November 2007

Greetings from Japan in the name of Jesus!

It has been about six weeks now since we moved to our new location. Trying to fit everything in to our smaller apartment (without the benefit of a separate storeroom like we had in Tsukuba), buy a car, and do all of the other things necessary to get settled into our new situation has proved to be quite a challenge, but we are getting there. Our apartment is in a nice area of the city, conveniently located between two train stations, either of which is only a five-minute walk. Nishinomiya is a large city of almost half a million people located between Kobe and Osaka. The whole area is basically just one big metropolis of about 12 million people.

Tim’s commute to the Buraku Liberation Center (BLC) on the other side of Osaka takes about 70 minutes door to door, so that definitely eats up a significant portion of his day (which is used for keeping up on reading). Juji’s commute the other direction to the Shin’ai Home in Kobe is much shorter, only taking about 35 minutes. Our apartment is a two-level affair with the entrance on the third floor of the building, with stairs leading up to the fourth floor. There are two bedrooms downstairs (one of which is Tim’s office) and a living-room/kitchen and one bedroom (our guest room and utility room) upstairs. Even our parking space is a dual-level arrangement. Our spot is, unfortunately, on the second level. There is one blank space on the ground level that an upper level car can be lowered down to. A fancy (and expensive) system slides the ground-level cars one way or the other to open up the space below the car you want to get out, and then the lift lowers that car down so that you can drive it out. That’s one way they get around the lack of space here in Japan! The area is very quiet for something located in a big city, and we get very little street noise. So, we are quite pleased with that.

The first major project for Tim to get off the ground is the reviving of the “Crowned With Thorns” English newsletter that has been in limbo for over eight years since the untimely death of the previous missionary assigned to the BLC. There are numerous logistical issues (such as computer program compatibility issues) that are slowing things down, but hopefully by the end of the month, we’ll be able to send out the first issue. The plan is for it to be both in digital format so that more people can get it easily and cheaply, as well as the traditional hard copy to mail out for those who need that. Needless to say, the old mailing list is woefully out-of-date, and so Tim has been doing Web searches to try to make connections with the individuals and institutions on the old list. Our own mailing list, which you are all on, will also serve as a starting point.

Well, we plan to have a regular Christmas newsletter out soon as well, and so we’ll make this “newsbrief” brief. We thank you for your prayers in our behalf. Things are coming together well, and we are both excited about the new work that we are involved in.

Grace and Peace,

Tim and Juji Boyle

The 2007 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 249