Updates

Fall Update 2025 — Babies, Bicycles, and Moving Boxes

“He stayed there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.”
— Acts 18:1–11

Well, we haven’t had Pauline-level, apostolic responsibilities here in Japan just yet. But we have now been here as long as Paul was in Corinth. One year and a half. Since our last update, many new developments have taken place. We have received many blessings as a family this season.

Babies
If you missed our update from a couple of months ago about the birth of our daughter, Abigail, you can click HERE to read it. Our little Abby-chan is now 11 weeks old. By God’s grace, she is happy, healthy, and developing right on track. Her favorite thing to do is give big smiles to people. We love her dearly and are so grateful for her!

On that note, we were wonderfully surprised at the love our Japanese church family showed to us a couple of weeks ago. They organized a baby shower after church to celebrate little Abigail and show love to our family. We were blown away by their kindness!

Bicycles
From June 1st to July 18th, the Lord saw fit to teach us contentment without a car. Well, we actually had our car the whole time, but we couldn’t legally drive it during that period. We depended on public transportation or friends to get anywhere outside of our small town. And we rode our bicycles for everything else local like shopping, grabbing dinner out, dropping off the kids or picking them up from school, and running errands. We actually became a familiar sight to many of the locals in our area of town. I’m sure we were quite a sight to see! Someday, I’d love to talk to one of them and ask what they thought of the pregnant white couple biking in the hottest, rainiest season of the year—with kids in the back of the bikes.

Though it was stressful, taking that driver’s test was also an important experience. More than just a necessity, passing that test felt like a rite of passage in my mind. It was another foundation stone set in place as we continue building our lives here in this country. Being able to drive is also one way we are able to serve others here. So, we are quite grateful to do it again.

Moving Boxes
A few months ago, Sierah found a house in our town that would be coming up for rent soon. We contacted our realtor and learned that we’d have a good chance of getting it if we acted quickly. It looked to be a first-come, first-served situation. That indeed turned out to be the case. We were blessed to be first in line to tour the house on the day it became available. That night, we put in an application, and after a couple of hiccups during the week, our application was accepted!

As many of you know, we have been looking to move to a different house for almost a year now and for a whole host of reasons. One reason was the termites. Another was the lack of a safe, outside area for our kids to play. Yet another was our limited space to host friends, church family, and neighbors for meals and fellowship. In God’s great kindness, all of those needs (plus some I haven’t mentioned) have been well met in this new house.

Some of you were made aware of a surprise financial need involving our move and rushed to support us. We are happy to report that your help covered every dollar needed, plus extra! It not only covered all the fees associated with the move but also purchased a nice, sturdy bunkbed that our kids can use for years to come!

We’ve already unpacked every box. In fact, we’ve already met many of the neighbors on our new block. (None so far speak English, but all have loved that we are studying Japanese!) They all know we are Christians and work at a church nearby. Our kids play outside and have befriended all the neighborhood children already! The children are amazed at how well Sophie speaks Japanese. We’ve already hosted a couple from the U.S. in our new spare bedroom and shared dinner with a couple of Japanese ladies from our church in the larger living/dining room. So far, six Japanese people (all Christians) have enjoyed fellowship in that living room space.

Wrapping up the Summer
Fall is here. I still lead singing for our Sunday and mid-week services. I’m studying the language every day. Sierah and I are working to build more relationships with our church family and unsaved neighbors. As the season turns, I wish I had time to tell you about the church men’s group, the local festival we got to attend with neighbors, the new missionary families we got to meet, and the growing number of pastor fellowships the Lord is allowing me to be a part of.

We still weekly attend various Bible and books studies. We are getting to know our church family better through these fellowship times and especially on Sundays. Again, our responsibilities now are not “Pauline-level.” But we are seeking to remain as faithful to them as possible while God has us here. The largest “ministry” on my calendar is simply studying Japanese. A couple updates ago I mentioned we switched to private tutoring lessons, and those are going quite well. But the progress feels so slow. Pray for us!

It’s been a year and a half of adjusting to new life here and planting seeds. And even though we’ve been blessed to see some fruit come of our early labors, we know that a lot of foundational work still needs doing in order to see greater fruit down the road. The bulk of that foundation is simply learning the language. What a humbling challenge this has been! Yet God is giving us progress in it week by week. Pray for our diligence in this area!

We are so grateful for you all! I pray that we are faithful stewards of the mission and resources you’ve entrusted to us.

Grace and peace,
Joe, Sierah, Sophie, Ezra, Baby Girl.

Surprise Baby Shower for Abigail

Men’s Church Activity

Family Pictures

Local Summer Festival

We Are Note Alone

She is here! Just a few days ago, on the afternoon of August 16, Abigail Kathleen Pliska made her entrance into the world. We had two midwives on call—though one didn’t arrive until ninety minutes after the birth. But both did an excellent job helping Sierah deliver a healthy, happy little baby and all the postpartum care she needed. No major complications arose.

