September Update

Hello everyone,

I hope this letter will find you all well. As always, things here have been quite crazy here to say the least. As the wedding is quickly approaching, Cassie and I have been very busy trying to get lots of last minute details done for it. It’s really stressful and I am not even doing all the hard work that Cassie has been doing. On September 7^th, Cassie and I celebrated our first year together as a couple and I am looking forward to many more. Well, I am going to try to keep this one short, just like the last one so here we go.

       Over the last month, Cassie and I have spent a lot of time with all of our different Japanese friends trying to be lights to them. We have continued to have dinner with Takuto and Yuu about once a month. Tonight, Takuto will take Cassie and I out as a wedding present to the restaurant he works at to eat Yakiniku. We also have been spending time with a couple of girls Cassie was in club with at Oklahoma Christian and that I met on my exchange program. Their names are Noriko and Yuuki. They really enjoy American culture so I extend American culture a little more when we get together by praying for our meal and they seem to really enjoy that. They even asked me one time to pray before I even got a chance to get ready for one. Last Saturday, Cassie and I also had dinner with Ayami Kawasaki. Ayami is a girl I met when I was a student here who later became a Christian after returning from OC as an exchange student. I actually studied with her at Oklahoma Christian while she was there. 

Dinner with Japanese Friends

Tuesdays really make for a long day because I work from 8-5. After work I go to Japanese class and then have my English Bible class. I normally don’t make it back home until 10, sometimes 11. On Tuesdays, I’m still having my English Bible Study with Kato. He is really having a hard time understanding some things we have been talking about lately so please pray for him during this difficult time. 

School has also been quite busy. I have been preparing a lot lately for the observations that I will be having soon. The Board of Education as well as other people will be coming to watch me teach 2-3 times this next month. We also had our yearly sports festival that all Japan schools have every year a few weeks ago. At the sports festival, there is a relay where students pick up cards and the students have to find a person that matches that card such as hot mom and such. I was chosen at my school as the friendliest teacher and the funniest teacher in the relay, so I got to run twice. It was overall a really fun day. Because I worked on a Saturday, I was able to get the following Monday off and make it to an Ibaraki Preachers Meeting and Hitachi Christian Camp meeting. It was nice to live the life of a missionary and seeing preachers again for a day. I hadn’t seen most of the preachers from the preachers meeting for about 4 or 5 months. The following week, my students from the junior high who live at the orphans home invited me to come to the orphans home for a summer festival they were having. Cassie and I were able to spend about an hour and a half there and support some of my kids. We had a really great time.

            Ibaraki Preacher's Meeting 

After getting the kind teacher in the relay

                At the Children's Home

In the last month, it has also been nice to have some time to relax and go hang out with some American friends. This last month, Cassie and I were able to get some tickets from my host family (the Hirosawas) that I had when I was a student here to a professional soccer game. I was into the soccer game a lot more than Cassie, but she enjoyed playing with the Hirosawa’s kids. We have also been to guys and girls nights in the past week where the girls hung out and did girl things and the guys played poker and hung out and talked with each other. Last week, I also was able to go to Tokyo with a couple of guys and get a steak at Outback! It really hit the spot.  I will be going back to Tokyo to pick up my parents this weekend. They are coming to Japan to visit me and I am really looking forward to it. Please pray that they have a safe trip here.

         Cassie and me at the Antlers Game

      At Outback Steakhouse with the guys!

Well that is about all for this post. Please continue to pray that Cassie and I can be effective while we are here. There are times it is so hard for us because we are so busy planning our wedding and with work alone. However we want to use our time in this country for the glory of God. Please pray that we can continue to do this in any way possible. May God bless you all. 

July & August Update

Hello Everyone,

Hope you have all been doing well. Once again it has been sometime since I last wrote. Things have been once again pretty hectic. I hope I can catch you up to speed on some of the things that have been taking place in my life in just a short post.

First of all I would like to say that I have not been affected by all the storms that have been recently hitting Japan but continue to pray for those who have been hit there. One of my friends who lived there said she was fine, but that they cancelled school today.

