Zack's 16th!!!!! Birthday

OK! I know! His birthday was over a month ago...
Any way, we didn't want him not to celebrate it even though he couldn't be at home with us so...

I talked with his coach (in the white sweatshirt standing at the right) ahead of time - through a friend who could translate for both of us - so that he didn't have to check with Zack to be sure he understood me! I wanted it to be a surprise but I needed to make sure first that the coach would let me come and bring a birthday cake. He was at least as excited about it as I was and it was a big thing for him to keep it a secret from not only Zack, but the rest of the boys as well. ;-}
So I spent most of the day before making the cake. Then on his birthday I had to go teach at the high school here in the morning, then come pick up the cake - and ice cream! - and drive to Chino (about 2 hours away) to arrive just as the boys were starting afternoon practice.
Coach was there waiting for me and the boys were already in the gym. We got everything inside and he told me to wait by the gym door. He went in and called them all over, then opened the door and started singing 'Happy Birthday'!! Of course all the boys joined in and Zack turned a bit red, but it was great!

Naturally the cake had to be basketball themed - and big enough to share with the whole team and perhaps a few other guys in the dorm. The ball was yellow cake and the basket chocolate. Zack said later the basket was the favorite ;-)

Coach asked if I wanted them to eat the cake & ice cream right then but I said they would probably enjoy it more after practice. I decided to stay and watch a bit and knew for certain cake after was a smart choice. Had they eaten it before I think most would have been sick half way through practice from all the strenuous activity!

I'd seen bits and pieces of practices before and knew they were tough, but...

I stayed for the first hour and it was all physical training - no basketball yet! This picture is one I shot quickly on my phone and it shows one of the lesser of their excercises. There is a whole slew of them and they hold each one for a count of 30 near as I could figure. One day I'm gonna try to video the whole thing. Now I fully get why Zack's appetite is so huge and his body still so slender!!

Beginning behind...

...and I really was going to be more on top of things in 2009!

Guess this just means I still have that to look forward to, huh?!? ;-}

I have pictures to add and so much to talk about!

But it's all gonna have to hang out in waiting for another couple of days - sorry.

Today is pretty much consumed with church :-)

The next two days are filled with 5 more games of basketball to be watched - the first two are today but we'll hear about them tomorrow.

We do want to say a very humble and heartfelt thank you to all of you who so powerfully and wonderfully supported us through prayers and gifts throughout 2008! What an amazing way to be led into 2009! THANK YOU!!!! We pray that God will richly return in abundance to each of you the kindness and generosity you share in His name and for His glory.

Looking forward to sharing with you in the coming year!

