Missionaries Japan Josh and Alicia Crowe Konnichiwa!
We have started language school!
We have the great privilege of attending the OMF (Overseas Mission Fellowship) Japanese Language Center here in Sapporo for the next two years. We will spend that time growing in our language abilities through practice and conversations. It's going to be challenging, but we're up for it.
The Japanese language contains three "alphabets." The first two are characters that represent syllables like "ka", "ki", and "ku." One of these "alphabets" is used for native Japanese words and the other is used for words that come from other languages such as "pan" (Japanese for bread.) The third "alphabet" is Kanji, the complex characters that each have several meanings. There are around 46 characters in each of the first two "alphabets" and over 50,000 in the last one. Luckily, we don't have to learn all the Kanji! Please pray for us as we begin this endeavor. It will be good to communicate more in Japanese; especially the message of hope in Christ.