the 100-yen store (dollar store) and a nice veggie/fruit stand nearby.




















These are pictures of what me and Hannah call "Life Square", where the grocery store is. On weekends, many teens and college students hang around this area, so much of our outreach time will be spent here.






























This was our first meal in Japan...no I'm kidding :) The first time eating there was last night, and would you believe that they taste better than American Mcdonalds? They also have KFC, Dennys, Dominoes, and Wendy's here; haven't tried them yet.























This is my first meal in a Japanese restaurant. A cooked (not raw, like Becky had) egg, fried pork, noodles, rice, meso soup, cabbage, and fried sweet potato.





















This is Hannah's first meal at a Japanese restaurant. This is raw tuna. Let's just say she was a little more adventurous than me. But I have a feeling I'll work my way up to it by the end of the year.
















Pretty flowers :) They have amazingly beautiful plants over here, from flowers to trees.























This is the start of me and Hannah's card collection. By the end of the trip we hope to have the walls full of cards and letters, so please write us. Our address here is in the previous blog.

Note: We are also collecting pictures of everyone for our walls. I had a picture of all the pictures on our wall so far, but couldn't get it to rotate correctly, so just know that you should send us pictures as well :)

















Here is a picture of the other 4 missionaries with me. Starting on the left is Hannah, my room-mate; she is the keyboard player for the worship team. Next to her is Brad, our "sensai" who is helping us learn Japanese, even though he's just learning himself. He's picking it up quicker than we can. Next is Becky, who is staying for a couple weeks with me and Hannah until Debbie gets here, then they move in together; she will be playing bass guitar on the worship team. Finally, all the way on the right, is Joe. He is the drummer for our worship team, and he's also excellent at the trumpet.

Note: Matt and Debbie are coming later in the trip; also, a couple other missionaries may be joining us.






















Here is a couple of pictures from the 6th floor of an apartment building. This is a great place to see the Noborito area.




















This is a picture of the side of an apartment building. You can see all the clothes hanging out to dry. If you were to go to use an actual dryer to dry your clothes, it costs 300 yen (about $3) for 15 minutes.






















This is a picture of a highrise apartment building. Many of the tallest buildings in the city are apartment buildings since so most people in Japan live in apartments.


















This is a picture of Becky with the bass guitar we purchased. It was totally God how we got the guitar, strap, new strings, case, and 1-year warranty, all for 45000 yen which is about $450.

My Address Here

I know there were some of you who were wanting to send letters or care packages. Here is the address to send items to me:

Amy Sauder
c/o Tim and Christine Huber
2582 Noborito, Tamaku Kawasaki-shi
214-0014 Japan




In the near future me and Hannah will attempt to figure out how to put our pictures on her computer and then on here, so be checking back for pictures. There are pictures of our first out-to-eat experience here, some of the "Life Square" as we call it (where we do all of our shopping and much of our outreach as well), our apartment here, and hopefully tonight I'll also get some pictures of the other missionaries at supper.

Yesterday, we had our first shopping experience in Japan. It was quite fun. Better yet, today me and Hannah found our way back to the grocery store and the 100-yen store (dollar store) and purchased items on our own. Yay for us! We were quite excited with our first step of managing "on our own" since we got here. Made us realize that maybe, just maybe, we can do this.

Tomorrow, we have a breakfast planning meeting with the other missionaries, where we will figure out our general schedule. Thursday we have language lessons and Friday we have our first worship practice. I will be singing on the praise team and Hannah will be playing keyboards. So that is all we know of our schedule so far, but we will find out more tomorrow.

PRAYER REQUESTS:
-- Hannah and I will adjust to the foods here quickly (both our taste buds and our stomachs.) We have not been feeling so well lately from the food we're eating. Also for us to be over jetlag quickly.

-- Wisdom in strategy for the planning meeting tomorrow morning (which will be at 6:30pm on monday evening your time.) We will be bouncing back and forth different ideas about outreach, prayer walking, schedules, and everything inbetween.

PRAISE:
-- We're having grilled cheese tonight...yay for American food :)

-- We are already picking up on the basics of Japanese. I wouldn't say we're learning quickly necessarily, but it's encouraging that we are learning even without any lessons yet. Maybe me and Hannah can actually learn this stuff before we return home :)
***Random fact about learning Japanese: it is a very nice atmosphere here for learning the language. The Japanese are very encouraging, if you know even one word. They will be excited over any little bit you know. They actually feel bad that they don't know English well. Also, we do not have to worry about tone or exact pronunciation or anything...oddly enough, the Japanese love the American "accent" in their language. So us making mistakes is actually "cool" to them. Weird, but true.