I was thinking about that on my run this morning. It’s always an anxious day when labor kicks into gear. Many questions fill the mind. The scary ones. Doubts can arise. But God has once again shown himself so kind to our little family. As much as I strive to be the protector and provider of our home, God is infinitely better at both. This week was a humble reminder of such.

It was also another week where I was reminded that many of you really are praying for us. We are normal, Christian folks, like many of you. We are not special, super-spiritual people who deserve an easier time or are impervious to the attacks of the evil one. We need the prayers of the saints just like everybody else.

So, thank you for praying for us. Thank you to the many who have reached out to check on us. We have everything we need and more! God is too good.

Please pray for us as we seek to parent this third, precious child to the glory of God. I’ve heard that going from two to three can be a real challenge. We have no reason to think otherwise! But even as we celebrate this precious new life, I can’t escape the fact that there is so much Kingdom work to be done here in Japan. And I don’t want to do it without their help someday.

Blessings,
Joe, Sierah, Sophie, Ezra, Abigail.

“I am the least of the faithful here—yet I have been privileged to serve God’s honor.”
— Ignatius to the Ephesians

Mid-Summer Update 2025 — Our Last Few “Firsts”

Much has transpired since our Winter update in March. (Less than one month left until baby arrives, by the way.) I can’t say it all here, but I hope you enjoy the highlights!

Family To-dos
As many of you saw on Facebook back in May, we had a late-night health scare. Sierah experienced severe abdominal pains around midnight. Our missionary partners helped us coordinate with local first responders, and within minutes an ambulance (Kyū-kyū-sha) arrived. God was good. The pain was only a kidney stone—ouch! I say “only,” because we wondered if it could be much worse. But Mom and baby are doing just fine.

Our kiddos are growing healthy and happy. Ezra is walking now and starting to babble his first intelligible words (including Japanese). Sophie has made friends with everyone on our street (also in Japanese). We met another family in the neighborhood at the end of our block. They were quite curious about us. We were curious about them and their tiny dog named “Latte.” (Yes, the coffee drink.) Who knows, perhaps even this family will someday be added to the Kingdom!

I’ve been dieting and exercising since New Year’s and have seen good results. But I haven’t been the only one exercising lately. Sierah and I have been putting in the miles on our bikes! Let me explain. Back in February, we went to our local DMV to get our Japanese driver’s licenses. We knew that on June 1st, the anniversary of our arrival to Japan last year, our American driver’s permits would expire. (We’d be unable to legally drive.) So, thinking that we were well ahead of schedule, we sauntered in to the DMV and asked when we could sign up to take the test. The earliest date? July 18th. [That’s 5 days from now.] Implication? For the last six weeks, my dear pregnant wife and I have been biking everywhere, unable to drive! How is that for an authentic Japanese experience? Our missionary partners and other friends around have been so accommodating to us, offering occasional rides as needed. We are blessed!

Ministry To-dos
We have had a dynamic and eventful Spring/Summer season. It began with the church family out here officially voting us into membership. (Amen!) Our church hosted two community outreaches, one on Easter and a BBQ dinner outreach another time. The gospel was given in Japanese at both of these events, and many people heard the good news for the first time. A group from Singapore (the same as last year) came to help with this event and shared testimonies of how God saved them.

The Pliskas’ primary “ministry” right now is learning the language. On that note, we’ve switched our primary instruction from the school a couple towns over to doing private tutoring at home. For the current season we’re in, it just made far more sense. And our language learning is progressing smoothly. But God has been really good to both of us in an evangelistic way. Though we are still not at a conversational level in Japanese, both Sierah and I have developed promising gospel relationships with unsaved, bilingual Japanese people. In Japan, most friendships take years and many touches to develop any sense of closeness that we Westerners are accustomed to. So, I am tickled that this early on, the Lord has allowed us to already make solid connections with unbelievers in our area! May they grow into Godly fruit.

I’ve run out of space to tell you of the other events God has allowed us to experience these last few months. Pastors’ conferences, the church deck project, meeting with visiting partners from the US, etc… But trust that he is at work here! New churches are being planted, old churches are growing healthy, and we are just thrilled to be on the front edge of whatever work God is up to out here!

Goodbyes and Farewells
This season also brought many goodbyes for our church family. This is not a large group of people, mind you. The third missionary family that was a part of our church is retiring to the States, a Japanese family whose husband occasionally preaches for us had to move over an hour away, and an older man in the English church (of whom our children have grown quite fond) has also had to move to a different part of Japan. There are other new vacancies as well. It’s a strange adjustment to see a sizable portion of your church no longer there on Sundays! But the Lord was providentially behind each farewell. We are looking forward to those who will fill the empty seats now and how the same Lord might use us to help fill them.

