Playdates & New Friends

Last month I was invited to a monthly ladies’ sewing time.  Today we went for the second time.  Most of the women have children although many of them are in school.  Kindergarten actually begins at age 3 here and lasts for several years; basically, instead of calling it preschool its kindergarten until age 5…at least that is my understanding right now 🙂

One of the women, Emi, has a daughter, Kokona, age 3.  Mattie had fun playing with her last time and was excited to see her again.  Emi also speaks a little English so she and I could communicate more than some of the other women.  Emi was very friendly and eager to help me settle in.

This week I asked if we could get together sometime for the girls to play and my prayer is that we could connect more and bridge to spiritual things.  Emi said she would like to get together.  She also said she could meet once a month.  This was an unexpected bonus because I was just thinking of one playdate but she initiated more.

One of my prayers for my time in Japan is to connect with other women in my life stage, share the gospel with them, and spur them onto reach their circles with the gospel.  I don’t know Emi very well (although I’m assuming she’s not a believer) but please pray for us to connect, for language barrier to be supernaturally broken, and for God to do some big things in our friendship!

I am also very excited for Mattie to have playtime with some other kids.  She seems to miss that quite a bit.  On our way home from the sewing time, we passed a school in which the kids were outside for recess.  Mattie leaned outside her stroller, pointed, and said, ‘Oh, the kids!  The kids!’  She then said ‘I want to go there.’  I’m thankful God is providing for our kids while we’re here in Japan too!