2010 - Year in Review

What better way to celebrate a wonderful year than to recall some of the biggest blessings of 2010...

I'll start in...

January...
when I kicked off the new year by driving home to Maryland overnight from Urbana in St. Louis. We had an excellent conference, and I am most grateful for good bonding time with fellow workers. After arriving home, I spent the rest of the month visiting friends and supporters - I had meals with 12 people/families (excluding my own) and spoke at 5 churches about the work in Japan. In the midst of it all, the second big snow of the winter left me stuck at home... I could hardly believe we get two more-than-one-foot snowfalls in one winter in Maryland! Somehowduring all of this I managed to squeeze in several trips to the jewelry store to find the perfect diamond ring... Then, in...

February...
it snowed again. Even more. This was, of course, good preparation for my subsequent move to 'Winterpeg'. This time my family hunkered down in a hotel in Baltimore, because the snow came just as my younger brother was scheduled to receive my older brother's bone-marrow stem cells in a transplant at the University of Maryland Medical Center to cure his leukemia. Though confined to his hospital bed for quite a while after that, my brother is now doing quite well. While he was healing, my beautiful girlfriend Hillary came all the way from Winnipeg, Manitoba to visit me and meet my family! We had a wonderful time gallavanting around MD and DC after having been in different countries for more than two months. Still, that diamond ring didn't leave my pocket until...

March...
when I returned the favor to my beautiful girlfriend and ventured up to Canada to meet her family. But before that, I spent a week in Reading, PA with our mission getting my spiritual tires retreaded... excellent time with friends and spiritual family once again. Right after that I hopped on the plane up to Winnipeg, where before Day 2 was complete I had asked Don Timmons for his beautiful daughter's hand in marriage... And before Day 3 was done, I had finally gotten rid of that diamond ring! With my new fiancee proudly wearing it on her left hand, we visited a whole host of people, whom she promptly introduced me to after first introducing them to the ring. This visit to Canada lasted into...

April...
when for the last time I said goodbye to my beautiful fiancee. A short stop in the States to once again bid farewell to my family, and I was back on the trans-Pacific flight to my second home. For the rest of the month and all of...

May...
I was in Japan, living it up in my last days as a bechelor. My coworkers were all back in the States because their daughters were getting married, which left me busy but not overwhelmed. It was good for me to be able to say goodbye to my friends and to Japan, since it would be a while before I would return. I was already packing when...

June...
arrived, because I was soon heading back to America. I arrived at O'Hare on the 7th, where I was reunited with my beautiful fiancee, and then we flew together back to DC. We arrived after midnight, and then were up early the next morning to drive to Pennsylvania for New Personnel Orientation with Christar - though I am not 'new pesonnel', my fiancee was and so we decided it was best to go through the program together. As soon as it was over we shimmied back down to MD to get a week of intensive pre-marital counseling with our good friend Tom... no joke on the 'intensive' part, and we are both thankful for it now (and were then, too!). We said a quick goodbye and flew up to Winnipeg on June 30. After a LONG interview with immigration officials, we headed home to rest for one night, and woke up to...

July...
and realized that we only had 9 days to get ready for our wedding! It was a whirlwind, but thanks to many, many friends and family we were all ready by Friday night. Then Saturday, July 10, 2010 was a day I will remember forever - I wed my beautiful Hillary. Then for several hours after the wedding, our good friends Eric and Ashley ushered us around to a variety of locales to get some amazing pictures of me and my beautiful bride! The next day we drove to Whiteshell Provincial Park and stayed for a week at Barrier Bay - which we highly recommend for a romantic getaway... so much so that we are going back for 2 nights to celebrate six months of marriage in January. But I am getting ahead of myself, because we haven't even discussed...

August...
and all the travelling we did! We spent several days in the Interlake at Hnasau with Hillary's family... good family bonding time. Then of course there was the day trip I took, alone, to Calgary. Yes, Calgary and back in one day... but I had to for immigration purposes. But 16 hours older and $400 poorer I returned home to Manitoba safely with no problems, and with my mission accomplished (that part of the mission, anyway). Can't forget our first trp to Saskatchewan, either. Though we were heading to Regina to visit Hillary's sister Melissa and brother-in-law Brad, we went to Moose Jaw and Caronport to visit some 'old' friends of Hillary's, too... and it was fun to see all the places that Hillary frequented as a kid! We made it home safe and sound that time too, but before the month ended our lovely car had left us stranded on the side of the road... in the middle of the night... in a rainstorm. Not a good way to end the month.