Anyways, since my lost post, a lot has been happening. On July 11^th, Mito, the city I am currently living had an English conversation contest for all of the junior highs. I spent a lot of time that week helping prepare my students for that the best that I could. Overall it was a great time even although we move to the next round. The picture to your left is a contest all the American English Teachers had which was in Japanese so Japanese could see us practicing in another language like they did English in the contest.

 On the 16^th of July, Cassie and I went up to Hitachi Christian Camp to cut grass, clean out cabins, and anything else that was needed in order for the camp to be ready to have campers. After we finished, we went and cooled off at a beach in Hitachi along the ocean. Ironically, it was also a holiday known as Ocean Day. Cassie and I however were unable to attend camp due to coming back to the states to prepare our wedding. Tonight we will be having a camp staff appreciation dinner and discussion meeting over what we can do to 

make camp better.

Hitachi Christian Camp sign at the camp!

Cassie and I at the beach in Hitachi!

From time to time we have had Japanese people over at my apartment and made them dinner as an outreach. We will be having a couple of people coming again this Wednesday and hopefully make it a routine that we do every month.

On the week of the 20^th of July, we had summer teachers training and had lots to do in order to come home. It made for a long week too because I was so eager to come home. Cassie and I finally arrived in the states on the 28^th and spent a few weeks there planning our wedding. We went time with people from Wichita, Mulvane, Oklahoma City, Edmond, Yukon, Broken Arrow, Tulsa, Sand Springs, Ralston and even Japan and drove to most of those places as well. It made for a long trip, but we got to see lots of old friends, spend time with family, get most of our wedding planned, and eat lots of foods that we missed. Cassie also finally got her ring. In the long run, I ended up having to cancel my flight because I got too sick. I was also blessed enough to be able to preach to the Sand Springs congregation and also got a surprise visit from Broken Arrow to come watch me so that Cassie I could receive a money tree as a wedding gift. I am truly blessed by such great people. Thank you to those who contributed towards the tree. We also got a chance to go by and visit Yukon and Contact, the churches I used to work at back in the states.

    Eating Mexican on our first night after arriving in America!

   Redneck Mason Jar Toasting Flutes

   Sunday after church in Sand Springs 

   The Broken Arrow clan that came to support me in Sand Springs with our money trees from  
   both congregations.

   Me excited to get my wedding ring from my own store!

   Taking a picture with Glen after church in Yukon!

Since we have come back this past week or so, things have been pretty slow at school, but rather busy other wise with other things. I recently decided to start helping with the baseball team at school so that I can build a deeper relationship with some of the kids so I guess you could kind of say I am an assistant baseball coach now. Cassie and I are also going to finish planning our honeymoon hopefully this week. We have also been spending time trying to make some new friends as well. The last week we also had a hot dog party at the church building. All together about 50 people came and it turned out to be a great time. The guy I normally have English Bible classes with on Tuesday night also came with his African wife. It was amazing to see someone from Africa again.

Everyone who came to the hot dog party

Cassie and I calling out Bingo numbers at the hot dog party!

Well I tried to keep it short and simple. If you would like to know anything else about what is going on with a deeper explanation, let me know. Have a blessed day.

Jared 

June Update

Hello Everyone,

Hope that this update finds each and every one of you doing well. I am not too sure as to how many of you still read this anymore so if it would be nice to know how many people are reading this to determine whether or not I should keep up with it.

Well lots of things have been happening since I last wrote you. In Japan, the school year is still going unlike the states. School in Japan normally lasts until the end of July and summer vacation only lasts about a month opposed to the 2 or 3 months students have in the summer in America. Japanese students go to school about 240 days a year while we go about 180 in America if not lower. The other day, I also wrote down a few things that differ between American and Japanese schools that you might find interesting.

1. You can find that almost in any school you go to in Japan that the students will be wearing uniforms

2. In American junior highs, we change from classroom to classroom, in Japan, students stay in the same classroom all day more than they don’t and they get a lot longer of break in between classes.

