7/5: Okutama Camping Trip with Ethan

Ethan and I went up to the Okutama mountains for a one day and one night camping trip and had a great time. We sweated lots, drank about 2 liters of water before we reached the top and we had some pretty amazing meals.

We camped at the location of a small temple and used a fly sheet and ground sheet to protect us from the rain (and it rained a little bit that night). During the course of our hike we read Psalm 19, 99, 103, and 115 as well as some passages from Matthew.

Dinner:

• Corn soup
• Can of mikans
• Coal-baked sweet potato
• Swiss Miss

Breakfast:

• Pocari Sweat (sports drink mix)
• Canned tuna mixed with canned corn put on top of Ritz crackers
• 2 fresh apples
• Soyjoy bar
• Raisin/peanut mix

Animals Discovered:

1. Snakes
2. Bugs
3. Toad
4. 2 brown birds
5. Snail

Pictures from the Trip:

A beautiful mountain stream in Okutama

Our tent, complete with ground/fly sheet

Baking satsumaimo (sweet potato) in the coals.

We found some wild raspberries!!!

The wild raspberry bushes

Ethan taking a break amidst some massively large trees.

An uprooted tree

One of the paths that we took. I love all the root systems!

A torii near the end of our trip

The snail we met on the way

Salt and Litchi flavored drink at the convenient store!?

Orange and tomato drink anyone?

7/2: In Tokyo

Thank you so much to all who were praying for Joy Bible Camp. The camps went well and our staff is now getting rested up and going their separate ways. More stories I could share but time is lacking right now. I have posted some pictures for your enjoyment and it will give you an idea of what camp was like.

Top 10:

1. Finished book of Acts
2. Watched Four Feathers, Pete Maravich, Hogan's Heroes
3. Read Guts, Esio Trot, Cultivating Life for God
4. Cooked up tuna melts, making mugi-cha (barley tea), and made vanilla ice cream with ice cream maker
5. Helped Dad with sports inventory
6. Got an ALT teaching position at University of Tsukuba Senior High School at Sakado
7. Ran 3 miles yesterday
8. Doing some Japanese language study
9. Have a CRASH translator staying at our apartment
10. Another summer of JBC camps are done and the Lord did a mighty work!

Some Pictures:

Greeting a cabin for their Oombamboogi River cruise.

Leading campers to the Oombamboogi River

Rafting down the Oombamboogi River for our Safari Theme Dinner at Joy Bible Camp

After the Safari. The crocodile is on the far right :)

Rafting down the Okutama River

Dad during the Safari dinner

During JBC quiz time.

All camp picture (Camp #1)

My cabin (Camp #1) 5 guys

Billy from my cabin in Camp #1

Crazy utensil night with Mexican Haystacks!

Picnic lunch down by Okutama River

Kiwi and Bobaloo (camp nicknames) Bobaloo was our speaker for Camps #1 & 2

All-camp photo (Camp #3)

My cabin (Camp #3) 5 guys

Typical meal during camp (the many orange shirts is because it was after the all camp photo)

My cabin (Camp #2) 7 guys

All-camp picture camp #2

The hiking trip we took about 300 m

Okutama Valley as seen from our hiking group.