Yabuki Breeze Blog

The key word for this week was “graduation.” Several of our stronger students and dear friends graduated from TCU this week. In addition, Timothy graduated by receiving the Arrow of Light, marking the end of his Cub Scout journey and sadly also marking the end of our pack and den and my opportunity to lead a group of young men through their Webelo experience. I want to remark about this and then the former.

It really was an honor to lead five young men through their last year of Cub scouting. Two of them completed their Arrows of Light, the highest awards in cub scouting over the course of six months. Two of them completed every requirement for the Arrow of Light except the time requirement in just three months. Wow. These were some motivated young men and I and their parents are all incredibly proud of them. We had a ceremony to honor them this week (see pictures) Please pray that their experience with us will help them to move more towards God in their lives.

Our TCU graduation (see pictures at bottom of set) was also sad in many ways. My friend Hiro, whom we knew before he was a TCU student and who just recently met the Lord and Liz, who was become a leader among the ICF and several students will be sorely missed. Actually, Hiro will be back and I am excited about continuing to be a part of helping him grow in Christ. Please pray for these students as they leave.

Tags: Arrow of light, Cub Scouts, graduation, TCU

Tags: group process, obedience

Just some catching up on stuff that happened this week:

• Had some positive news when I went in for some medical tests recently. I have a hearthy and strong heart. Praise the Lord.
• Had a wonderful time with my dear friend from China, Wilson and we had the opportunity to play Tennis. We got to talk about all sorts of things, including his trip to Hawaii. It was a great opportunity to help him to see our worldview and how we see God in the beauty and complexity of the world. I sensed that we connected at a high level.
• Our T4T discipleship group went very well as Hiro, Sharon and I worked on sharing “our story” of how God affected our lives together. Pray as we start to share this story with friends and family that we know and we continue to work on refining it. Pray especially has Hiro prepares to return to Japan after graduation to get married that he can share his story with his family and friends.
• We took a bunch of students from UTA to see Christmas lights after a hearty dinner at a Chinese buffet and then went to the Phillips house for hot chocolate and cookies. One of the students remarked that the time at the Phillips where their girls played Christmas carols with their stringed instruments, we were cracking pecans with a fire place and we all were having fun, chatting was “the way a family time should be.” What a blessing that he saw a difference in their family.
• The TCU Christmas party was wonderful with over 35 students hosted at the home of Dick and Dale Dodge. They got a wonderful taste of Christmas hospitality, enjoyed the Christmas story and were graced by Dick’s testimony. I got to know three Chinese students well. Interestingly, one of them, who identified himself as a believer is the son of a former seeker Chinese EMBA student from UTA who was affected by that ministry. What a neat opportunity to see the long term effect of what we do.
• Lisa and I attended a party with our EMBA friends from this year. What a blessing it was. We truly felt like family with this group. The students led us as we sang Christ centered Christmas carols. That was incredible. I don’t think I have every felt such a sense of good with with a large group of students like I have with this group. Our daughter Charis even felt like a little sister to every one of them.

(see pictures related to this post) There are so many things to be thankful. We had a great time especially remembering some of those things last week. We have four students over for thanksgiving: two from China, one from Turkey & one from India. Thanksgiving is the one day of the year that I do some of the cooking (The turkey and the stuffing – I’m proud of this…:-) ). This year we had a real treat. We were concerned because our Indian friend is a vegetarian and our Turkish friend doesn’t eat pork (usually sausage in the stuffing) so we asked our Indian friend to bring something that he enjoys eating in addition to the potatoes etc. We brought a wonderful vegetable curry with Indian Rice. It was very delicious, spicy but delicious. We will never forget this.

After a wonderful meal, we had everyone share something they are thankful for. It was neat hearing the student’s hearts. We learned about parents, friends here, opportunities. Our Turkish friend just got married in her country just before she came.   Then my son took out the Risk board and we played a ruthless game of world domination…:-) One comment hit me. A student commented… “I feel like I am at home… eating dinner… playing games together… Oh I miss this.” (The jist of it…) Wow that was awesome.

Tags: Indians, Moores, Thanksgiving, Turk