So the final family that I had the amazing opportunity to stay with was the Yamamura Family. This family consists of a Mom and a Dad and two little boys Sinichi and Ryuki. Rebekah and I had such a blast with this family. We were once again greeted by loads of gifts and were blessed with so much love and hospitality through the next week.
Kuri is the mom and the rock of this family. She has such a strong desire to serve people and make them feel special that she is constantly encouraging all the people around her. She went above and beyond to serve us, help us, love us and strove to give us an authentic Japanese experience. We did everything from participate in a traditional Japanese tea ceremony, to going on a boat tour in Kobe, to exploring a ninja village and getting to pretend to be ninjas! Her english is great and she is an awesome cook. Kuri was always so willing to help us and show us as much of Japan as we could.
Takashi is an awesome dad and though he did not speak a ton of English, he tried his best to communicate as much as he could and always desired to spoil us and show us around Japan as much as he could. The Yamamura family has lived in Ashiya for the last 250 years and Takashi is continuing on the family business. He spends as much time with his family as he possible can, always eating breakfast and dinner with his family and desiring to show Rebekah and I an experience of a lifetime. We were so blessed by his hospitality and support, it was amazing.
Takashi and Kuri have two children, Ryuki (pronouced Luki) age 7 and Shinichi, age 9. These two boys are quite rambunctious and love to have fun. They are always finding some way to play, some way to have fun whether if it is playing in cardboard boxes, running around, watching anime or pretending to be ninjas. They were always exploring Rebekah's and my room, wanting to play with us and just loving be around us all the time.
Another unique part about this homestay was that we got to live in a home with Ryuki and Shinichi's grandparents. The Yamamura family lived on the third floor of the house and our grandparents lived on the second floor. Our Japanese grandparents were super sweet. They hosted a traditional Japanese tea ceremony for us as well as taking us on a tour of their hometown. It was really special that we were able to get to know the whole family. This family showed us a variety of different Japanese cultural experiences such as visiting a ninja village, taking us to multiple traditional Japanese meals, visiting a Japanese public bath house Please pray that The Lord blesses this family and begins to make himself more and more evident.