We also said a happy “farewell” to a snake that almost got into the house! I’m nervous to post pictures of such things on social media, since some people are understandably squeamish about such things. I have a picture of the vile serpent being crushed by our front door. It was a Mamushi pit viper, if you want to look that up. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamushi)

In closing, Sierah and I got to see most of our last few “firsts” in Japan as our one-year anniversary rolled around this summer. A full year of church-calendar events, seasons, and holidays has come and gone. But there are plenty more “firsts” sure to come. We have a baby due in less than a month to start! We are so thankful to God for each of you who support us and pray for us regularly! As always, enjoy the pictures below and don’t forget to check out our social media pages for more regular updates and pictures.

Please pray:
– Pray for our driving test this week. If both of us fail, it’s months more of waiting and biking (with a newborn!).
– Pray for Sierah’s safe and healthy delivery in less than a month, Lord willing.
– Pray for language learning. Always be in prayer about that.

Grace and Peace,
Joe, Sierah, Sophie, Ezra, Baby Girl.

“Well, that was fast.“

Special Update 2025 — One Year in Japan

Your Role in Our Story
Let’s do a recap. From our first trip to Japan in 2018, to our decision to pursue it in 2020, to a year ago today, we have aspired to do missions work among the unreached of Japan. Missions work of the Titus sort, mind you. Many things needed to happen in that window for us to end up where we are today. Taking the title of “Missionary” is no small thing.

For one to move his family to a foreign, pagan country with few Christians and multiple cultural obstacles, one needs to be properly and biblically equipped. No small thing indeed.

First, we needed to be affirmed by our church. In the spring of 2021, our pastors ordained me, and the church gave their ascent to send our family to Japan. We wouldn’t dare pull something like this without proper affirmation (See Acts 13). Second, I had training to finish up. Our church affirmed me after a three-year pastoral residency which prepared me for local church ministry. It was a slow, deliberate, and foundational program. I am grateful to God for it and miss it. But seminary work still needed finishing too. Seminary of course isn’t vital for everyone, but it was for me. I was able to snag an MA before we left the States and have been slowly working away at an MDiv degree even now.

Third, Sierah needed to come with me! I knew I was asking her to give up nearly everything she knew and owned to follow me. It was difficult for her for all the reasons you’d imagine! But as her namesake, Sarah, in Genesis followed her husband, she willingly followed me as the Lord led. Fourth, we needed a plan for Japan and missionary partners to help us achieve it. Our church in Kentucky had already partnered with veteran missionaries in Tokyo. They were the ones who hosted me and Sierah on our original trip back in 2018. They have been vital partners in our journey ever since! We would not be here, plugged into our local, Japanese church, without them!

Fifth, we needed YOU! We are still blown away at how many of you decided we were worthy of your support. Of hundreds of missionary families to choose from (many of them heading to far cheaper countries), you chose us. (Before we had even done anything, no less!) A handful of you have known us for a long time, but most of you haven’t. I don’t know how or why God drew our hearts together. But my highest desire is that we steward your support well for God’s glory and the spread of the gospel in our little corner of Japan. Words cannot properly express our gratitude. But hopefully our actions and the way we use your resources for years to come will spell out a more worthy “thank you.”

The Quickest, Slowest Year of Our Lives
I’m writing to you today from a coffee shop at our local mall. This morning, Sierah and I dropped the kids off at their pre-school. She then dropped me off at the mall and ran home to host a couple of Japanese moms over brunch. One of them is not a Christian. Last week, at this very coffee shop, I watched a group of five Buddhist monks in their orange robes all scrolling on their iPhones while waiting for their coffee orders. (Picture in our next update.) Meanwhile, I was sitting across the floor working on a sermon from 1 Peter on a proper Christian view on suffering. It was a surreal moment. But it was only one of so, so many since we moved here. I feel torn so often due to this culture and language barrier. (By God’s grace, we are making progress.)

Well, I’m back at that coffee shop and I’m finding it quite a challenge to summarize all the ways God has been proving his kindness to us these past twelve months. Let’s do a refresh from this time last year. After waiting for eight months, we (Joe, Sierah, and Sophie) received our visas with ninety days to use them. That was the day Ezra was born. So, naturally, he had no such visa to his name. Three months later to the day, and after several providential steps, we landed in Japan with both littles in tow. Within those first three months, we secured a perfectly fine house that was going to be demolished and the Lord provided for us the exact transportation we needed. Our missionary partners helped us get all of our paperwork settled, get utilities and cell phones set up, get the kids registered for school, and help us meet several of our neighbors. Since then, we’ve been plodding along trying to establish new family rhythms, navigate new relationship dynamics with the Japanese, and somehow get a grasp on the basics of the language. God has blessed Sierah’s womb with a third little, whom we can’t wait to meet this summer! Sophie is growing like a weed—so is her Japanese! Ezra is the only other white kid in their pre-school. And our times with the church folks keeps growing sweeter and sweeter as we are getting to know them.

One quick blessing to us is how many of you have already come to see us! And others are already on the calendar in the near future, starting next month. Some visitors have been family; some have been supporters and friends. But there is another third group of sorts. We’ve also been connecting with other potential missionaries seeking to join ranks in the Land of the Rising Sun and get plugged into Kingdom work! God is doing something over here. And we are excited to be a part of it.