Closing out 2008 news from Japan

Greetings Dear Loved Ones & Prayer Partners!
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I hope that this season is catching you all filled with His Son to truly warm you to the bone! Here it is finally getting colder with our first snow falling Christmas night and now the temperatures are staying in the 20’s! YUCK! It’s much too cold and every year so amazing to us that the houses and buildings here (schools and many offices) have no type of central heating but rely solely on kerosene heaters. We heat about ½ of our house, and then only when someone is in the room, so when you travel from room to room it sometimes is an adventure. This time of year the first one to the bathroom usually gets to enjoy a very abrupt wake-up as the temperature is always in the low 30’s to upper 20’s first thing in the morning!
We’ve had so many wonderful reasons to celebrate this month, the Christmas Pageant, Christmas play and party, Caroling, Sharing and Christmas Eve service, but on a selfish note, our biggest joy was watching Zack play basketball! His team qualified to be in the Winter Cup tournament in Tokyo where the 48 prefecture champions gather for a 7 day elimination tournament to find out who is the best! Zack’s team was expected to lose their first game as the other team had several giants! But Zack was AWESOME! He scored 32 points (team had 73) and grabbed down 17 rebounds and totally dominated the much bigger man from the other team! THEY WON! His good play continued into the second game which they also won qualifying them for a birth in the ‘Sweet 16’!!!! The first time ever for his school! The third game wasn’t nearly as successful for his team. They scored only 19 points in the 1st half….but our baby scored FIFTEEN of the nineteen! He is really turning into a great player! He was probably the best 1st grade student in the tournament! (Most teams consist only of 3rd & 2nd year students) He averaged 24 points and 16 rebounds per game!!!! Every game was televised on National TV, so that was really exciting. The announcers especially in the 2nd game were so amazed with him. Now before you think ‘well he is so tall compared to the other Japanese players’, almost every team in the finals have players in the 200 to 210 cm. range, and Zack is at 191, so he is undersize in almost every game! We are SO PROUD and grateful for all that God has allowed him and us to do! For all of you that have been so supportive of us with prayers and financial help, THANKS! We couldn’t possibly be here without your help!
We ended November with the annual Christmas Pageant and Party. This years event was held at the Kokusai 21 hotel and we used two different rooms. About 150 people attended from throughout the city. After a 1 hour party, we moved to the auditorium and enjoyed the Christmas play performed by our local members. 2 of my students had the roles of Mary and Joseph and one was a shepherd! They all did so great! About 30 people said it was the first time to see the Christmas story. We had much special music and wonderful singing and it was an evening to remember!
The following Saturday we had a Christmas party for our English students and their families! We had over 100 people attend of which only about 5 are Christians! This year we combined the party with our church children (6) and with the help of them and some of my students we put on the Christmas play complete with costumes! It was the FIRST time for most in attendance to understand the true meaning of Christmas! God is so GOOD! All of my English students sang the 12 days of Christmas, with each class having different days! My youngest class, 3-5 year olds were the 5th day, and each time it was their turn they would jump up and hold up big gold rings! They were so CUTE! We had an appearance from Santa, had lunch and everyone went home after a wonderful morning!
On December 18th I had our annual Christmas program for our 2 English classes at one of the community centers. This is a city sponsored class, so normally we can’t talk about God, but Christmas is so special! I got to the center at 8:30 and started cooking corned beef! The students arrived at 11 and I taught them how to make brownies, apple crisp and then we got to the main attraction. We fried crocodile and deer! It was the 1st time for them to eat either and they found them both really exciting! We added many veggies to the corned beef, then sat down and enjoyed a wonderful lunch together. After we cleaned up we went upstairs and the students (about 20) took turns reading the Christmas story from the Bible! After each couple of verses we sang Christmas Carols (12 in all) and it was a WONDERFUL afternoon! None of the members are Christian, but we do have 1 that is now a regular member of our Tuesday Bible Study and another occasional visitor to our Sunday service. Please pray that His Spirit can use that afternoon’s program to open their hearts and minds to His amazing love!
December 23rd is a National Holiday here to celebrate the Emperor’s Birthday, but we go annually to the train station and sing Carols! This year was no exception and we had over 50 people join us for a wonderful evening of singing. One of our new neighbors and their family joined us along with 2 of their friends, so that was even more special. Pray for our continued outreach in our area with the 13 new families that God has brought into our lives! We have a GREAT relationship with most of them now, and hope it continues to grow. Four of the families are taking English classes and attending some of the church activities! With continued prayers, they will be SAVED!
December 24th was the church’s Candlelight service. This year we had 39 people in attendance. Over 15 people that were scheduled to come were sick and with the 25th being a school/work day, a later start than the last couple of years also had an affect on the young families. We were blessed with some wonderful music from some really great friends. I ask you to pray specifically for them, Yoko and Taka in particular. Yoko has been coming and singing with us for several years now but still hasn’t totally accepted Jesus as her Lord and Savior. Taka is one of the main priests at the large Buddhist Temple in town. He sings with us almost every year and arranges the music for the chorus group I use to sing with. He loves Christian music and has a wonderful testimony from his trip to the Holy Land! God’s Spirit is alive in his heart I feel, but his work (being a priest is a very lucrative position I think) keeps him from committing to God! So please pray for those 2 in particular but also for all those that attended. Of the 39, over ½ are not Christian!
We will have a special New Year service on the 1st to start out 2009 in His light. We pray for each of you to feel His love throughout 2009!

We trust God to equip us for each and every challenge and opportunity that comes our way. Your prayers and support are vital. Please pray with and for us that God will guide us in all we do and that He will lead us to follow His purpose, wherever that may be, and use us as instruments of His love in all we do. Should God ask any of you to partner with us in our outreach for Him, please send any love offerings to: Bethlehem United Methodist Church, for Baranski John Alan Mission Fund, c/o Becky Wack, 1003 Rowan Cove, New Albany, Ms. 38652.
In His love & walking before Him, the Baranski Bunch

FYI our newsletters

Just a note to say I will be adding our monthly newsletters here. We cancelled our website since my ability to keep it any kind of up-to-date was missing in action! Don't know if there's anyone who read it on the website that doesn't receive it, but just in case we decided to post it here as well.

We are so blessed and thankful to be His vessels and we cherish every prayer on our behalf.

May God richly bless each of you with His peace. love, joy and grace this Christmas!

