Newsletter June 26, 2006

Time flies when you are having fun! We've been stateside for two weeks now (has it only been two weeks) and life has been crazy. We've been all over the place, seen tons of friends and family and been in several churches! Not to mention we have been very blessed!

We are in Granbury, Texas right now just outside of Ft. Worth staying with my brother and his family. Saturday and Sunday we were so blessed to sing and speak at a Japanese church in Dallas! It was so interesting to me to be IN Dallas, but surrounded by Japanese people and speaking Japanese. It has been two weeks since we spoke Japanese, Rocky and I both felt strange and a little rusty! It was an awesome time of fellowship with that church and we met many college students also. God does great things in the lives of Japanese people when they come to America (or go abroad).

Later this week and next week we will be in churches in and around Lubbock, Texas. Then we are on to Oregon on July 10th. We look forward to seeing many of you soon. Please continue to pray for safety, health and blessings on our fundraising.

I will be updating some photos on Hana's blog today too if you want to see what she has been up to!

Love from Texas,
Marla

Newsletter June 8, 2006

Summer and rainy season in Japan are here. We are happy that we'll soon be getting away from it all for a while!

Rocky is almost finished with the mixing and mastering of Ai's CD! It sounds GREAT. Now it is up to her to finish the cover and get it ready for printing. Rocky will be immediately back in the studio with another project as soon as we get back from the States. He's such a busy guy!

Please pray for our trip to the States. Some specifics would be...

1. Safe and uneventful travel. We seem to always have something crazy happen to us in airports, AND now we are traveling with a 21-month old too.
2. New churches and individuals that want to support Aroma Ministries! We are BELOW our monthly budget needs in support and would like to bring the amount of consistent monthly giving back up to at least meet our monthly budget needs.
3. That God would use us to minister to those who are needing it now.
4. For quality time with family and friends.
5. For Hana to cope well with all the changes and adjust easily. Oh and that she won't get too spoiled by all the "pampering" she will get when she is there :) (Must be nice to be the youngest in the family and spoiled rotten - oh, I almost forgot, I should know! hehehe)
6. For the last minute preparation before we leave.

Our schedule is as follows (so far)... some items are still pending, check back for specifics later

June 12 leave Japan, arrive in Lubbock around 7pm
June 18 lead worship at FollowThru Fellowship, Littlefield, TX
June 23-24 Georgetown, TX
June 25 Possibly singing in a Japanese Church in Dallas
June 26-27 Granbury, TX
June 28 DeLeon, TX
June 29 back to Littlefield
***
Littlefield FBC, Littlefield Temple of Adoration, Littlefield FollowThru Fellowship, Lubbock Chuch at the Barn, and possibly Springlake Baptist Church, etc. will be having us in their worship in these days, contact us for specific dates.
***
July 10 Portland, OR
July 17 back to Japan

We hope to see you if we are going to somewhere near you! PLEASE email us so we can get together.

We have daily activities right up until we leave. On Sunday we have TWO concerts out of town, and then we leave Monday morning! Pray for these ministry activities to be filled with God's work and blessing also.

While we are in the states, I will be updating this blog regularly. Check back often! We appreciate your prayers, especially that God would send new supporters!

Blessings,

Rocky, Marla and Hana