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LIJ Episode Lives Videos

Living in the Garden of Eden

All of you who follow us and watch us, you’re a special part of our extended online family. We’re glad to bring you joy as we continue to enjoy the relationships God gave us to nurture with Him and with each other. These relationships give a solid base for difficult times, and without them I would not be the person that I am — and we wouldn’t be the family that we are!

These relationships do not happen naturally — in fact for any good relationship to work well, there has to be loving commitment to each other. The closer you get to people, the more you see all their faults. The better they can see your faults too! This is where true love comes in. The feelings of love for others often fade over time, but a strong commitment to love one another can strengthen relationship ties even in the seasons when the feelings are not there. The fruit of healthy relationships is a joy for everyone — and it makes for great videos too!

The 3 Stages of Healthy Relationships

Recently I officiated a small ceremony to celebrate 30 years of marriage of good friends of our Side and Jaquie. They asked me to lead a ceremony and share a word about marriage so that they could invite their close friends and family and renew their wedding vows. I shared about the 3 stages of a healthy relationship, of which they exhibited.

Relationships (especially marriages) go through three major life-phases. There’s the Honeymoon phase — the one everyone loves and often thinks is the best phase (but there’s a better one). Everything’s new and the relationship is fun and personal. Everyday is like walking on sunshine and even if everything’s wrong in the world, you’re doing alright. You’re always thinking of the other person, meeting their needs and being considerate of them. Passion is hot. We all feel like we’d like to stay here, especially when we see the next phase.

The next phase is what I call the Desert of Normality where all the passionate feelings you had for each other cool off as years and years of everyday life wears you down. Throw kids into the mix and you often reach a point where you’re not even sure if you “love” the person anymore. Yes — this is normal, and actually an essential phase for building a true loving relationship that goes deeper than feelings.

God did not intend this phase as your final destination as a married couple, but unfortunately way too many people bail out on their spouse at this particular phase, before they can even make it to the best phase. They think somethings wrong with them, with their spouse, or perhaps they married wrong. They look for fulfillment in other places (food, work, pleasure, other relationships). Anyway you cut it, eventually they think that the best phase of marriage is gone and the only way to reclaim it is to strike up something with someone new and get back to that honeymoon stage. Unfortunately this is only ever a huge step backwards and will still lead you to this second stage with the new person you married.

Research shows it takes 10-15 years for a married couple to start thinking collectively, as a couple, instead of as individuals. If you stick out the difficult phase, learning how to make your relationship work and learning how to prioritize one another even with all of life’s challenges, you eventually arrive at the 3rd phase I like to call The Garden of Eden.

The Garden of Eden was the perfect place God made when He created mankind and there was no sin, sickness, curse or sin in the world. While it is impossible to escape all of the negative aspects of this current world, we can enjoy marriage as God intended it — to be so well unified as “one” that we have a little piece of heaven in our homes. Many couples married more than 30, 40 even 50 years say that their marriages have more passion, fulfillment, purpose and fun than ever before. This is possible because they have become one.

Ruth and I are moving into this 3rd phase, and it is really wonderful. There are still plenty of moments in that 2nd phase that we have to work out, but dealing with those things properly is what sets you up for a win in the 3rd phase. You can ignore the 2nd phase altogether, but that will only leave you with a passionless and stagnate marriage, or worse yet end in divorce.

No one enters marriage thinking it will end in divorce. Everyone would like to stay at the Honeymoon stage, but that’s not possible either. But the good news is that when we do marriage God’s way, we have a promise that the end will be even better than the beginning, and that’s something to celebrate.

If your marriage fell apart, my heart goes out to you. If your marriage is stuck and you think you might not survive, know that God is for you and wants to help you throw it. God is a God of second chances, Jesus proved that as He died on the cross on our behalf, so that we could have the ultimate 2nd chance. And although you may not be able to fix past, God can give you a better future when your life is in His hands, directed by his Holy Spirit and Word (the Bible). There is always hope with God.

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LIJ Episode Lives Videos

Not Your Normal Summer

I’ve always loved summer — especially summer break. It was time off school for playing, vacation and time with friends and family. This year summer vacation is very different, it is not your normal summer. It takes extra work and effort to do the same things we did just a year ago.

So how do we stay focused and positive through all of this? First of all, we are not always perfect. We have our bad days. We have our upset and irritated days. Sometimes by sure willpower you can force yourself to be positive. But the longer you have to force yourself to be positive, the sooner it will be before something snaps, and all that pent up frustration comes out. Look out when that happens!

To be truly happy, there has to be source of joy and peace inside that isn’t dependent on outside circumstances that ebb and flow. I have heard of more marriages breaking up than ever before, because the circumstances of 2020 have pushed people to their breaking points and past them! This is not what God wants for you or your family! How do you stay encouraged during this time? Read this verse and then listen to this video for our secret on how we do it.

I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.

The Bible: Letter of Romans 15:13
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The Bible tells us how easy it is to have hope

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My prayer for you is that you can also enjoy this beautiful fountain of hope, joy and peace that is only found in Jesus Christ. We need it for 2020. Our families need it. Our countries need it.