3. In America we buy our books whereas the Japanese students buy their own school books.

4. In America, we have lockers in the hall, Japanese students have a cubby in the classroom.

5. In America, we have a cafeteria where we can select from a variety of food and Japanese all eat the same thing in their own classroom together instead of a cafeteria.

6. Most schools in Japan don’t use an air conditioner like we would in America if they have one.

7. In most schools in America these days, you can find a white board or smart board in almost any classroom. Japan still sticks with the traditional blackboard.

8. In America, we are given the chance to take elective classes as part of our curriculum. There are no electives in Japan.

9. In America, each teacher gets to have his or her own classroom. In Japan, the classroom is for the students and all the teachers share one big room together with their desks.

10. In America, we take a bus to school or ride with our parents. Japanese students ride a bike or walk to school.

11. In America, we can wear the same shoes inside and outside the school, in Japan they have inside shoes for different classrooms.

12. It’s rare to hear that anybody goes to the school on a Saturday or Sunday in America. In Japan this is common.

13. In America, students are not required to clean the school, however, in Japan there is a time set aside every day to clean.

14. Most students in Japan join a club after school whereas in America students sometimes will join an extracurricular activity if they want too.
15. In America we take spanish as a foreign language, Japanese take English. 

These are just a few differences that I have discovered between the way schools in Japan and America are. There is nothing bad about the way Japanese do school. In fact, I find it to be quite interesting and awesome. I wish American schools were a lot more like Japanese actually. 

Overall, work stays the same pretty much every week. I teach junior high students on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, kindergarten students on Tuesdays, and elementary students on Thursdays. I am able to make contact with the other 37 AET’s every other week through training meetings that we have during school. I have also been preparing for this Thursday for a junior high English contest for the middle school students known as Interactive Forum. The students sit in a circle and try holding a conversation for 5 minutes and the best speaker advances. I have been busy trying to prepare my students for that when I am not teaching classes. Things have also been busy with the observations I have had from the Board of Education and parents coming to watch me teach for the past month at least once or twice a week. We have also had quite a few assemblies and even a magic show at the elementary school last week. On a lighter note, I have also had the opportunity to go to dinner with a couple teachers from my junior high in the past month and also all of my teachers from the elementary school last week. I was even able to take Cassie and show her off. Well that's some of the major highlights that have been occurring in my teaching career for the last month.


Teaching Elementary Students


                     Teaching Junior High

    Back of a shirt at an assembly at the junior high


                 Elementary Magic Show

While things have been busy with school, they have also been busy with ministry. Since my last post, I led worship twice (in Japanese), and preached 3 times. I preached 2 times in Tomobe and one time at the biggest church in Japan in Tokyo. In my first two sermons, I talked about how I am a foreigner and how much I stand out because I am not Japanese and I am from America and related that to how we are to be as Christians. This world is not our home and we should stand out from the others we surround ourselves with daily. The time in Tokyo also allowed Cassie and I to go on a mini one-day vacation and get away from Ibaraki for a while and just enjoy one another in Tokyo. We even went on a date to TGI Fridays, which turned out to be quite expensive since it was in Japan. Overall we had a really good time and enjoyed great food.

              Preaching in Tokyo



                    Touring in Tokyo

                In front of T.G.I. Fridays in Tokyo

Also on the ministry front Cassie and I spend the second Monday of every month going to a church camp meeting in Hitachi. We work on the staff at the camp when we can and aren’t in school.  Since my last post, we have gone to a couple of these meetings.  We will be going to the camp next week to do some work while we have some free holidays. I have also had the chance to do some small things around the church like mowing and fixing the flat tire on the k-truck.

                Fixing the K Truck Tire

On Tuesday’s I have also been teaching a free English Bible class voluntarily at Tomobe Church. This also makes Tuesdays pretty hectic because I go straight from school to my Japanese class and then when that is finished, I go to Tomobe to teach my English Bible class. Please pray that the man I am working with will be touched and that I can say the right words to him. His wife is African and a Christian and he seems to be interested and what his life should be about. In the past month, I have been unable to see Saki because she has been busy with school. I hope that I can see her soon and study the Bible again with her soon.

