July - Life in Okinawa

July had been a relaxing month where I had been able to wind down from the last school year, enjoy some time in God’s beautiful Okinawa with wonderful friends, and keep busy serving God in every way I can. 

 Summer School: After my sister’s wedding last month, I had to rush back to teach summer school. I was not looking forward to teaching again right after I just finished with the school year but, God is good, and he allowed me to have enjoyable five weeks of summer school. I had a total of 14 students for most of the summer school. We did science experiments, acted out reader’s theaters, and “tried” to make ice cream but failed. I think the students all enjoyed themselves too!

Beautiful island of Ie

Ie-jima VBS: For our monthly trips to the island of Ie, the other ladies who usually go with me were out of the country to I was put in charge. For the summer time, God gave me a vision to do a mini VBS with the children there at the island. I struggled with what theme to do with kids who had no idea what-so-ever about God. I finally came up with the theme “God made me special.” I recruited some other teachers and some middle school and high school kids from OCSI and we all headed out to the island on Thursday July 25th. There was 6 of us total. I was nervous about how many kids we would have. It was kind of a last minute thing AND I also didn’t have enough supplies for 50 kids! Amazingly, God brought us 14 kids! I started out by teaching a little bit about how God created them all very special, then we taught them body parts in English and played games with the body parts. After that, we made a craft of decorating a picture frame. We also had a snack where we made a face out of different foods. I had a lot of fun and I think the kids did too. Now, we leave it up to God to grow the seed planted in these kids.

Making the picture frames

The finished pose. 

Driver’s License: One obstacle in the way of most foreigners living in Japan is the Japanese drivers license. I had been driving all last year on my International Driving Permit which is good for one year (mine expires August 1st). But when that expires, all foreigners must go through the process of acquiring a Japanese license. Since we already have a US license, we have to switch it over to the Japanese license by taking a driving test to test your safety.  The course is relatively easy, but the testers are extremely picky. It is quite normal to take the diving test 5 times or more and fail it every time. Last Friday was my first try and failed, this coming Friday will be my second try. Please pray that I will pass it soon.

 I pray that August will bring you many opportunities to tell others how special they are in God’s sight.

Blessings to you all,

Breathtaking sunset (cannot even close to capturing it on a camera)

Sarah