News of November

Greetings Dear Loved Ones & Prayer Partners!
YUCK! It’s getting colder! This is probably the time of year that we miss the creature comforts of America the most! Now, don’t get me wrong, Japan is a very modern country, but when it comes to heating and air conditioning they are RIDICULOUS! Usually they heat only the rooms that are being used and now the government is asking everyone to set their thermostats at 18C or 64F. That’s pretty cold, but that’s in the room that you will be using, such as where we teach, but the rest of the building is left completely COLD! Like in our church, soon the water in the toilets will all be FROZEN! Luckily the toilets all have heated seats, but when we wake up in the morning inside our house will be somewhere between 28 and 36 degrees! It takes a little time to get use to it, but after a while, you learn to live with it! Right now we are still in the adjustment period. We use an electric blanket at night, but then there is no other heat, so when you slip out of the covers it is really COLD! Remember that our town was the host city for the 1998 Winter Olympics so yes it does GET COLD! We always feel sorry for the students, the schools are so cold, none of the hallways are temperature controlled and the class room usually has one kerosene heater. It’s not unusual for the teacher to heat the room only to open all the windows shortly after to get in fresh air to get rid of the kerosene smell.
October has just ended, and I always enjoy sharing some of the local culture with you. October is called the ‘Kannazuki’, translated the month of no gods! This is a short story of what happens to the near 800,000 gods that many Japanese people believe dwell in the country. Izumo Taisha, in Shimane-ken on the Sea of Japan, is considered one of the two oldest shrines in Japan. The land of Izumo has a long history and extensive mythology, but there is no definitive date of origin for the shrine. The importance of Izumo as a religio-political center is established by the two main collections of myths, the Kojiki (712) and Nihon Shoki (722), as well as by the Izumo Fudoki (733) an ancient gazetteer and catalogue of resources of the different regions of Izumo mandated in the early Nara period. The shrine now called Izumo Taisha located in Taisha Town is referred to as Kizuki or Kiduki shrine in the Fudoki. Myths describe the land of Izumo as another realm, the underworld, called Yomi and the place to which Susano-no-mikoto, the unruly brother of the sun kami (god), was banished to remove him from the upper land of Yamato ruled by the descendent of the sun kami Amaterasu.
Kami are generally divided into earth kami and sky or heavenly kami. The ceremonial life at Izumo Taisha today includes the annual Kamiari-sai or Kamiari-tsuki, the month (October) when all the kami of Japan come to Izumo to take part in discussions, communion, and planning for the coming year. The Kamiari-sai is thought to be very ancient. It begins with the Kohjin Matsuri that is performed on Inasahama, a beach ten minute’s walk from the shrine. At dusk the 800,000 kami (a totality linked to the special number 8-ya) are led to the shore from the horizon by the Ryujajin, the snake or dragon god who lives in the depths of the sea.
At shrines other than Izumo Taisha, this festival is called “the month of the absence of kami.” Generally, October was referred to as kannazuki (the month when kami are not present).
With all the other troubles missionaries face in this country, we are also facing a belief in 800,000 different gods. They literally have a god for EVERYTHING! Just the other day, November 23rd our city had our annual Ebisu festival. Ebisu is one of the gods of commerce. Here they have a two hour fireworks display from 6 – 8 pm. They have built a large area along the river levees, where people can sit and watch. This year it was 28 degrees, but still over 300,000 people turned out to watch the display. Because our area was originally a farming community, the festival is timed with the harvest of apples, one of our prefectures best crops. Now these are just the Shinto gods, (800,000) then we are also faced with the large Buddhism Temple in our town. I guess it’s not too surprising that only 0.35% of our prefecture are Christians! That’s only 35 people for every 10,000!!!!!
We do have lots going on, especially during the Christmas season. Because of economic reasons, Christmas is everywhere. All of the major stores have Christmas decorations, and you can hear Christmas music often throughout our town. It is one of the few times during the year that it is pretty easy to tell people about Jesus. We will be working with the local churches for two annual events that are held each year. On Nov. 30th the annual Christmas Party and Pagent will be held. It will be at one of the local hotels and will start with a small buffet followed by the Christmas play performed by local Christians. One of our church members will be the narrator and another Joseph. Special music will be provided throughout the evening. On December 23rd we all gather at our main train station and sing Christmas Carols for an hour.
Our church will be co-hosting with Mako and I, the annual Christmas Party for the children. We are anticipating more than 125 people. We will be performing the Christmas play using my(John) students and they have all been practicing singing some English Christmas songs. I’ve enlisted the mom’s of the students to sing as well. It should be a wonderful time. Each family will be receiving a free New Testament in both English and Japanese thanks to our local Gideon group. In total we hope to pass out about 200 bibles to our students, and classmates and parents of Zack’s school. On December 24th Nagano Bible Church will host its annual Christmas Eve program. We usually have a wonderful turnout with 40 or so non-Christians, so please pray for His Spirit to open the hearts of all those in attendance.
Kim is doing really well on the blog, so please check it out to enjoy what’s going on in our lives. http://theraven4god.blogspot.com/

We trust God to equip us for each and every challenge and opportunity that comes our way. Your prayers and support are vital. Please pray with and for us that God will guide us in all we do and that He will lead us to follow His purpose, wherever that may be, and use us as instruments of His love in all we do. Should God ask any of you to partner with us in our outreach for Him, please send any love offerings to: Bethlehem United Methodist Church, for Baranski John Alan Mission Fund, c/o Becky Wack, 1003 Rowan Cove, New Albany, Ms. 38652.
In His love & walking before Him, the Baranski Bunch

Christmas Story

Today was the Christmas Story play and party for John, and Mako's, English students.
About 100 kids and parents came to hear the story of Jesus' birth,
share time together, and yes, to see Santa.

The story players were English students and church members together.
They all did a wonderful job!

It was the first time for many to see and hear the true story of Christmas.

The local Gideons donated English/Japanese New Testament Bibles and they were given as gifts to each family.

And of course the Jolly Ol' Elf himself showed up to pass out gifts to the kiddies and
wish all a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Pink ya think?!

I just couldn't resist!
Ya think pink is her favorite color?!?
Her skirt, tights and shoes were also pink!