Catch up...

Last week, Alison's friend Kevin arrived on the island for a visit. It has been so nice to have a familiar face in Japan. On Saturday, we decided to head down south to the Ryukyu Glass Factory to blow our very own glass! After they gave us our short introduction, all of which needed to be translated for us, we followed each step to make our own glass cup. Let me tell ya, it's a bit harder than it looks to get a perfectly round cup....I wasn't so lucky! :) It's alright though, mine is special and unique!
To begin we put on our sleeve guards and heavy duty gloves.
Next, they brought over the glass and we had to blow into the little hole in order to fill the mold to make the glass.

Here is the furnace where our glass is getting ready to be shaped.

Then, they led us to this chair where we were instructed to hold the tweezer looking things in one hand, to form the opening, and get the other hand ready to roll the rod.

It was much harder than it looked!

The day was a lot of fun and with another experience to add to the Japan list!

We had to travel back down south this week to pick up our finished glass products so we figured we'd take advantage of the closeness and head down to the southern tip of the island. Let's just say it isn't like the northern tip, in that it's in the middle of nowhere and we literally had to walk down this little farm road and step into a small garden to get to the edge. However, our trip could not have been more perfectly timed for a beautiful Okinawan sunset. We are happy to say that we have officially been from tip to tip of the island!

Here is what goes on behind me while I walk....ahead of everyone as always! :)

Alison and I as we try to contain her hair
We had a brilliant idea to set our timer to get a group shot only it was kind of awkward as we were directly on the edge of the small cliff. We got a "normal" one but this one was too fun to pass up!

Love this scenery!

Zip lining adventures...

Today began with me signing my life away! Interested yet? haha Tom, a friend from church, invited Alison and I to go ziplining at a place called Forest Adventures. We'd seen a video of it ahead of time so we had an idea of what we were getting ourselves into but nothing could actually explain what happened today! Every part of it was hilarious! After we had our harnesses secured and passed our little safety briefing exam, we went out on the course. There were 7 different courses some much more difficult than others, one of which I would NEVER do again! Thankfully we went in the morning, not only did it start raining toward the end of our time, but there were also van loads of people coming to take on the courses. See some of the pictures below to get a better idea of what we got to experience today!

This, my friends, is pretty much how I landed every course! Yes, I know it takes talent!

Needless to say I have some peeled skin and sore muscles to accompany my memories from this day! Now we have several people from church wanting to go on this adventure too! We just might have to do it again before leaving Okinawa in less than 100 days.

This week...

I have officially completed my first week without an aide. Thank you all for your prayers as I know for a fact that nothing done this week was by my own strength. I have to say this was one of the first times I have ever ended a day (so make that 5 times ) and known for a fact that I did not make it through on my own, but with God's help! Unfortunately it takes days and times like these to realize the intense need for God's help, but I guess he will do anything to get our attention! He's got mine!
Something new this week, I walked home from school on Monday! I didn't want to wait 30 minutes for Alison to make it to my campus so I decided I'd try it out! It was surprisingly a nice 15 minute walk and a nice quiet time to end the day. If only I hadn't been carrying my laptop, among other things, on my shoulders! Nonetheless, I just might have to make this a habit! Anyways, keep posted for my blog about this weekend....Crazy times! Love you all!