I’ll have more to say about our Spring 2025 season here in our next quarterly update, especially about our church involvement. But for now, I just wanted to say thank you to all of you. We wouldn’t be here without you. And we wouldn’t want to be here. It’s been as good a first year a missionary family could have asked for. And do you know what that means? That means we are being covered in your prayers. Thank you from each of us!

Grace and peace,
Joe, Sierah, Sophie, Ezra, Baby Girl

    “Let earth receive her King!” 🎶 

    — Lyrics to a song I heard at our local mall around Christmas time.

Winter Update 2025 — Nine Months in, Five Months to Go…?

How are we doing?
We’ve been in Japan for 9 months now. We’ve had our first Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s in a new place—and now cherry blossom season! Holidays are days usually filled with tradition. And as much as I’d like to tell you that we’ve started a host of new traditions with each of these special days, traditions which we plan to reiterate for years of celebrations to come, we mostly just did what we could to keep the plates spinning! Having littles in a new world sure puts a twist on things. But God has provided everything we have needed up to this point. Little Sophie has turned three years old and is expressing herself more and more in English as well as Japanese. Foreign phrases and songs slip out when she’s playing imagination games with her toys. Ezra has now turned one. We celebrated his birthday with friends from church on March 1st. He is weaned and is already eating like a teenager. Winter’s not been so warm that they’ve gotten to play outside a lot, but these two play quite well together. It’s a blessing to watch these siblings become such good friends.

We’ve been interacting more with their pre-school over the last few months just trying to figure out routines, announcements, expectations, and some basic conversations. (Those are tough!) But we love that the Lord has given us a part-time school situation for them. Especially a school that is top, top notch. We love almost everything about it. It’s been a learning curve trying to navigate the religious aspects of Japanese education. Yes, Tokyo is secular now. But the ancient influences of Buddhism and Shinto saturate everything. And certain school activities have left us scratching our heads. If you’ve been following our social media, you’ve seen some posts about this.

However, this arrangement has freed us up for our own language learning. Classes for us have been going well. Our teachers have been exceptional. The school is Christian owned and operated and mostly Christian staffed. But learning the language has proved every bit as challenging as we were told it would be. And we are at the beginning of that process. Momentum doesn’t feel like it’s picking up yet. I’ll say a lot more about the experiences were having in learning Japanese in coming updates. But for now, let me say this: Japanese is a very possible language to learn. It makes sense in its own way. I keep telling myself, “You can do this, Joe. Missionaries to Japan do it every year.” And they do. We’ve met some. But this is going to take a while. There are so many aspects about Japanese speaking and thinking that are as foreign to English as the moon is to a fish. These things will take time to fully absorb. We’re working hard at that. Pray for us.

Ministry Here
We got to see hands-on how our local church ministers to the community during the “American” holidays that are for some reason observed over here. Events that the church has hosted in the community (including public baptisms in the local river) are opportunities to share the gospel with people who have never heard of a church and would certainly never go to one if they ever learned what it was. Missions requires a bit of creativity every now and then. The gospel message just needs to remain central.

Our duty to the church here has been to stay as involved as we can be. And there’s been plenty for us to do. Our missions team has shrunk this past season. The third missionary family that had been here to help at the church for many years had to transition away. Another solid family in the Japanese church had to move away for work. Sicknesses and surgeries seem to have dropped church attendance over the past several months as well. But that just means there are more ways to serve.

The “Five Months” Announcement?
What’s this all about? This past January, we were invited to go to “Ski Camp.” It is an annual, winter retreat for several Christian churches ours is associated with. (It’s the same group we went on summer retreat with for “Family Camp” last year.) Well, we had to decline the invitation this year. Because…we’re having another baby! And skiing while pregnant is not recommended. In early December we learned that God has opened Sierah’s womb a third time. We are expecting Pliska baby number three this August! (That’s the “five months” from now part.) How exciting to think we’ll have another little one added to our family and born here in Japan! Lord willing, this week we will find out the gender of the baby.

We’re not aware of any extra needs for those of you who have already so graciously asked! If it’s a boy, we’ve already got everything from Ezra. If it’s a girl, we’ll just need to get some clothes. We’re all good there. (And that’s thanks to so many of you!) But we do have a slight need…. And the clock is ticking. A new house!

Let me explain. We love our house. It was an answer to prayer. It was a special sign of God’s providence that we needed when we first showed up here last summer. It was perfect for our needs. Still kind of is. But now two things have to be considered. First is space. Not only are we adding to the family, our two-bedroom house is not as conducive to the ministry of hosting and hospitality that we’d like. We’ve already hosted an American couple for a week. It worked, but they were only two people! There have been challenges with ministering to the people here as well due to space. That’s the first thing we’ve been considering. Here’s the second: Termites! Our house has developed several “squishy” places in the floor since we’ve moved in. One’s right at the bottom of the stairs. There’s a place in our wall you can just poke your finger through, because the wood underneath has been eaten out. It makes little prickly sounds too when you put your ear to it. Ha! So, we do need to move soon. I hear that babies don’t wait.

