“Paul received a mission from God. He gave allegiance to a new but mostly unknown king, Christ Jesus. In doing so, Paul assumed a role without social honor… But he knows he belongs to Christ, whom the Creator God appointed the King of the world.” — Jackson Wu
Summer Update 2024 — We Are Missionaries Now
Has it only been 90 days since we got here? Why do our kids look a year older already? When did driving on the left side of the road start to feel normal? Am I ever going to understand what the store clerks say after I clarify which size bag I’d like my groceries in? Have we accidentally offended my neighborhood yet? (I hope not! But here’s to hoping we’re good so far…)
We’re Here Now
It’s thundering outside right now. Of course, it’s the same kind of thunder I’ve always known back home. Rain is rain. Yet it seems different. The last two months have introduced many, many changes. I can’t think of an area of our lives that hasn’t been touched by this transition. But it’s been a good transition. It’s not been easy, but it has been incredible.
We moved into our house just over a month ago. Not apartment—a house. Now, the house wasn’t listed for rent. In fact, it was listed to be demolished! That’s not because it was in bad shape or unsafe. It’s just a bit old. Houses in Japan depreciate in value very quickly. Many older houses are torn down when they are in fine condition, because it’s more lucrative to build a new house on the lot and sell new. Such was the case with the house we live in now. But a neighbor of our missionary partners, a local, unsaved, Japanese man, heard we were looking for a place and knew that this house had been empty for some time. God knew we were coming and kept this perfectly fine house standing and waiting for us.
A similar providence of God provided us with a decent family car. (It’s a 2019 Honda Freed, if you want to look it up.) I won’t get into the details, but we unknowingly found this car the very day it became available, thus were the first to ask about it. It was owned by an American who barely drove it. How we got in touch with the dealer is a story in itself. We didn’t expect to find the perfect car for us at such a great deal; but God did. He knew having a car in our part of Japan is really an essential considering the ministry work we intend to do. We just needed to get over here. Note: When we don’t need the car to get around, we really do ride our bikes just about everywhere. It’s becoming a regular practice for us to take an evening bike ride as a family.
God’s Providence
This is the paragraph I’ve been wanting to write to you all for weeks now. Everything is falling into place for us. It’s odd typing that out, but it is true. Yes, God has been taking care of us from the first step of our journey in 2020 until now. He has never left us. But many things—okay, almost everything—during our fundraising travels went differently from what we had imagined. All plans got delayed, changed, or cancelled. If you’ve followed us for the journey, you know. What’s beautiful to ponder is how those changes to our plans are the very thing that let us meet the hundreds of you that will read this newsletter! Beautiful Providence indeed.
Back to our sob story. Many times we had to clear our travel calendar, cancel meetings, pick up spontaneous trips, figure out our “nomadic” life being new parents, push our departure back time and again, and on and on the list goes. Even the last twenty-four hours before we arrived in Japan were hair-raising! I’m learning that we developed a mindset of, “Hmm… What’s about to go wrong next?” before coming here. But now that we’re here, everything has really fallen into place. This is a great comfort to us.
Could you imagine going as a missionary yourself to some new country, but you don’t have an established team to work with, you can’t find lodging for your young family, there’s no local church for you to plug into, you have zero idea of what your first couple of years are going to look like, you don’t know how to buy and prepare food, you have to figure out legal paperwork and insurance applications all by yourself, and, oh, you also don’t have a car since you don’t know how to find one you can afford? I’ve been eager to tell you that none of that has been our experience. Praise be to God! So again, I say with gratitude to our God that after a long journey getting here, everything is falling into place.
Our Gratitude to You
This is the part where each of you deserve an in-person, firm handshake and a hearty, “Thank you!”—knowing your true reward is in heaven I’d love to give that to you! But for now, let me say thanks for all who got us here. Thank you to you who gave to our startup fund. I can’t tell you what a relief it was to be able to afford all the things we needed in order to start this new chapter as a family of four.
If you’ve been following things lately, you may have heard that the U.S. dollar is doing really well over here in Japan. I mean really well. I’ve been joking that “The whole country’s 30% off.” But that’s not really a joke. All of our big purchases thus far (made primarily from our startup fund) have been significantly less expensive than we had budgeted. This is another way the Lord has so clearly provided for us.
I look forward to the many updates to follow. We would not have made it this far without those of you who lift us up and support us. I know some of you give to us individually or at great sacrifice. I pray we are stewarding your generosity faithfully.
Heads Up
In my next update I’ll lay out for you more of what this season of life looks like for us. What does the new missionary family do once they’ve moved to the field and gotten settled in? Also, the Carter family is leaving this week for a month-long trip to the states. So, our training wheels are really about to come off. There are many exciting things to come! By the way, did I mention we’re preparing an emergency earthquake “to-go” bag? If you have any recommendations on what survival items to pack, let us know!
Grace and peace,
The Pliskas