September...
came in quietly and as the weather began to cool down, things started to heat up for us as Hillary started Bible college at Providence College. This pretty much kept her busy for the next few months... I, on the other hand, was in full-on paperwork mode working on my permanent residency application for Canada. It's an amazingly long process with a ridiculous amount of supplemental documents to gather up. There were some problems with my visa when I first entered Canada in June, so I had to cross the border into the US (less than an hour away) and come back into Canada to ask the immigration officials to redue my papers - which in the end still was incorrect. The perm-res saga continued into...

October...
but thankfully there were other highlights to enjoy. The biggest was our visit to Edmonton (Vergreville, to be exact) for the wedding of our friends Brandon and Nadine. Hillary was in the wedding and had fun with the girls, while I got to spend a few days with Nadine's father getting ready for the big day. It was tons of fun and very exciting to rejoice with our friends taking the big dive, so soon after us that we hadn't harldy dried off after our dive. I started teaching English classes at the Japanese church in town and we started to get to know people there a little better. They have been a big source of encouragement to us! The lowlight of the month was perhaps the several trips to the dentist I had to make... at least my mouth is (mostly) in good working order now though. Back to the permanent residency application - in...

November...
I actually had to take an English test. Yes, an English test. But not just any English test, a $300 English test! Not very happy about that one, but when you have no choice you just bite the bullet and do it. And I did. You will all be very happy to know that I did in fact pass. It turns out I can speak English! But they didn't tell me that I passed until...

December...
when the results came about one week later than I was expecting them. Didn't matter much, because I still couldn't submit my permanent residency application because the letter I needed from my bank still had not arrived. After much prayer the letter finally arrived, and my application was in the mail the same day. The relief I felt to have that done was great (of course it is not 'done', but at least it is finally, officially 'started'!)... We still had plenty of time to get ready for Christmas, and we enjoyed the entire season tremendously. We bought a lovely tree at Goodwill and decorated it all up 'Baden' style, and everything that we purchased in December (save perishable food items) were wrapped and put under the tree so that we'd have plenty of packages to open at Christmas. 'Tis the season! Hillary finished her first semester (with very good marks, I might add) and was able to start relaxing a bit again. To top the year off right, we travelled with Hillary's parents to Saskatchewan to spend Christmas with Brad and Melissa (Hillary's sister). Our first Christmas together was a real treat... and we are looking forward to the 'Timmons' tradition of Chinese take-out to ring in the New Year tomorrow night!

What a fast, crazy and amazing year it has been! God is good! I can say with certainty that there will never be another one like it again.

Happy Belated Birthday to Me

Dinner at Jolly Pasta and then Baskin Robbins… happy belated birthday to me!

A few weeks ago I celebrated my 30^th birthday… only there wasn’t much celebrating, because I had a nasty one-day stomach virus. Spent a good portion of the day in bed, wishing I could just sleep through until the next morning. My wonderful teammates were planning to take me to dinner, but instead they just left me moaning on my couch and went without me. I’m not bitter.

Seriously though, they sort of caught me off-guard this evening after our worship service when they offered to take me out for a belated birthday dinner. They really are so thoughtful. After some difficulty deciding where to go (I don’t get out much), we finally chose yaki-tori (Japanese chicken)… only to find the restaurant closed on Sunday evening! So we ended up at Jolly Pasta – that’s a treat too. They have good pizza (even though it’s not pizza hut…) and the company wasn’t bad either.

Then we stopped off at Baskin Robbins for ice cream and prayer to end the evening. Last week was jam-packed, and so is this coming week… so it was nice to have a fun, relaxing evening with three great friends tonight. Happy belated birthday to me!

Regrets

Stank!
I just did a little internet search on my new best friend (see previous post), and found out that his mother died less than 2 weeks ago.

