Today was a special day for Jonathan, C-6 and myself. We were able to do something a little different and I think we all came away with a smile. Andrea, a member of our church small group, has been a part of the ministry of Mission Arlington for many years, since she was 19. In fact, while she currently runs the mission’s clinic, she has also personally ministered at a particular apartment church the whole time. She has become a regular part of the community of that apartment. Now her and her family and another member of our small group, Leslie, continue to go to the apartment every week to touch the lives of the kids and their families.
Today, we got to be part of a community “carnival” at that apartment. We played sports with the kids. There was face painting, manicures and pedicures for the girls, arts and crafts for the smaller kids. There also was a baskeball hoop and all kinds of sports equipment. There was lots of food and wonderful fun.
My job was to go around taking pictures of everyone especially the families. Many of the families have very few pictures of them and so taking their picture is a very special thing. One little boy was having so much fun, he kept asking me to take his picture over and over again in funny poses. This will further the long term ministry of the apartment church as Andrea will be bringing these pictures for the families to take as a special gift. It made me very proud to see my kids getting into it and “making sacrifices” to do it. Jonathan was playing football with little Joshua (Understand Jonathan hates football… this was a image sacrifice in a big way) C-6 played with the kids though she cried a bit too because they didn’t want to play with her doing the stuff she wanted to do… Of course that is normal and you should have seen her before we went, we wanted so bad to go.
The people from the church were incredible. A couple of teenage girls were doing the manicures and pedicures… It kind of reminded me of Jesus washing the disciple’s feet. Some of the teenage boys were playing all kinds of stuff with the kids. Seeing some of the guys painting bag “pumpkins” and some of the gals face painting and shaving ice. It was really really special. Anyway, it seemed that everyone came away with a big smile.
The last couple of days I have been feeling a bit weary and tired. So many things have been happening, God has been working, and its been non-stop. As is typical after so much activity, even God powered activity, it is common to be tired and weary. It reminds me of the show down between Elijah and the priests of Baal and how he was a weary wreck after his major victory. Anyway, it has been a rough week and yet God was so faithful in allowing me some simple pleasures amidst trying to catch up with everything else.
Lisa and I have been concerned about our son, T-8. He still can’t ride a 2 wheeled bike. Being content with training wheels, he hadn’t wanted to even try. We removed his training wheels last fall and after a couple of days of running along side the bike, and him not really wanting to try, the season turned cold and he seemed equally cold to the prospect of riding a two wheeled bike. He told us on mulitple occasions since, “I hate riding my bike. You can’t make me go out there.” His sister, C-6 on the other hand loved going out whenever she possibly could on her small training wheeled bike.
This week the weather had been better and Lisa suggested that we go outside and try again. Again T-8 (who was editing one of two videos he recently made, Dog Wars (taken as he watched dogs interact at Tejas) and The Life of a Jeti Master ) was against it but C-6 said, she wanted to go out there. In fact she insisted on it. Afer a few minutes of riding, she asked me to take off her training wheels. Yikes! She was struggling but was determined. T-8 was having some trouble figuring out how to upload his video to Youtube, so he came out and seeing his sister on her bike, he decided he would show her some of the “tricks” that he learned. He started riding and within 10 minutes, he had figure out how to ride, all the way down the street (albeit with a few falls) As I was teaching C-6, he kept on trying and trying and by the time Lisa came home from an errand, he was riding back and forth in the street. C-6 was also starting to get it being able to take 6 pedal’s in one attempt. It was just so fun watching them donig this. Being able to actually be successful in sharing something fun like this with the kids.
Now, just about every afternoon after school they want to go out and every night when I get home C-6 reports how many pedals she could do consecutively (now at 48) It’s amazing how something that seemed so impossible a week ago, today is fast becoming just a normal part of our family life.
(See All Pictures & Videos) Saturday, there was shift in dominant hormones in our house. Generally, in the Yabuki household, the men have the majority and while two ladies generally equal three guys, on Saturday, the guys were overwhelmed. C-5 celebrated her sixth birthday and our house was filled with kindergarten girls.
