Category Archives: Events
Guam Crippled by Super Typhoon Mawar
Reading Time: 4 minutes On Wednesday May 24, around noon local time, Typhoon Mawar hit Guam and gradually increased in strength uprooting trees and destroying dwellings that were not designed to withstand high winds! Electric power was cut. By 10 PM the force of the wind was at its peak. It continued throughout the night and finally subsided mid Thursday. The Pacific island of Guam USA has been my home for the past 5 … Continue reading →
Request for Prayer for My Wife’s Recovery and for Support
Reading Time: 2 minutes Tess and James Arendt On April 20th, 2023, my beloved wife Tess got an operation on her knee to remove a torn menicus. Her knee is in severe pain from time to time. In order for her to have this operation, she had to take off from work at Macy’s department store. At Macy’s she was required to stand constantly and to walk a lot caring for the customers, something … Continue reading →
Sharing Christ with a Convicted Criminal on Death Row
Reading Time: 2 minutes Patrick and Norah Pakai The testimony in this article is from my Facebook friend, Patrick Pakai, a pastor in Zimbabwe, one of the poorest nations in Africa since the evil Robert Mukabe took the farms away from the white farmers and destroyed the economy through greed and corruption. I was so impressed with how Patrick talked to this prisoner I had to share it! Today I was asked to speak … Continue reading →
Poison in Paradise — Attacked by a Drunken Man with a Baseball Bat!
Reading Time: 4 minutes On June 20th, 2019, just after I took my father-in-law to his home in Piga Subdivision from the Dededo Senior Citizen’s Center on the island of Guam, after turning right onto the main road of Chalan Koda, I saw a car ahead that was stopped about 50 meters from the intersection. I drove around the car on its left and then saw a man standing in the middle of the … Continue reading →
Engaged to be Married!
Reading Time: < 1 minute My fiancee from the Philippines, Teresita AKA Tess! August 6, 2022 update Tess and I have been together for 4 years and 3 months. God has blessed us tremendously, and we are happier than ever, praise the Lord! Original post March 14, 2018 was a most auspicious day of my life! I asked a dear sister in Christ for her hand in marriage, and she said YES!!! The photo above … Continue reading →
Misogi – a Shinto Purification Ritual of Standing Under a Waterfall in Winter
Reading Time: < 1 minute On January 13, 2011, I attended a traditional local ceremony at Shiratama waterfall in Niigata Prefecture. I’ve been to this waterfall several times in the summer to escape the heat, but this is the first time to see it in the snowy mid winter, and the very first time to see people stand under it! It’s actually a religious ceremony called misogi. Misogi (禊) is a Japanese mountain ascetic practice … Continue reading →
Japanese musical instruments: The Koto and the Shakuhachi
Reading Time: < 1 minute Mr. Murata playing his handmade shakuhachi On June 22, 2012, Mr. and Mrs. Murata picked me up from Nikaho, Akita Prefecture, and invited me to drink tea with them in their home in Akita city. Mr. Murata’s hobby is making and playing a musical instrument made from bamboo which is called Shakuhachi. Mrs. Murata plays the Koto, a stringed instrument. I was honored to be their guest and hear them … Continue reading →
Government and banking institutions’ mistrust of aid collectors since the East Japan Earthquake
Reading Time: 3 minutes A couple days after the massive magnitude 9 earthquake in the Pacific 70 kilometres (43 mi) east of the Oshika Peninsula of Northeast Japan which caused a massive tsumami destroying the northeast coast of the Tohoku region, I was asked to make a website http://helpjapan2011.net for the purpose of raising aid to buy goods and materials for volunteers to take to the survivors of the disaster. At the time, NPO … Continue reading →
Visit to friends in Sendai
Reading Time: 4 minutes On March 26, Charles Begley and I drove to the city of Sendai to bring supplies to a small Christian community of 6 adults and 7 children. It was a 4 hour drive along the Banetsu and Tohoku expressways and was through Fukushima prefecture. As you see from the map, the Tohoku expressway is about 58 kilometers or 36 miles from the two troubled nuclear power-plants in Fukushima. Charles’ van … Continue reading →
