Friends,

Just as we were arriving in Japan, I remember reading an article by a man vacationing in Japan's northern Akita Prefecture.  He wrote that he hopped in a taxi one day and had noticed that the taxi driver was taking him around on back roads and alleyways instead of on the major thoroughfares.  He said to the taxi driver, "You sure know your way around here--you must have lived here forever."  Without a hint of irony, the taxi driver replied, "Actually, my family and I came to Akita only recently.  We moved here about 250 years ago."

Hmmm... So perhaps it takes a little time to feel "at home" over here!

This week, I'll be starting to teach Bible and English while working along with the Japan Baptist Union chaplains at Kanto Gakuin Mutsuura Junior High/High School.  It's very exciting, but also a little unnerving.  Will I be able to communicate well enough in Japanese?  Will I make a fool of myself right off the bat in some irreparable way?  How will the teachers and administration like me?  Will it take 250 years to feel at home here?

All these questions and others are flitting through my head.

• So pray for me this week as I start what I hope will be a fruitful ministry at the school.  Also pray for me as I try to give chapel messages in a new language.

Kari is doing really well in her 7th month of pregnancy--she's been getting around to friends homes as well as having lots of mothers and kids over to our house.  The kids are getting ready to start their second year of pre-school (Sarah) and second grade (Adam) next week, and the cherry blossoms are in full bloom...

In this time of insecurity all around the world, please join your brothers and sisters in the Japan Baptist Union and the Japanese Christian Church in praying for a quick end to this war and for a speedy resolution to the strained international relations which it is leaving in its wake...

Christ's Peace be with you,

Dwight

Dwight, Kari, Adam & Sarah Davidson