Now I feel bad about my little parody... :(

My New Best Friend...

The other day I was at Nijigaoka for our classes, when a little before dinner the phone rings.
It's the Mayor.

Oh. Hello. Thanks for calling.

Mr. Mayor got right down to business... He was calling Mr. Luethy (who happens to be in America for 6 months) to have him look over a speech that Mr. Mayor would be giving in English to an iternational audience the following day.

Apparently, given Mr. Luethy's absense, just any old foreigner would do.

So, within minutes, Mr. Mayor was at my doorstep, secretary in tow.
A half hour later, we had a pretty good speech, and one very happy Mr. Mayor.

Naturally, I invited him to our BBQ Sunday night...

Ah, gotta run, phone's ringing... maybe it's the governor this time...

Unexpected Visitor

So I am sitting here on my couch, having just finished dinner, watching the news. The windows are all open, as is the front door - it was pretty hot today, and I don't think the humidity could possibly be any higher. But this afternoon the wind really picked up, and we've had a good, strong breeze ever since... makes the weather bearable. Anyway, that's why the front door is open, to let that blessed breeze make it's way through my home instead of just around it.
So here I am, minding my business and watching the news, when, much to my surprise, there is a cat in the room! First I think it's cute, then I think, "It's not mine!" but it sure is in my house... So I stand up and it heads for the door. It doesn't look like a stray, so I bend down to try to 'make friends' with my new visitor... but then it takes off. A short friendship that was! Wish I had a picture for you...
This visitor is welcome to come back anytime - unlike the spiders and lizards that have been seeking domicile here recently... But I don't think it will - I could hear its bell ring as it ran off... it's already got a home. :)

being sick is no fun

It's only a cold, but it's still no fun. I spent most of the day in bed... or rather on the couch, since I don't actually have a bed. It's not that bad, but the stuffy head and just overall yuckiness continues. I shouldn't complain - this is the first time I've gotten sick in the nearly two and a half years since I've come to Japan! For that I'm very thankful. I'm dreading the first time it's so bad that I need to go to the doctor though! :)

Tigers?? No...

So my brother Skyped me last night and said my nephew Drew wanted to ask me a question.
The question... Do you have tigers in Japan? :)
He was apparently suddenly overcome with fear that I was going to be eaten by a tiger! How cute.
So he asked what kind of animals we have in Japan. And of course I said, "We've got big, scary tigers!" :) He said to his daddy, "See, I told you!!" and was jumping all over the room. So cute.
Seriously though, of course we don't have tigers. We do have monkeys though, which are apparently pretty dangerous. I've only seen them a couple of times, and not near my home, though I've heard they are around. They'll steal your food and anything shiny (like a camera)... so it's better just to stay clear. I've heard though that you are pretty likely to see them if you head up certain mountain roads.
So of course, I can't wait for the weather to warm up a little and take my bike up into the mountains! Surely I can outrun them if they start throwing rocks at me, right??

The Countryside...

Hirao really is country. I feel it the most when we venture to pass out fliers. Here in Japan, unlike America, it is legal to place advertisements in mailboxes. In fact, it's not abnormal to open the front door and just leave your paper sitting there on the floor! We try to stick to the mailboxes though :) Right now we are preparing to start some new English classes at the church in March, and so in addition to the ad we put in the paper, we're distributing flyers around the neighborhood.
There are 13,000 people in all of Hirao. Small, but not super small. Still, we have no train station, which is basically the marker of whether you are in the 'bush' or not. But here's the deal - and it's noticable when passing out fliers, because - there really aren't any neighborhoods. It's a house here and a house there, and one way over there. It makes passing out fliers pretty difficult. And tiring. Thankfully I am finally familiar enough with the area and all the little roads that I don't have to do too much backtracking to see if there's a house at the end of 'that' street or not... it's taken some time though. When you go out for several hours and only pass out a couple of hundred fliers, it's easy to get discouraged!
But we worked on it today, and will go back out tomorrow in the morning... before the rain comes in the afternoon. We should have a little time left next week, too. But even if just one person comes because of the fliers, it's worth it. We're praying for a bunch though - the more the better! Have to wait and see...