Asia

February has come and is almost gone...what a blur! But in praying for our missionary friends in Asia and learning about the different countries, I'm discovering the smallness of this world and it's anything but blurry. I never truly realized how truly connected our family is to the world, and I'm positive there are families out there just like ours who have the same degrees of separation and don't even know it. Let me explain. We have friends serving in China so it makes the people there more accessible. We also have dear friends stationed in Japan as Navy chaplains. So the people of Japan become more real. My sister-in-law is from South Korea, so we have a special connection with all things Korean. So neat the way God interconnects us!
We wrapped up the month praying for the people of Asia and that they'll have access to Bibles and freedom to worship. It's hard to explain this to the boys, but the biggest obstacle for most people, especially in Japan, is culture and separating cultural beliefs from faith in God. So we prayed as Paul prayed for the Ephesians, that they would have power to know how wide and how long and how deep and how high is the love of Christ.
And, of course, we had fun learning about the different cultures and people.

Making lanterns!


Eating with chopsticks.
And this ginormous box of fortune cookies.
We also took a trip to the local Asian market. I have never seen so many fish products in one place in my life. Dried fish, live fish, whole fish, squid, fish with eyes, very big fish, tiny fish...you get the point. The boys didn't really think too much of it, other than the very different vegetables we encountered and the aisles of rice, sesame products and countless goodies from Asian countries. We bought veggies for a stir fry, Asian pears, coconuts and Korean rice snacks. All yummy! The boys are ready to go back and get more rice snacks and John and I want more young coconuts.
We're going down under next month mates.