Prayer Requests:
– Learning the language — We’d like you to pray for our diligence and God’s mercy in this.
– Baby due in August — Please pray for a healthy momma and baby.
– House — Currently, we are applying around for mortgages here as well as scouting out rental houses.
– Gospel relationships — There are Japanese people here that speak English! We’d like to meet more of them.

Grace and peace,
The Pliskas

“If you get on the wrong train, get off at the nearest station. The longer it takes you to get off, the more expensive the return trip will be.” — Modern Japanese Proverb

Fall Update 2024 (Part 02) — Riding Trains

Tokyo Trains
A couple of months ago I decided it was time for us to learn how to use the train system around here. So, we went big. The four of us headed downtown. We drove most of the way there, then took a train to Shibuya crossing—the most foot-travelled metropolitan intersection in the world. We arrived at noon at the appointed station, walked around to our pre-determined sights, and made it back to the station in time to head home just before rush hour traffic. Then trouble found us. It wasn’t a big deal at first. When we got on our train to head back to where we parked, I realized quickly I had made a relatively minor mistake. We were heading the wrong way. But no big deal, right? So, at the very next station, we switched trains and went back to where we had just left—Shibuya station. This is where we made a second mistake. One of us (I won’t say who) left her backpack/diaper-bag on that wrong train. Remember? The one that was going the wrong direction? Skipping many of the ensuing details… We were able to locate the bag via Find-my-iPhone. We chased it halfway across Tokyo and discovered some kind soul turned it in many stations down the line, made it all the way back to the car, and headed home safe and sound. And stressed out. We’d missed the worst of the traffic by that point. What an exhausting and educational experience! But on the plus side…my confidence in navigating the trains around here has increased ten-fold!

The past few years for us have been a little bit like this story. Nothing life-threatening or truly insurmountable. But challenging, a little bit scary, and a lot of unknown. It’s kind of been a figure-it-out-as-you-go sort of road for us—or…railway, I guess. But at the end of each challenge or “oops” has been the grace of God getting us to the right station with everything we need. I believe that with all these experiences, we are learning and growing. Perhaps we will be of some use out here after all? I can only hope and pray so. Speaking of being out here. Let me tell the rest of what we’ve been up to.

What have we been up to?
Our Fall began with visitors from our home church. We had just gotten settled into our house, so we were ready to host our first guests! We had a great experience showing them around on the trains—on which we did not get lost! So I’m two for three at this point. The only other time I’ve taken the train since we’ve been here was with our fellow missionary to a pastors fellowship downtown. I’ve now been to three pastors fellowships in different parts of the greater Tokyo area with another one scheduled this March. And let me tell you something. Despite the immense amount of work needed here in Japan to expose people to the gospel, I am greatly encouraged in what I have seen. The churches here are desperately trying to find ways to meet the unique challenges of their day. The Lord is at work!

Our Church
Our church had two special services this past quarter. The Thanksgiving service concluded with a large meal and hours of singing and testimony times from members. Some who gave thanks have been Christians for less than a year and one less than a month! A couple weeks ago our church hosted their annual, community Christmas service. The gospel was proclaimed in message and song to the non-Christians who came. To facilitate the larger group of people every year, our church rents out the local town hall where there is plenty of space for the service and food afterwards. This is actually really important. Many Japanese people would never step foot inside of an actual church. But they’ll go the town hall for a “Christian thing” no problem.

I’ve also had the chance to preach now two times at our church, both times through a translator. (Here’s the link if you’d like to watch my first sermon). Lord-willing, I’ll be preaching again two Sundays from now. It’s a blessing to have each opportunity to serve and give our co-workers a break every now and then. Sierah’s been serving on Sundays as well by providing homemade snacks and baked goods for everyone, especially Sophie, to enjoy.  (Turns out the Japanese are quite the social snackers!)

I’m writing this to you on a Saturday afternoon. This morning I met with an American man in our church as well as a young-bilingual man who is not a Christian. We’ve been working through the book of Mark at Denny’s every Saturday. Jesus is pictured as the hero to the needy and the judge to the self-righteous. What a blessing it has been to share Jesus for the last couple of months with this young man who speaks perfect English! Pray for him.

Language Learning
That leads me to my next point. Language school has been going well for us so far. On the days we have class, we drop Sophie off at her Japanese preschool in the morning then head to class ourselves. For Sophie, it is a fully immersive experience. Her school has nearly one-hundred kids. Zero of them speak a lick of English. Neither do the teachers! Our track in language school will be shifting this spring. We’ve more or less been in private tutoring lessons at the school to get us up to speed. We will now be joining an actual class with other students. They are a fun group! I’ll have to share more about them soon.