It started innocently enough, our new sister in Christ from Korea, Cookie came early to help Lisa out with the party. She loves cooking and Lisa decided to give this birthday a cooking theme and so Cookie was the perfect person to help out. She was a real blessing in many ways. We couldn’t have done it without her.
The girls began the day decorating aprons to help out with their work. Modern art seemed to be the style of the day. Then the girls practiced some homemaking skills, making some delightful (and tasty) pretzel/kisses/m&m snacks. It seemed like a lot of fun. All this seemed innocent enough… but then they turned to the outside… and next thing we guys knew, we were caught in their trap. (Maybe it was the snacks)
J-12 & T-8 were seen “helping” with the outdoor activities (no way!). T-8 was hoisting the pinata and jumping on the trampoline and J-12 was seen DJing the nasty game of musical chairs. I even had to set up the pinata. It actually was a lot of fun. The girls really took to our trampoline.
As the day wore on, there was more screaming, running around, screaming some more, eating cake, opening presents, screaming and then jumping on the trampoline. In all, it was a wonderful way for C-5 to celebrate her passage to C-6.
Tonight a most remarkable thing happened in our house… Let me preface what I write with the following. I am generally not politically expressive… I generally don’t make a big deal about elections, who I will vote for, etc. I do have strong views on politics, economics, policy, etc… In college, I immensely enjoyed following and studying the subject. The systems, cause and effect relationships, etc. (Lots of etc’s here) really fascinated me. I loved reading Machiavelli, Mill, Jefferson, etc. But there came a point in my life the God’s kingdom became more riveting than the world’s governments and while God works through governments and such and those who are involved in it, I have become disillusioned with government’s ability to cause much change in the world. It is the heart of people that is the problem… not systems… God is in control and only He can change the heart of man such that any real change can occur. Government can only check the effects of our fallen hearts… (if you want to debate man’s inherent condition or my view of politics… we can in the comments…) You have to pick your battles and I chose to change hearts not the result of hearts… Still, I vote on important occasions like today’s and follow politics, policy, etc., especially with and eye towards how it relates to God’s Kingdom, trying to figure out how He is moving in the world through it.
Anyway… enough of my philosophy… the remarkable thing happened when we were watching the election coverage… For some reason, my boys were really captured by this particular election. I don’t know why. T-8 had some real issues with Sen. Obama as only a eight year old could… He had heard some things that he did not agree with (I swear I had nothing to do with it) and so he felt it his duty to cheer on Sen. McCain. It was amazing watching him. It was almost like watching a baskeball game. Whenever McCain won a state he would cheer vigorously throughout the house. Whenevern Obama wont a state, he would remind me that there was still hope… He was so into it. When it was declared Sen. Obama was the next president… it was just too much for him. He burst into tears… the kind reserved for when he is most dissappointed… It was truly remarkable… He was unconsolable for the next 20 minutes… I’d never seen anything like it… I’m sure some of us felt the same way… others of us felt the opposite in the heights of emotions… but to see it played out raw in a 8 year old was incredible. It did us good to console him with a reminder of our trust in the system, the values we all agree in as Americans and in the God who is over all… Still… I hope he remembers this night… I hope he never forgets that his passions DO matter and what he cares about is important and yet God is over all.
With the new semester coming, J-12 and C-5 are starting new experiences and T-8 is coming upon a milestone point in his school experience.
J-12 will be starting Jr. high and he will be doing it in an unusual way. He will be starting up in a “Virtual Academy” (check out video clip about Virtual Academies from a CA News station – http://tinyurl.com/668wld ) It sounds like it will be a lot of work but I am excited about the opportunity to be directly involved with Jonathan’s eduation and more than that… he seems to respond well to self paced education. We will be watching to see how it goes.
T-8 is starting the very important 3rd grade. This is where he will learn multiplication, etc. and it seems like there is a real change that happens in 3rd grade in the kids (It happened with J-12) It should be interesting and scary at the same time. He is also facing some personal challenges that we can’t directly help him with that he will have to deal with at school. We are praying very hard that he comes out of the semester well.
