From rfepley at gol.com Sun Aug 1 08:53:23 2010 From: rfepley at gol.com (Russ and Flossie) Date: Sun Aug 1 08:53:20 2010 Subject: [Epley Update] August 1, 2010 Message-ID: God goes before us! It's amazing how many people God sent across our path yesterday to encourage us! In the morning we received a call from Russ' doctor with blood test results. He felt Russ was on the mend and encouraged us to go ahead and have a vacation. Great news. By the time I got everything packed and the car loaded up, I was exhausted. I didn't really feel up to a road trip. My sister-in-law, Jeannie, had invited us for a family brunch on our way out of town. We had the opportunity to have some quality time with my youngest brother Than before his trip back to the US today and with my niece Julie on her first morning back in Japan. The delicious meal and great fellowship totally rejuvenated me. We encountered traffic so that a 2-hour trip became a 3- hour one, but we were able to stop several times for Russ to stretch. Traveling is especially hard on him, but he managed well. When we arrived in Karuizawa three people were here at the cabin to welcome us. They swept the ramp, made sure we had all the towels and bedding we needed, and were ready to move around furniture to suit Russ' needs. The cabin was all clean and ready to do. That made us feel so cared for. Another missionary family brought over a lasagna supper. The food was great and we had a wonderful time of fellowship with them. There are so many people God has used to minister to us...the people who gave a monetary gift many years ago to purchase this property as a place of R&R for missionaries, the work teams that have come in recent years to work on dilapidated cabins making them havens of rest, and those of you who have prayed for us. We are here by God's grace. Our vacation is off to a great start! Flossie PS If you are handy with a hammer and interested in helping with the ongoing project of rebuilding the cabins, let me know. Karuizawa TEAM Center is used for missionaries to recuperate and for ministry retreats. The work is being done primarily by work teams from churches. Maybe your church would like to send a team for a week or two. On another unrelated note...Russ had an accomplishment last month that I neglected to mention. He changed a light bulb without my help. Every new thing he can do alone is worth celebrating! From rfepley at gol.com Wed Aug 11 13:28:55 2010 From: rfepley at gol.com (Russ and Flossie) Date: Wed Aug 11 13:29:54 2010 Subject: [Epley Update] August 11, 2010 Message-ID: <2d569f853d0657c983b8dbe4ee520f06@gol.com> We are up here in Karuizawa enjoying a wonderful TEAM Annual Conference. We love our TEAM family and everything about our time here is inspirational. For lunch we had a great time using chopsticks to pick noodles floating in running water out of a long clean trough. Usually this Japanese-style summer treat is served in a bamboo pole split in half. With such a large group, we improvised. Our conference schedule doesn't leave much time for email, but I stayed up late last night to check my mail and found this letter from our daughter, Christie. Would you please be so kind as to pray for God's direction for her? She is planning to teach American Sign Language, but perhaps God means to change her direction. He knows what's best. Thanks for your prayers. Flossie ____ Hi friends! Last Monday at my first ASL department teacher's meeting, I was all ready and geared to go learning how to teach ASL effectively at the high school. Then another teacher (who teaches both ASL and Deaf Education classes) told us that the district is **desperately** seeking to fill two teaching positions to teach the regular Deaf Ed classes to Deaf and Hard of Hearing students....such as math, social studies, reading, etc...I mentioned that is my dream and passion (to teach Deaf students) but that I didn't have the certification now so that I was planning on teaching ASL to get classroom experience before transitioning to Deaf Ed later. She urged me to go ahead and apply anyway. So I did... And wouldn't you know it, I have an interview on Thursday at 7:45am for the Deaf Ed positions at Madrona K-8 School and Edmonds-Woodway High School. For those who know me well, I'm not much of a morning person, so this will be....an interesting challenge! Who knows....only God will know what is best for me--to switch to Deaf Ed or to remain with my ASL teaching position as planned. I am aware I don't have any formal training in this position but I do know that I hope to start my Deaf Ed certification study fairly soon. So we'll see what happens. I'm confident that the best decision will be made by the district. Whatever they decide, I'm eager to do my best and dive into this learning process! Please pray! Christie From rfepley at gol.com Wed Aug 18 07:12:11 2010 From: rfepley at gol.com (Russ and Flossie) Date: Wed Aug 18 07:11:48 2010 Subject: [Epley Update] August 18, 2010 Message-ID: We are grateful for answered prayer. 1) We had an outstanding annual conference and are now back in Tokyo in our usual routines. 2) On Monday other leadership team members and I began orientation sessions for the new teachers joining our staff at CAJ. What a fine group of teachers God has sent us! All but two of the nine have experience living in Japan which should make their adjustment much easier. 3) Our son Joel and his radio engineer coworkers were able to meet their August 1 deadline. Now they are on the air in New Hampshire as well as Maine. 4) We just received the email below from our daughter. Thanks for praying! Flossie _____ Hello all! The Thursday job interview went well! There were nine people on the panel (six hearing, three Deaf). They were all very kind and asked me a bunch of questions (no surprise there). Then we went into a classroom and I presented a lesson plan (I chose the topic of geography) for about 10-15 minutes with four Deaf middle school girls. They were amazing and great kids! Overall I feel very good about the interview. Yesterday I received word from the program coordinator that although I have "great potential" and will be an "outstanding" teacher, they really prefer me to get my Deaf Education degree first so the positions went to other candidates. This means I will plan on teaching ASL full time this fall while working on getting started on this degree. I feel peace about this decision and thank you for all your prayers! You guys are great! Love, Christie