Conclusion
The trains system around Tokyo is the highest-rated in the world. It is on time, fast, clean, safe, and utterly dependable. (See an explanation of the genius of Tokyo railways HERE: (Tokyo Trains). It’s worth your time!)  But it wasn’t built in a day. And it wasn’t one single person’s idea and effort. Similarly, we’re a small part of something our great God is doing here in Japan. But we still face a huge learning curve in order to be effective and learn where we fit best into the kingdom work. And the more we ride the trains around here, I hope, the more we learn about what that might look like.

(Note: Be sure to keep up with our weekly posts on Facebook and Instagram!)

Grace and peace,
The Pliskas

“Inevitably, in any such enterprise there are two possible outcomes: success despite difficulty, or failure despite effort.” – Gary Brady

Fall Update 2024 (Part 01) — Riding Bikes

It was three months ago today that I led the singing at our Japanese church service for the first time. I had to step outside afterwards to dry my eyes. That afternoon, I wrote a future letter to my son explaining to him the significance of what that day meant for me and the larger story of our family. What’s funny is that I only got sixty percent of the words correct at best! But no one would have noticed. The brothers and sisters over here sing loud! And if they had noticed, they wouldn’t have cared. The Christians here seem so grateful that outside help has come.  I’m reflecting on that stretch of four subsequent weeks with a smile on my face. It’s obvious now. The Japanese Christians were really leading me in worship.

“Riding Bikes”
Our missionary mentors were Stateside for four weeks in September and October. So, our training wheels were off. Sierah and I were on our own. I did not have opportunity during that time to do any preaching, but I’ll never forget the privilege it was to lead our brothers and sisters in God-glorifying songs that I did not even understand. It was a moving thing to behold. I hope some of you will one day be able to experience Japanese worship with us. Similar to our weekly, family bike rides, this span of time was a journey of exploration for us. And it was one that we were providentially prepared for by our missions partners. Glory to God!

Many things have transpired over the last three months. So, I’ve decided to split this update into two parts. This past summer, we attended “family camp” with some members of our church here as well as a few other churches in the Kanto area. This was our first time getting to meet and worship with Christians from other churches. Our traditional Japanese meals were eaten with chopsticks as we sat on cushions at floor-level tables. Balancing two little ones proved a bit of a challenge. (I also lost my toll ticket on the interstate during our return journey, though that’s a story for another time.) But it was a neat experience to get to have as a family and church family.

Hospitality Lesson
I substitute taught our missionary’s English class in town a few times. These “students” were a group of older retirees, trying to keep their minds and language skills sharp. I did not have liberty to engage with them in a full gospel-presentation during class—we covered Japanese religious topics—but we did get to do something special. As many of you saw on our Facebook page a while back, a few from that class came over to our house for a lunch Sierah made. My goal in having them come was to see a Christian home and exchange ideas about Japanese culture and Christianity. And here’s where I learned a big lesson. Those kinds of conversation are really awkward topics to bring up here around lunch! (At least in a group.) Oh well. It wasn’t everything I hoped it would be, but we did have informative conversation.

A funny thing happed while we were showing them around our house. We got to explain to them a Bible verse that we had hanging up on the wall. “This is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:24). They did not know these two words: Lord and rejoice. This was our bridge to introduce them to Jesus the “King of every day” who provides true joy to those who follow him. May those seeds grow. One of the ladies has since come to our home again to make bread with Sierah and chat. The training wheels are off!

Singapore
Late this past summer a group of ten members from a church in Singapore were traveling to different ministries in Japan, and our church here got to host them. On a weekday evening, we set up tables in the church and fellowshipped (mostly in English!) over snacks and good testimonies. In this group was a Japanese missionary who recently got kicked out of China. He is now working with the Chinese and Japanese youth in that church in Singapore. This missionary is a friend of our pastor here in Japan and came back a few weeks later to preach to our church on a Sunday. While Japan does have its challenges for Christians spreading the gospel, we face nothing like those doing missions work in China. Evangelism strategies can be the same: relationship building, hospitality, church invites, etc… The risks are not at all the same.

So many of you have reached out to us this past quarter to check in on us, or write birthday cards, or let us know you are praying for us. I wish I could say more than thank you! All of our needs have been met. The family here is happy and healthy. Our church family is doing well. Many of our assimilation challenges are behind us. But the biggest one still looms, as it will for some time—learning Japanese. I’ll write to you more about our progress in this area soon as well as the second half of our fall season!

(Note: Be sure to keep up with our weekly posts on Facebook and Instagram!)

Grace and peace,
The Pliskas

“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

“Hey… where’s my laptop?”
— Me, 10 minutes before we board.

Spring Update 2024  — We Made It!!

If you’ve been following our social media (it’s the fastest way to get quick updates out), you already know a few things. Our prayers were answered, we made it to Japan, and we arrived with all four visas in hand! That’s the short version of things. But I’d be doing you a disservice if I didn’t fill in more details as to how God answered your prayers and got us here to Japan, safe and sound. So, greetings from Japan! Now, let me tell you how we got here.