Bringing supplies to friends in Sendai
Reading Time: < 1 minute Tomorrow, Saturday March 26th, Charles Begley, the director of Begley Productions and I will travel to the city of Sendai, the largest city in northeast Japan that was affected by the earthquake, to bring supplies to a large family of 4 adults and 7 children. They are sitting in a cold house wearing their winter coats for lack of kerosene for heating. So far we have acquired, 4 containers of … Continue reading →
Message from an acquaintance of the people who are fighting the radiation leak in the crippled nuclear power plant in Fukushima
Reading Time: 2 minutes I received the following email from a friend about the situation of the nuclear power-plant in Fukushima. Dear everyone, I have an urgent request for prayer. Right now there are people who are giving their all to save our country, its people, and you and your family at the risk of their lives at Fukushima atomic power plant. Please pray for the success of their work. The Soldiers of Special … Continue reading →
Joined an NPO project to help the Sendai Earthquake Victims
Reading Time: < 1 minute The Tohoku or Northeast area of Japan is about the size of Lake Michigan. The earthquake moved this massive amount of land 2.4 m (8 ft) east into the Pacific! That’s what caused the tsunami that killed 19,759 people. It was an auspicious time for me to come to Osaka after the earthquake. I was contacted by a friend, Josh DeSantis, the chairman of Hiyaku28 NPO, to come to Kobe … Continue reading →
The Situation of my Family and Friends after the Tohoku Earthquake
Reading Time: < 1 minute I’ve been calling all my friends, especially the ones that live close to the earthquake epicenter near Sendai, Japan. Nobody I know was hurt during the earthquake in the slightest. Everybody in Northern Japan experienced the shocks of the quake, but nobody was close enough to the coast to be affected by the tsunami. My family in Niigata reports that they all went outside during the earthquake, but then went … Continue reading →
Shook up while in Tokyo by Massive Earthquake
Reading Time: 2 minutes The pointer on the left points to where I lived in Niigata City, and the pointer on the left is where the Fukushima nuclear reactors are that were damaged by the earthquake and tsunami. March 11, 2011: At 2:46 PM local Japan time I was sitting in a MacDonald’s in Sangenjaya, only two train stops from Shibuya, a major commercial center of Tokyo. An earthquake began shaking the building. There … Continue reading →
Explanation of Al Qaeda from a young man from Pakistan
Reading Time: < 1 minute “Al Qaeda” is a name given by the West to anyone in Pakistan they don’t like. It’s like a person in Japan “Yakuza” or somebody in America, “Mafia.”
Continue reading →Meeting Joe and Maria in Chiba
Reading Time: < 1 minute On September 5th when visiting the city of Noda in Chiba prefecture, my old friends Joe and Maria came to visit. I was so glad to see them again, especially Maria, for she used to take care of my children when they where young. I haven’t seen her in nearly 10 years.
Continue reading →100 Kilometer Cycling Adventure
Reading Time: 2 minutes Mt. Yahiko and Mt. Kakuda from a distance of 20 kilometers. I enjoy taking long bicycle trips from time to time. I thought it would be a good day’s challenge to circle two famous mountains of Niigata, Mt. Kakuda and Mt. Yahiko, and return home before nightfall. Mt. Kakuda and Mt. Yahiko are not famous for their height. Mt. Yahiko is only 600 some meters high. They are famous for … Continue reading →
New Home Member
Reading Time: < 1 minute Princess with her toy I took an overnight bus from Tokyo to Aomori City and met up with Judy who gave me her Shih Tsu dog, Princess.
Continue reading →Picked up by two Nichiren ladies
Reading Time: 2 minutes November 29, 2009: While hitchhiking to town I noticed a lady walking toward me from a distance with what appeared to be her car parked by the side of the road behind her. I correctly assumed she was going to offer me a ride. She had another lady friend with her who was the driver. They seemed a bit overly impressed to meet me which caused me to become suspicious. … Continue reading →