Our Sendai Hosts

We were so fortunate to have been introduced to Yori and Nori Kimura. They are both semi-retired teachers. He is now the principal of a small private kindergarten, and she is a graduate student and Emily Dickinson scholar. They are Christian, and interesting to me was the fact that they can trace their faith back multiple generations, which is unusual because for many centuries Christianity was banned in Japan. However, up north where I am now I see a fair number of Christian institutions, mainly schools, at least in the cities (Morioka and Sendai to be specific.) They had many questions for us and they engaged us in frank and open conversations about family life and faith. It was quite unusual from what I can tell. It was amazing to think that we were welcomed as if we were grandchildren, even though we had never met, and our only prior contact was through email! Aleeza told us yesterday that she intends to come to visit them (along with some of her close friends) for her 16th birthday. (Of course, what she really wants is to bring her friends here to Morioka to return to Kenji World, the outrageous water park we spent the day at yesterday, but that's another post!)
Here are a bunch of photos of us with our Sendai hosts. We love you, Yori and Nori!