A few weeks ago we also had a goodbye party for Toru because he got enough funds to go to OC for this year. Please pray that the funds will continue to come in so that he can finish his education there. He is dearly missed in Tomobe and we look forward to him finishing school so that he and Yasuki can be the next leaders at the church.

                    Toru's Goodbye Party

As for friends, Cassie and I haven’t been able to do much hanging out. We are either worn out or just too busy. She normally works on Saturday which also makes it kind of hard. We have also been very busy trying to prepare for our wedding to as we will be coming home soon to be doing some planning for a couple of weeks. We were able to have some dinner with some old exchange students from OC about a month ago (Kanami, Ayami, Anna, and Cam). and some other exchange students a couple of weeks ago (Takuto and Yuu). In fact they will be coming over again tomorrow to have dinner with us and watch a movie. We have also even been able to see a couple of good friends who came to Japan from America for short visits (The Chancey's and Rick). It was very encouraging to be able to see them. Cassie and I also got to go see The Proposal in a theater. Great stuff.

          Kanami, Cassie, Cam, Ayami and Anna

                     Takuto and Yuu

              With the Chancey's


                Restaurant in Mito


               With Rick


            Seeing The Vow with Cassie

Well I think I am going to go ahead and wrap this up so that it doesn’t get any longer. Cassie and I are looking forward to coming home and seeing you all soon. Things have not been easy here for us lately because of the passing of my grandpa and the passing of Cassie’s great grandma or as they called her, greatma. We have also missed the 4th of July which made it hard along with a lot of other things.It has been about a year since I was last home an almost 8 months for her. The longest either of us have ever been away from home. We are looking forward to seeing you all soon. Please pray that God will give us energy and strength a little bit longer before we come home for our visit. Love you guys and may God bless you all. 


                Cassie's Great Grandma

          Me and Grandpa and Grandma and Bekah

Job Update

Hello Everyone,

久しぶりね！That means its been a while hasn't it? It seems like its been forever since I wrote in this thing. Anyways, I will try to give you a short and brief update as to what has been going on over here in the Land of Rising Sun.

Well things have been quite hectic since I began my new job to say the least. However, I have really enjoyed my new job a lot. Its been great. It is actually hard to believe that I have almost been working there 2 months already. In this post I will give you and idea of what my new job is like and some of the mission work I am continuing to try and do.

To start out, I moved from the Tomobe, Kasama area to Mito. Mito is the capital city of Ibaraki. I have found my way around the city pretty well for the most part already even though it is the capital.  I am currently employed as an English Teacher for Iitomi Junior High, Elementary, and Kindergarten Schools. Iitomi is actually a fairly smaller more small district of Mito. However, I love it that way because I feel like it is easier to get to know everyone. It is basically like a small little farm town. Every which way you look from the school are farming fields its actually quite amazing. Also, they have way better school lunch than I ever had once in America when I was in school.


          All of the new Mito English Teachers


              All the farming fields by the school

On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I go to Iitomi Junior High. As I mentioned earlier, Iitomi is a really small area of Mito. In a lot of schools in Mito, each grade has about 3 different classrooms worth of grades. My school is 3 different classrooms of 3 different grades. Therefore its actually quite small. In all about 71 students go there. The students are a lot of fun and are your typical junior high kind of kids. To be honest, its as if I am doing vocational youth ministry, and I love it. A couple of weeks ago, our 8th graders went on a cruise to Hokkaido; Japans most north island. It was cool because I got to go send them off and spend a little time on the ship with them before they took off. I also really enjoy working with the staff there, especially the English teacher. Iitomi's old English teacher has been in the hospital for some time and so they brought in a temporary 22 year old to work with me. We have lots of fun together teaching the classes. We have even spent some time together outside of class fishing and hanging out.

