Hula

Teresa is from Ishigaki Island, but originally she is from Hawai'i.

She has been coming to our island recently to teach folks from our church to hula.




We had workshops on Thursday and Friday.










On Saturday, we headed over to "American Village" (Mihama) for a hula outreach event.

People are naturally drawn to the music and hula and it is an opportunity to witness or make contact with people in some way.

We hope to start up a local ministry group that can meet while Teresa is not here.


Well, thank you so much Teresa for your ministry here -- it's a blessing!

Prayer Request!

Well, as we head into Easter weekend, there are several events scheduled.

Please lift them up in prayer, won't you?

Friday Night: Showing of The Passion movie. This will be neat, as we will show it on the beach.

Saturday Night: Sambi Fest ("Sambi" is "Praise" in Japanese) This will be a night of playing worship, meeting new folks and sharing the Word.

Sunday: In addition to the regular a.m. service, we will have a special W2: it will be at the beach, so we can have some baptisms.

One other request: is for our family's health.
The past 5 weeks has seen 1) Emi's chickenpox, followed by 2) Mika's chickenpox, and now by 3) Emi's stomach virus (which she is still recovering from).

Please pray that no one else would catch this virus, as we need to wait 2 weeks to have our health insurance again (when the new school year begins).

We would appreciate your prayers!

Mika's First Birthday

Well, Mika is 1 year old today!


We just had a small family gathering, as Emi just had the chicken-pox
and we're waiting for Mika to break out next. (we didn't want to spread the pox to anyone else!)




She got some new clothes...










Emi saved up enough coins to buy Mika some rubber boots. ("Now we can walk in the rain together!")




Mika had fun tasting cake for the first time.

We did the traditional game of "What will she be in the future?" This is where you lay out several items (a pen, some money, a book, some food and an abacus). Supposedly, whatever they pick will determine their future (choosing money = you'll be rich; choose the book = a good education). If memory serves, Emi chose a pen, so maybe she'll be a writer some day. Not even close, right now.



Anyways, Mika (in true Pallmann form) chose the food. If nothing else, she'll be well fed!

Girl's Day

Today was Hina Matsuri, or Girl's Day.
It is easy to remember: 3/3 is Girl's Day, while 5/5 is Boy's Day (it is actually called "Children's Day).

Well having two girls we had to get a little cake.

Purity Seminar

Our church had a Purity Seminar.
Debe was one of the speakers; speaking on "Purity in Marriage."

Here is a highlight:

From the beginning God establishes the union of marriage as something special. Two people are joined together to become one. They are to share a love and intimacy that no other relationship has. God uses the illustration of marriage to also describe the union between Jesus and the church.

Ephesians 5:30-32 says,

“For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church”.

Our relationship with Jesus needs to have the same intimacy and love that an ideal husband and wife share. The way we achieve and maintain this kind of intimacy is by keeping our relationship with God pure. When we think about purity, we usually think about physical purity. However, there are several kinds of purity.

Three types of purity that we will look at today are:

1) Spiritual purity, 2) Physical purity, & 3) Emotional purity.

By keeping ourselves spiritually, physically, and emotionally pure, we can keep our marriage pure. Or to look at it another way, we can keep our marriages free from anything that weakens or pollutes.

With a 1 and 3 year old, Debe is really busy, but she was glad to have this opportunity to teach.

Resting in the Lord

Psalm 37:1-7

1 Do not fret because of evildoers, nor be envious of the workers of iniquity.

2 For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb.

3 Trust in the LORD, and do good; dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.

4 Delight yourself also in the LORD; and he shall give you the desires of your heart

5 Commit your way to the LORD; trust also in him; and He shall bring it to pass.

6 He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday.

7 Rest in the LORD and wait patiently for Him; do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass.

"Do not fret" David writes. Yet how many of worry about, or even get "angry" when we see the "evil-doers" seemingly getting away with it.

In a day where we can choose to worry about terrorism, shootings at schools, war, illness, etc. David tells us to "not worry"? That's not easy to do!

Ah, but he also tells us how to get there -- to the place where we can "rest in the Lord" (vs 7). Notice the progression of verbs:

• we start by "not fretting" (vs 1);
  
• we move to "trust" (vs 3);
  
• then we have "delight" (vs 4);
  
• and "commit" (vs 6);
  
• finally we get to "rest" (vs 7)

Notice also that "delight" is in the middle of this list; we too can find "joy" in the middle of worrisome times -- but only if we trust and commit!

Chinese New Year

As you might know, not everyone follows the Gregorian calendar.




In China and Taiwan they follow the Lunar calendar (it's actually Lunisolar).

So New Year's is not until February 7th, for some. In celebration, Ping came over and cooked us some delicious Taiwanese food.

As you can see, it tasted pretty good.



Hey! save some for us, girls!














Sorry, Mika. Maybe next year you can have some food...




By the way, Happy Year of the Rat!