C-5 starts Kindergarten this August. It is hard to believe. It seemed like just yesterday she joined our family. She is a little bit anxious but we just found out today that she will be having the same teacher as J-12 had and this made her jump for joy! It’s cool to see how excited she is about school.
This was a hard day today. I should have recognized that it would be… but I didn’t. One of the hard parts of ministry is that the day after the big sermon or the big meetings is often very hard. The more you feel you are moved by the Spirit at an event or speaking opportunity and have felt the exhilaration of being used as a vessel by God, the harder it is to return to the mundane of the daily grace filled life.
Today was such a day. We had a wonderful staff retreat on Monday and Tuesday. God was there in many ways and I could see Him speaking to each of us as we crafted plans for the coming years to touch EVERY international student in the Dallas/Fort Worth Area with the love of Christ. (See coming post) It was awesome. But then… today came. The day started late and I was tired. I had a hard time connecting with the kids again… A boy from next door dropped by just as I woke. He reminds me to Eddie Haskell from “Leave it to Beaver.†I didn’t feel like Ward… that is for sure. I checked the e-mails that piled up from the 2 days off and then tried to get some work done. I was really dragging. I had so many distractions from the kids, it hardly felt worth my time to try to do “anything of value.â€Â Don’t they understand that “God was using me†to reach the world.
In the evening, I decided to play a video game with T-8. This was a game his brother, J-12, out of the goodness of his heart bought for him today because he knew he would like it and T-8 was obviously enjoying it with his usual enthusiasm and joy. He wanted to share it with me so I decided to play with him for a while… It was a racing game and he was killing me every time we raced… for some reason, I was feeling very… irritated by his whoops and shouts of excitement over how well he was doing. So… I just quit. I started driving backwards, dying on purpose, etc. doing anything to not finish the game so he could not enjoy the fruits of his victory. Throughout this “tantrum†on my part, T-8 persisted in trying to encourage me… “You can do it dad†“Don’t give up.†Eventually, it became apparent to him that I quit on him in the worst possible way… I recall now the horror on his face… One of the major “rules†in our family is that “Yabuki’s never give up†and he was having a hard time processing the fact that Dad was breaking that most sacred of rules… I really don’t know why I did it but I was just tired… and spent… The rest of the evening followed course as I was just feeling bad. I think I didn’t want to let him have such a great time when I felt so awful…
As I tried to sleep tonight, I was reminded of what just happened… I felt terrible… What a hypocrite! I couldn’t believe that I, of all people, could be so mean to my own son. Here we talked at our retreat about the importance of living the love of Christ at all times with our students because it was our greatest witness… How we were examples of grace and love with those around us. Then I did this. I am so glad that God is a god of grace and love and most likely he allowed this to happen to teach me… and my son. I hope T-8 also is able to show the same grace and love as I ask for his forgiveness tomorrow and post process what happened and hopefully there isn’t a huge scar in his heart and self-understanding. It is so hard sometimes to live like Christ even in our own family even in the power of the Spirit.
On Thursday I had the special privilege of taking my son T-8 to watch the Forth Worth Minor League team, the Cats for scouts night.
We had general admission tickets and at first, I thought that was a bummer. I was wrong. We had a blast and because we had general admission, we had freedom to move to several different places in the stadium. At first we watched the game from the first row in front of the opposing team’s (Wichita Wingnuts) bullpen but we moved to some chaise lounges behind the right field foul pole(See video below). I never enjoyed watching a game in such comfort. We also got a couple of BP (Batting Practice) balls and ate some great food. T-8 got one of the balls autographed by 8 people including the team mascot (Dodger the cat… the Cats were a Dodger affiliate when it started and have retired numbers of some of the be best players from my favorite team, the Dodgers, including Maury Wills, Duke Snider, etc. ). He had no idea who the people were (I don’t either) but he ran up to the Cat’s bullpen, ran to the locker room door, etc, just like a long time fan.
He also lit up the radar gun as some pitching display at 35 mph… He thinks he can be a Major league pitcher some day. Finally, we watched the movie “Angels in the Outfield” on the “Jumbotron” while sitting in center field after the game (part of scout night) until around 12 AM. T-8 was actually throwing his “non-autograph” ball around the field most of that time with another kid. To me this felt like one of those movie father-son evenings. I know he will never forget this and I really enjoyed watching him develop an interest in baseball.