The Final Week
With our departure day seven days away, we received tremendous news from Immigrations in Tokyo. After only two months, little Ezra’s visas were approved! (Mind you, it took ours about eight months.) This changed quite a few things. If we could get to Nashville tomorrow—we received the good news on Sunday…which was already Monday in Japan—and request Ezra’s physical visa, we might be able to get it and still leave the States on time! I already had plans to drive down to Nashville that following day anyhow to pick up our physical visas anyway, so the Lord’s timing was perfect. But his timing did require us to adjust our timing a bit. I went ahead and moved our flight reservations ahead a couple of days to give just enough time to go back down to Nashville the following week, pick up Ezra’s paperwork, and get on the plane the next day. Instead of arriving in Tokyo on Tuesday the 27th, we’d now be arriving on Thursday the 29th. And, mind you once more, our 90-day entry window expires on Friday the 30th!

The Final 24 Hours
I was on said trip to Nashville that following Wednesday morning, the 28th, to pick up his paperwork when Sierah called. She said she couldn’t check into our flights for the following morning. Apparently our flight reservation was cancelled and we had been refunded for the trip. It took a stressful, ninety-minute phone call to figure this out. Somehow, their systems had glitched when I switched our flight from Monday to Wednesday. And when we didn’t show for our flight Monday, they cancelled our reservation. But the Lord spared our seats on both very full flights, and we were able to get our seats back! This mattered. Had we been pushed to a flight the following day, we would be arriving in Japan on the day our entry-window expired. While I was on the phone with United, I was able to get to the Japanese consulate, take the elevators up, secure Ezra’s visa paperwork, and head back home.

But the testing of our faith wasn’t over. On the day of the flight we found out that United’s glitch did not switch little Ezra’s lap-ticket over. Then, we temporarily lost a laptop at TSA, but found it within minutes of boarding our first flight. On our second flight (which little Sophie and I boarded before the family to get the stroller stowed), Ezra was barred from boarding at first. He simply wasn’t in their system. But I didn’t know that exact detail. All I knew is that I was stuck in the plane and Sierah was stuck inside the airport. And the gate attendants wouldn’t budge! Until…for no reason, finding no proof of Ezra being on our ticket, they let Sierah and the baby on anyways so the flight wouldn’t be delayed. She and Ezra were the last to board. It was a long flight, but we were happy to be on it together! God took care of us despite whatever opposition we faced. Looking back, we experienced one of those moments where you know people have been praying for you. God heard.

Since Then
We arrived safe and sound with all of our luggage to a warm welcome at the Tokyo airport. We got through immigrations without a single hiccup! Our missionary partners were waiting with the rental van, big smiles, and a warm embrace. Two hours later, we made it to their house, ate dinner, and went to bed. Since then, we’ve registered as official residents of Japan, signed the kids up for health insurance, got some currency exchanged, and adjusted to the new time zone. Fun fact: the sun gets up around four in the morning over here!

We’ve started attending the English and Japanese services at church on Sundays and the midweek Bible studies. We’ve started riding bicycles, driving, shopping, and greeting the occasional neighbor while getting settled in. Our Japanese language learning has finally grown past phone apps and online classes to a real Japanese community. I’ve been able to participate in book studies, leading worship during the English service, and work on sermon prep with the missionaries. We’ve been so blessed by them to stay in their house for now! Which reminds me of houses. Many of you have been praying that we find a house that meets our family needs but which also keeps us in close proximity to the church and the other missionaries. We didn’t think we’d find one at this time of the year and were preparing to look at houses further away if necessary. But the Lord has opened up an opportunity to rent a small house just a ten minute walk away from the other missionary families here! There’s some extra paperwork that will take a couple of weeks to get through before we get to move in, but we are thrilled to do it!

Our Gratitude to You
There’s much more to say that I’ll get to in days ahead. I just wanted everyone to know how the Lord has provided for us over these last thirty days. I am first compelled to give a special thanks to our home church. You hosted us on the property for nearly two years, you regularly brought us into your homes (and entered ours), you sent us off a month ago with such gracious encouragements, and you have followed up multiple times since to see how we are doing! And I mean multiple times. See, it’s not just that we couldn’t be here without you. I wouldn’t want us to be here without such dear brothers and sisters back home lifting us up as you do so well. We are beyond grateful.

A second word of thanks must be said to all who have partnered with us up to this point—friends and family included. Besides the regular giving and prayers that you supply us, so many of you have reached out to us as well to see how we’re doing and if we need anything. Just the other day I got to Zoom in to a midweek gathering with a beloved church body and give them an update live! On top of this, some of you have felt moved of God to generously give beyond what you’ve committed just to be a blessing to us! Just so you know, the U.S. dollar is doing incredible over here in Japan. $160 USD has about $200 of buying power right now. So, your gifts are stretching farther than you know!

