Seoul, Korea

Picture this, a market place full of shops (literally hundreds) in a 3-4 block sector, at least a thousand people, and little guys on scooters carting their shop items to who-knows-where barreling up and down these crowded streets honking their horns, willing to run down anyone who gets in their way. That's pretty much what Nandemon marketplace felt like. Oh, but it was great! Nothing better than buying Coach and Louis Vitton and just about any other brand name you can think of for almost nothing! I ended up not buying to much, just a few $5 skirts and shirts. It was cool though, I would definitely recommend vacationing in Korea just for the shopping. Korea also boasts the largest church in the world. No joke, it seats 80-90,000 people, and there are at least 200 people there at all times praying 24/7. I didnt go in, just saw in passing, but it was HUGE! I think they said its a Full Gospel church. But anyway, services were good, I met some really nice people, and had a great time!

And just as an afterthought, Korea has a much better Cold Stone Creamery than we do. They have alot more flavors. I know that was random, but I threw it in anyway.

Kankoku iku!!

Today I'm off to Seoul Korea for the Summer AMD Conference! YEA, 5 days of shopping, church, shopping, cheap massages, shopping, Korean restaurants, and shopping! Its great! I might have to buy more luggage for all the stuff I'm bringing back to the States, sigh* , I was already at the weight limit to begin with. BUT, whatever, Hold My Mule! I cant leave a stone unturned!
btw, I checked the tennis scores this morning, (whoa) Federer and Nadal completely shut out any hope there was for the underdog!!

Hiiii!

This past Sunday a bunch of us went to the Hosmer's (another missionary) church for a special/revival service. It was so cool! They sang all of their songs in Japanese (their congregation is mostly Japanese people), they even sang our favorite 'I'm Trading My Sorrows' ,it sounds much better in Japanese, I'll have to get the words. Maybe we can sing it! (HAAAA) But anyway, the guest speaker was Bro Vowtaw, who has been a missionary in Taiwan. So we've got a Chinese speaking missionary with no Chinese... then, BAM, there were about 10 Chinese guys that came in off the street just to see what was going on! Talk about God's good timing. They loved the service though, during worship there was one who could not stop taking pics with his phone, they loved the music (I don't know if they spoke Japanese), a few did go up to the alter, but I don't think any got the Holy Ghost.

In other news, Hitomi and I did sing our Japanese duet on Sunday. Then someone had the audacity to say I was flat on one of the songs (Oh No HE DIDN'T!). But that's ok ...I'll be strong...Thank you Jesus!!

Tanoshikatta!

Ooook, I was having so much fun I forgot about blogging... So, here you go! Pics from today, fresh and new! Today I helped escort a group of kids from mainland Japan, they were here to get the American experience (come to Okinawa to get Americanized...go figure..) so, we took them onto the Air force base to go shopping and bowling, the whole nine yards. These students spoke very little English but "Your friendly neighborhood Rachel" was there ( with her poor Japanese ) to save the day. Their hostess was a woman from church, Sis Marsh (see pic 1), she is very animated, she would make all of these hand motions when she was explaining something to them, they would then turn to me for the translation with a look of "What in the world is she talking about" on their faces. I would then turn to them and say "Wakaranai (I have NO idea!)". No, just kidding ,I tried my best! But anyway, here are the pics! Enjoy!
This is Yumiko, Kie, Makiko, and Sis Marsh

Here they are at the bowling alley.
Here we are at the military Base Exchange, aka Aafes, aka military Walmart

Here are some pics from the outreach we did at the Handicap center about two weeks ago. The kids here are very sweet. Some of them have been there for years and haven't seen any of there family since they've been there....its so sad :*O**. I felt a little awkward at first, not quite knowing what to do or expect, but everything was fine once I got behind the puppet stage: My third home!
Here the kids are doing hand motions to "Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes" ( the church version)

More "Head and Shoulders..."
This is a group shot.
The lovely puppets!

Old Pics

I was doing some picture scanning at the church here and found some old pictures of the Tschidas. There pretty funny, from 1982! (Hope they dont mind me showing them :O) )

Sunday School Decor

Here are pictures of our sunday school room for the new quarter. It took us two and a half days to complete our room. The theme is King's Orchard, learning the fruits of the spirit, so the entire room is decorated to look like a fruit orchard (those transparancies were really time consuming to draw!) We did all of this preparing for sunday school but when Sunday came, we had no kids! Acually we did have 1 but he is 13 and not even supposed to be in there, poor kid had to sit through an entire lesson written for 7 and 8 year olds :)~ ! Oh well, we're praying for more familes to be drawn in, so everyone please be in prayer with us! ( Minna san Onegaishimasu!)

This is Hitomi and Ty taking down the last theme.

This is Tatiana (one smart 2 year old)
This is the outside door (entrance to the Orchard)

Now we're getting somewhere!
It was hard to get the staples to go through the walls, but the coloring was easy.
This is the toddler room
This is the same wall after we completed it

The hard workers....