                       The Junior High


            The 8th graders heading to Hokkaido

My English Teacher after catching a carp

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I work at the Iitomi Elementary School and Kindergarten. I actually only go to the Kindergarten on Tuesday mornings from about 9 in the morning to lunch and spend the rest of Tuesday and all of Thursday at the Elementary School. While working with the junior high kids are a lot of fun, the elementary school is also fun in a different kind of way. We sing lots of English songs and play games with the kids to help them become better at the language. At the junior high, I get to be more like a vocational youth minister and at the elementary school I feel like I get to be a kid again. Each of the schools has amazing things about each of them. They are just amazing in two completely different ways. Also, after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I have been joining there after school Brass Band Club. I was never that great in percussion in high school, but I have enjoyed knowing music well enough to help the elementary percussion section with their music on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Also, it seems like anytime I run into these kids outside of school or even at school, they think you are a rock star. They always want you to come and talk and hang out with them. They are also awesome in their own way. All in all I am loving my job working with the Iitomi schools.


                     My Elementary School


                     My English Classroom

         Cleaning Time at the Elementary School
  (The Kids Clean the School Themselves,No Janitor)

When I am not working at the school, I am continuing to stay quite busy with doing my mission work still as well. Every second Monday of the month, I continue to go to the Hitachi Christian camp meetings. This last one made up for working about an 18 hour day. However, I really enjoy staying involved in the church and being an associate missionary. Every first week in May, Japan has a week where there are four holidays. This week is known as Golden Week. While we were on our Golden Week vacation, Cassie and I also went to camp and hung out for a day as well. Aside from camp, we had a goodbye party for a girl named Miki. She had to move home to be closer with her family and help them out because she lived in the disaster area from the earthquake and tsunami. Miki has yet become a Christian yet still and so Cassie and I tried to just encourage her and be a good influence on her. One of the ways we did that was by having a good bye party for her and making mexican food. Miki loves Mexican food and so do so that was a great fellowship party we had at my apartment. Last month, Cassie and I also attended Accappella Praise Night at Ibaraki Christian as well. There is a couple of people in the group that our not Christians and so Cassie and I went to have some good praise time and to support them as well. We were supposed to have a Bible Study today with Saki, but she had something come up and had to cancel. Keep continuing to pray for the studies I have with her. Aside from those things, we stay very busy with the church on Sunday mornings and afternoons too. However, by about 3 Cassie and me are normally just shot from going non stop all week and try to spend Sunday nights just relaxing and doing nothing with one another opposed to keeping a 100% busy schedule. Its about the only time we have nothing to do during the week and we enjoy every minute of it. In the next few weeks I will be busy leading worship at Tomobe Church tomorrow, preaching at Tomobe next Sunday, and preaching at the church in Tokyo the week after that. I really do have a plate full.


             Everyone at Hitachi Christian Camp


                        Miki's Goodbye Party

Well thats kind of an update of the things going on with my new job and some of the mission work I have been doing. Aside from those things not much else is going on except things like getting gout my first week on the new job. Besides just going to camp for Golden Week, Cassie and I decided to take a day trip together to the NW prefecture of Tochigi to spend some time for a day at the Twin Ring Motegi. This is actually where Japan has their Indy Japan 300 event. We got to see the race track and lots of cool cars while we were there. Also a couple of weeks ago we got to see the solar eclipse as well and that was quite awesome. You can see a picture of what we saw below.




 Cassie and Me as we entered Tochigi

                    The Race Track Entrance

                    Solar Eclipse from Japan




  Cassie and I also went to one of her Teachers house for
                 a barbecue on Golden Week

   .....And we saw an old friend from OC, Yukari


Well I should probably stop here, we are having a good-bye party for Toru tonight because he gets to go to Oklahoma Christian. I need to get his presents finished so we can present them tonight. If you guys have any questions or want to know anything, hit me up at jared.scism@alumni.oc.edu and I will be happy to let you know anything. Also, I will be home in Oklahoma from July 28th, August 8th if any of you would like to meet and catch up and talk more about my adventures here. Have a good day and God Bless You all. 



Cassie and I under the Cherry Blossom Tree at Church