That’s enough for today. Know that there is so much left to say. And I am excited to tell you about it shortly, especially about our new home and new start in this strange and beautiful country. For now, remember that Christ is king, and our true home is with him. Though mostly unknown so far, he is the reigning King here in Japan just as much as he is back in the States. May we all be faithful citizens foremost to him and his kingdom.

Grace and peace,
Joe, Sierah, Sophie, and Ezra

“We wanted to come see you earlier, but we were hindered.”
— Paul to the Thessalonians.

Mid-Spring Update 2024  — Let’s Get Those Totes Back Out

Great news! This week we’ve been preparing once more to leave for Japan. No, we didn’t get Ezra’s visa yet, but we might have a workaround. (More on that later.) In two Sundays, May 26th, we’ll have our send-off service at our church here in Louisville. You can tune in (here) at 10 AM, EDT. The next morning, May 27th, we shuttle off to the airport. First stop, Chicago. Next stop, Tokyo.

Let’s Recap
Our vision of Japan began to take shape back in October of 2018. That was when we visited for the first time. Shortly afterwards, through many conversations and meetings, we set our sails towards the Far East. The journey has taken more time than we would have guessed, but it certainly has been good. I finished a solid pastoral internship at our church, got ordained, I got a masters, we both accomplished biblical counseling certifications, we got to travel extensively and meet all of you wonderful brothers and sisters, we got to experience funerals and weddings of those we love, received wonderful marriage counseling, bonded with many from our local church, and we also had a couple of beautiful, healthy kids along the way. Perhaps the last item I should add to this list is that we both grew up a little too. So then, yes, this step seems to have taken a while. But, no, we have no reason to look back on it with anything but gratitude. God has been at work through it all.

Next Steps
So it begins… Lord willing, we’ll land in Tokyo on Tuesday the 28^th with all of our earthly belongings in tow and with the official title of “missionaries.” Let me remind each of you what that is and then tell you what we anticipate our next steps to be. A missionary is a person that a church sends to another people group to share the gospel with them. And we belong to the local church-planting stripe of that vocation. That’s been our aspiration since before we were married, and now it is time to take hold that job title and execute it honorably. We bear the full weight of your expectations that we use our time, finances, and daily opportunities fully to the glory of God. Pray we do that well!

When we land in Tokyo, we will be staying with our missionary friends and mentors until we can get into our own house. Once furnished and settled in, the quest for assimilation begins! We’ll be learning things like grocery shopping, Japanese stop signs (look that one up), foreign bank accounts and health insurance, how to drive on the left side of the road, how to ride the trains, as well as how to merge our lives together with a local church that speaks a different language than we do. We’ve been told already that they love us and have been anticipating our arrival. What an encouragement! Unofficial language learning (also called “immersion”) starts as soon as we leave the airport in Tokyo. Official language classes will start later in the summer or early fall.

Potential Trouble
As much as we’d love to tell you that we’re fully in the clear with our visas, it’s unfortunately not that simple. To recap what’s happened thus far, let me remind you that our visas were approved from Japan on the day after little Ezra was born. That meant we had ninety days from March 1st to get into the country or our applications would expire, and we’d have to get back in line and start all over again. Well June 1st is coming up fast, thus the decision to leave for Japan by the end of this month. If we are able to get past Japanese immigrations before our visa-entry dates expire, then we’re locked in for three years. We’ll then just need to come back to the States to get Ezra’s when his is approved.

In the meantime, Ezra should legally be permitted to enter Japan as a U.S. citizen on a tourist visa, which needs no paperwork or prior approval. All he’ll need is an American passport, which we have. What that means is that the four of us will walk through immigrations with four passports, but only three long-term stay visas. The baby will have a three-month stay visa (which can be used twice per year for a total of six months maximum). We will have to convince the immigrations workers that we really will keep our word and head back to the U.S. in order to get Ezra’s paperwork when it becomes time to do so. We’re praying even now that they will hear us and let us through. There is no reason I’ve thought (or our veteran teammates, the Carters) of yet as to why they wouldn’t. But immigrations are the ones who get to decide that. Pray for us that God would plead our case for us. Pray that we’d not be turned around upon arrival. Again, I don’t think that we will, but it is certainly possible.

One further note on that. Everything that happens, either God does or he allows. And he allows quite a bit that we would not, doesn’t he? But everything he allows to happen is for at least two reasons: it’s for our benefit to grow our faith in him, and it’s for his glory which we will see and understand one day when we finally get the answers to so many of our questions. Because this is true, we have all we need to trust him, come what may. I hope that is an encouragement to each of you as difficult times are sure to come. Trust him. Show the world that he is trustworthy, even when things are out of our control.

And pray that we will do the same, no matter what happens. We’re so thankful for each of you. Please reach out if you think of us!

Grace and peace,
Joe, Sierah, Sophie, and Ezra

_______________________________________________

Fun Fact: Due to the Earth’s curvature, our flight westward to Japan is almost entirely over land!