This summer has been really good for re-connecting with all my kids… The neat thing too is that this re-connecting is affecting their spiritual life too. Incidentally, the Cats lost the game in 11 innings 0-1.
Thanks to some generous Christmas gifts, we were able to take a brief family trip to Waco, Texas. One of the things we learned on the trip is that Waco was originally spelled Hueco after the Indian tribe that once inhabited the region. While there we visited the Cameron Park Zoo, the Dr. Pepper Museum and the Mayborn Children’s Museum, which had a special exhibit about bones. We are grateful for the chance to enjoy a couple of days away from the computer, phone, chores, etc. Just in case some of you are wondering, here is a little update on each of the kids from this past year.
J-11 is now 11 and definitely in the “pre-teen†years. He has grown a lot this year through Scouting and participating in service projects at church. For example, he spent several hours unloading heavy boxes of donated canned food at Mission Arlington and helped with a Christmas party at a local children’s home. He continues to love learning new skills on the computer. Besides developing his own website, he is also helping our children’s pastor with a website and started a blog for his Boy Scout troop.
T-7 is 7 and feeling the pain of being the “middleman.†Nevertheless, he is doing really well in school, especially in math. He has also begun to read chapter books and take “AR†tests at school (Accelerated Reader). One thing Timothy especially enjoyed this year was taking a karate class through an after-school program. His mom was amazed when he started responding with “Yes, ma’am†when asked to do something! He plans to continue taking karate in 2008. As a Cub Scout, he got to be in 2 parades this year, one on the 4th of July and again during the Parade of Lights in December.
C-4 is 4 and a half. Yes, that half is really important, and she will be the first to tell you that. C-4 is learning how to write and spell. One of her favorite words to spell is one we see a lot this time of year—JOY! And C-4 is a real joy to us. She always wants to help around the house, especially with cooking. She would also like to learn to sew (perhaps she can learn from one of her grandmas?) She also loves to spend time cutting, gluing and taping any sort of paper she can get her hands on.
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Who are the Yabukis
When Lisa and Roy were married, they shared a common commitment to serving God crossculturally through their family. They currently both serve international students through ISI and live in Arlington, Texas with their three children.
Today was a special day for Jonathan, C-6 and myself. We were able to do something a little different and I think we all came away with a smile. Andrea, a member of our church small group, has been a part of the ministry of Mission Arlington for many years, since she was 19. In fact, while she currently runs the mission’s clinic, she has also personally ministered at a particular apartment church the whole time. She has become a regular part of the community of that apartment. Now her and her family and another member of our small group, Leslie, continue to go to the apartment every week to touch the lives of the kids and their families.
My job was to go around taking pictures of everyone especially the families. Many of the families have very few pictures of them and so taking their picture is a very special thing. One little boy was having so much fun, he kept asking me to take his picture over and over again in funny poses. This will further the long term ministry of the apartment church as Andrea will be bringing these pictures for the families to take as a special gift. It made me very proud to see my kids getting into it and “making sacrifices” to do it. Jonathan was playing football with little Joshua (Understand Jonathan hates football… this was a image sacrifice in a big way) C-6 played with the kids though she cried a bit too because they didn’t want to play with her doing the stuff she wanted to do… Of course that is normal and you should have seen her before we went, we wanted so bad to go.
The people from the church were incredible. A couple of teenage girls were doing the manicures and pedicures… It kind of reminded me of Jesus washing the disciple’s feet. Some of the teenage boys were playing all kinds of stuff with the kids. Seeing some of the guys painting bag “pumpkins” and some of the gals face painting and shaving ice. It was really really special. Anyway, it seemed that everyone came away with a big smile.
The last couple of days I have been feeling a bit weary and tired. So many things have been happening, God has been working, and its been non-stop. As is typical after so much activity, even God powered activity, it is common to be tired and weary. It reminds me of the show down between Elijah and the priests of Baal and how he was a weary wreck after his major victory. Anyway, it has been a rough week and yet God was so faithful in allowing me some simple pleasures amidst trying to catch up with everything else.
