Seeing this was so familiar, but yet unfamiliar. The United States Embassy hosted a Friendship Day at the residences compound last Saturday. Four thousand five hundred tickets were made available to Americans living here in Japan and to other friends.

It was a day of fun for children and adults alike.

There was the color guard and United States Marine Band.

Lots of food that you don't find everyday..."Nawlins" style red beans and rice; nacho chips smothered in cheese, Domino's pizza.

What did I choose? A "swarma" much like we had in Israel. I figured it wouldn't be that long before I could indulge in the American fare before I would get back to the Middle East again.



I don't know if you can tell how wilted we felt. It was around 95 degrees with high humidity. We sat down to watch an outdoor show but decided that we needed shade more than entertainment.

It was a nice event and one appreciated. We had gone to the same kind of event when we were in Costa Rica and it brought back alot of memories of our homeland and how unique and special it is.

Here's our entire team of missionaries and interns at the Okutama Bible Chalet on the western fringe of Tokyo. There were 17 college and 15 high school interns from Texas, California, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas, and Michigan. All of the interns had such a heart for missions! They were consistently bold in their witness, and gave of themselves many hours each day.

Our 9 weeks with the summer interns is officially over and during this time we hosted over 300 volunteeers. With their help, 250,000 Gospel tracts were distributed along with many personal contacts made.

The Tokyo team was subdivided into smaller teams, all named after Samurai warrior women. Our team, 3 college and 3 high school students, was the Miki team; what a great group of young men and women!

Left to right: Amanda, Kameryn, Dan, Julia, Jonathan, Jordan, Martin, and Melanie.

Of the three college interns: Amanda will be getting married in December and plans to go on into full-time missions with her husband; Melanie will be beginning her post- graduate degree in family counseling; and Dan will be working on his nursing degree with future work on the mission field. Of the high school interns : Jonathan will be a college freshman this fall and will pursue a degree in medicine; Kameryn, will be a senior in high school and Jordan will be a junior.

Above, I am holding a "sayonara" scroll doll which each intern received. Over a period of several days, all of the team members had an opportunity to put into writing, what each person had meant personally. It was hard to capsulize 9 weeks of work and experiences. (And there were the others on other teams that we had become very fond of!)

Our prayer for these young adults is to stay true to their beliefs and continue their close walk with God. As in Psalm 125 where it talks of the mountains surrounding Jerusalem, so God surrounds His people.It is our prayer that God will surround these young men and women.