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LIJ Episode Lives Videos

Behind the Scenes of LIJ

Time for something completely different — a look behind the scenes of how we produce Life in Japan! I’ve always been a huge fan of technology (A.K.A. nerd). In this episode some of that leeks out as I talk about how everything from cameras to computers come together for each episode of Life in Japan.

If you’ve ever made a video, then you have an idea of the amount of time, energy and focus that is required to actually make one. Dedication and passion are required to keep consistently producing and it’s a discipline that few can truly appreciate. Even though I’ve been producing movies and music for years, I have learned so much in the last two years due to the amount that I have been producing.

While there are certainly days I feel like I’m crazy for all this, I feel so richly rewarded to know that we are being a blessing for everyone who’s watching on YouTube, listening to our music and coming to Paz Coffee Shop and Paz Church. And our whole point of living in Japan is to bring the love of Jesus in all kinds of ways and styles. Thank you for watching and being a part of this journey of our Life in Japan!

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LIJ Episode Lives Videos

The $ and ¥ Talk

I have to admit that I am very fortunate when it comes to finances. I grew up with an unfair advantage: my dad was a hard-working accountant who knew how to control money without being controlled by money. Not only did he know it, but he lived it and taught us to do the same from a young age. The only way I am able to afford living in one of the world’s most expensive cities with such a big family is not because I have a huge income — it’s because I was taught how to use the income I have.

I wasn’t handed a bank account full of money. My parents encouraged me to get a job and start earning money for myself. When I first started making my own money, it was mowing lawns of the neighbors around us. I got my few hard-earned bucks and Dad sat me down for the money talk. He taught me to put a percentage of my money away in savings, a percentage of my money to go to the church and a percentage I got to spend. Learning this from a young age, my dad set me on a course of staying out of debt, saving for the future and being generous with my money with God and others. And when you’re generous with your money, God is generous with you. With scholarships, hard work and some saving (from me and my parents), I was able to do college debt free.

In this week’s video Is Tokyo Affordable for Large Foreign Families? I talk a bit about how we make it work for us. There are places where we tighten our belt and other places where we splurge a bit. When all is said and done, we make sure we’re spending less than we’re making (even if it means we live in a house much smaller than what we would prefer).

https://youtu.be/iRoZ7vNqfU4

Now that I’ve been counting my calories to lose weight recently, I’ve been amazed by how much it lines up with finances. You have a certain income (daily caloric intake) that if you exceed, you gain weight that slows you down and makes you unhealthy (you go into debt), but if you’re able to closely count your calories that you consume (your expenses) and balance those against additional income (exercise) and that total is less than your income — you’re going to lose weight (get out of debt). Make sense? In both situations, the key is tracking what’s really happening and exercising self-control.

The process of putting a budget in place, or starting to count calories, is not fun at all. In fact the first implementation of it is time intensive and it feels restrictive. A total downer. But once in place and operating correctly, you’ll be surprised to see where your money really goes. And with enough time the results start to speak for themselves: a life much more full and free of weight, debt and unnecessary excess. It frees you to enjoy life on a whole new level.

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LIJ Episode Videos

Immersed in Japan

Moving to any culture outside of your own is a huge adjustment, and the amount you have to adjust only increases as you cross oceans and go from a Western country to an Eastern one (or visa versa). If you already know the language of your new country, it’s a HUGE advantage, but very few people move oversees that way. One of the fastest ways to adjust, although perhaps the most difficult way, is complete cultural immersion.

If you’re single and able to house with a native speaking family (a homestay or exchange program), it is by far the fastest way to learn a new language and culture. Growing up in America, my family often had exchange students living with us for 6 months at a time. It wasn’t easy for those students, since everything they knew was different. Often it wasn’t just their first time outside of their country, it was also their first time outside the home they grew up in! That’s a lot of stress, even if you like that sort of thing! But if you can handle it, it is by far the fastest way to adapt to a new country.

If you’re moving with a family, then the extent to which you can immerse yourself in a culture will be more limited. We opted for enrolling in language school — 3 hours a day of Japanese language and culture taught to us by locals. I did 2 years of this and I am very glad I did. The speed of your adaptation is up to you: being brave and asking for help from strangers and making friends goes a long ways towards learning faster. We have found the Japanese people to be very helpful in this regard.

Our kids are even more immersed — they get to do authentic Japanese school, although without the help of Japanese parents. They are adapting to Japan in such a natural way that it is astounding. We believe this will be a big advantage for them later in life, building bridges between our cultures and being able to feel at home in Japan or America, fluent in Eastern and Western cultures.

For us, we’ve had tremendous support from friends and family back in the States and — I can’t overstate this — from our church family here in Japan. Our Paz Church is an awesome international community and the loving relationships that are developed there have helped us immensely. It has been an anchor for us as we navigate the stresses and ups and downs of adjusting to a new country and culture. There are days that are so exciting. Then there are days when you just feel like moving back to the familiar. You need support in order to stay healthy and flourish.

We don’t want our kids to lose touch of their roots as they grow towards their God-given destinies. Our church family gives a strong foundation and identity for our family to build upon, and it makes our lives here in Japan that much more rich and fulfilling.

https://youtu.be/oA5Hjfp9PhM