(
The girls began the day decorating aprons to help out with their work. Modern art seemed to be the style of the day. Then the girls practiced some homemaking skills, making some delightful (and tasty) pretzel/kisses/m&m snacks. It seemed like a lot of fun. All this seemed innocent enough… but then they turned to the outside… and next thing we guys knew, we were caught in their trap. (Maybe it was the snacks)
J-12 & T-8 were seen “helping” with the outdoor activities (no way!). T-8 was hoisting the pinata and jumping on the trampoline and J-12 was seen DJing the nasty game of musical chairs. I even had to set up the pinata. It actually was a lot of fun. The girls really took to our trampoline.
Tonight a most remarkable thing happened in our house… Let me preface what I write with the following. I am generally not politically expressive… I generally don’t make a big deal about elections, who I will vote for, etc. I do have strong views on politics, economics, policy, etc… In college, I immensely enjoyed following and studying the subject. The systems, cause and effect relationships, etc. (Lots of etc’s here) really fascinated me. I loved reading Machiavelli, Mill, Jefferson, etc. But there came a point in my life the God’s kingdom became more riveting than the world’s governments and while God works through governments and such and those who are involved in it, I have become disillusioned with government’s ability to cause much change in the world. It is the heart of people that is the problem… not systems… God is in control and only He can change the heart of man such that any real change can occur. Government can only check the effects of our fallen hearts… (if you want to debate man’s inherent condition or my view of politics… we can in the comments…) You have to pick your battles and I chose to change hearts not the result of hearts… Still, I vote on important occasions like today’s and follow politics, policy, etc., especially with and eye towards how it relates to God’s Kingdom, trying to figure out how He is moving in the world through it.
Anyway… enough of my philosophy… the remarkable thing happened when we were watching the election coverage… For some reason, my boys were really captured by this particular election. I don’t know why. T-8 had some real issues with Sen. Obama as only a eight year old could… He had heard some things that he did not agree with (I swear I had nothing to do with it) and so he felt it his duty to cheer on Sen. McCain. It was amazing watching him. It was almost like watching a baskeball game. Whenever McCain won a state he would cheer vigorously throughout the house. Whenevern Obama wont a state, he would remind me that there was still hope… He was so into it. When it was declared Sen. Obama was the next president… it was just too much for him. He burst into tears… the kind reserved for when he is most dissappointed… It was truly remarkable… He was unconsolable for the next 20 minutes… I’d never seen anything like it… I’m sure some of us felt the same way… others of us felt the opposite in the heights of emotions… but to see it played out raw in a 8 year old was incredible. It did us good to console him with a reminder of our trust in the system, the values we all agree in as Americans and in the God who is over all… Still… I hope he remembers this night… I hope he never forgets that his passions DO matter and what he cares about is important and yet God is over all.
J-11 is now 11 and definitely in the “pre-teen†years. He has grown a lot this year through Scouting and participating in service projects at church. For example, he spent several hours unloading heavy boxes of donated canned food at Mission Arlington and helped with a Christmas party at a local children’s home. He continues to love learning new skills on the computer. Besides developing his own website, he is also helping our children’s pastor with a website and started a blog for his Boy Scout troop.
T-7 is 7 and feeling the pain of being the “middleman.†Nevertheless, he is doing really well in school, especially in math. He has also begun to read chapter books and take “AR†tests at school (Accelerated Reader). One thing Timothy especially enjoyed this year was taking a karate class through an after-school program. His mom was amazed when he started responding with “Yes, ma’am†when asked to do something! He plans to continue taking karate in 2008. As a Cub Scout, he got to be in 2 parades this year, one on the 4th of July and again during the Parade of Lights in December.
C-4 is learning how to write and spell. One of her favorite words to spell is one we see a lot this time of year—JOY! And C-4 is a real joy to us. She always wants to help around the house, especially with cooking. She would also like to learn to sew (perhaps she can learn from one of her grandmas?) She also loves to spend time cutting, gluing and taping any sort of paper she can get her hands on.
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