I think I need to start an X-File. Tonight, there are four aliens littering my bed and floor. Happily sisterless me … now I’m surrounded by the Barendregt sisters and the Kanno sisters, all squished together in a tiny little room.

When Emeth was little, she thought it was fun to sprinkle salt on slugs and watch them melt. Or watch them smoke up and evaporate using sunlight and a magnifying glass. Then more than a decade ago, Emeth dropped a baby mouse she found in her father’s office off the seventh floor of a building. You think that’s awful? She’s now sharing a bed with a girl who’s stomped on eight baby mice till their guts were squished out all over.

Like all siblings, I’m sure you and your brothers had plenty of squabbles growing up. Now that you’re all young adults, what do you most appreciate and admire about Ben and Berek?

Hmm. Feels weird publishing on the internet why I admire my brothers…. Well, here goes.

Ever since we were little, Ben has always been the conscience for the three of us, the one who stops Berek and me from doing stupid stuff. He goes to where he can do what is needed, and helps the tired and weak. He is always looking out for little ones. When people are upset, stressed out, or angry, he has a quiet, calming effect on them. (I know this firsthand, LOL.)

From the time he was a baby, it was obvious that Berek was the smartest of the three. When he was a year old, he suddenly started talking one morning … in full sentences. I can’t say that he always puts his intellect to the best use. But I respect how hard he studies. When you get to know him apart from his blog, he’s not quite like that. <sigh> Berek writes about being squishy, but in real life, he is exactly faithful to his word.

Both of my brothers volunteer with a lot of work behind the scenes helping out at home and at church, then slip away. They never seek credit, or praise, or attention, but are humble and quiet.

Both of them are thoughtful, and sensitive, noticing other people’s thoughts and feelings. They are good judges of character, generous and kind, but not blind.

Both love music and sing tenor fairly well (I would have said beautifully, but not after hearing Bray Wilkins live). I love hearing them practice singing for their chorus group, whether it’s Bach’s St. Matthew’s Passion, Mendelssohn’s St. Paul, Mozart’s Requiem, Handel’s Messiah, or Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis.

Both are diligent and conscientious and do good work. I don’t know what the future holds, but I hope and pray that I will see them working together for the kingdom of God.

What novel has had the greatest impact on your life?

When I was twelve, my mother bought me a mystery novel, Kiganjo, about a French gentleman robber named Lupin. It was a long series of books, translated from French to Japanese, about a handsome, dashing nobleman, a genius at disguises, who went around solving mysteries, robbing rich bad guys, and helping people.

At the time, I couldn’t read much Japanese (the 100 letters of the alphabet and about 100 kanji). It took me several hours to read the first couple pages, but I was drawn into the story. I read the book for hours and hours every day, looking up every word I couldn’t read, which was about every other word. By the end of the week, I finished reading my first “realâ€?Ebook in Japanese and had fallen completely in love with Lupin. I begged her to buy the next book, read it in about 3 days, and the next, and the next. By the time I finished about 20, I was reading one volume a day, starting in the morning, and finishing it in the evening. (I was able to do this because I didn’t do any formal study for about 4 years, but that’s a different story.)

For a while, my Japanese vocabulary was very unbalanced. I didn’t know how to say the most basic everyday things, but I did know how to describe how a person could be bludgeoned to death in a secret underground passage under ancient castle ruins.

Mama and Papa realized they would be buying a book a day for who knew how long, and we just moved to a new place near a library, so I began an intense relationship with the mystery section at the library. Over the next year and a half, I read at least one mystery a day, and finished reading the entire section (over 400 books), learning about 2500 kanji. I kept going back to my favourite character, Lupin, and ended up reading through the 36-volume series three times. Nancy Drew, Frank and Joe Hardy, Sherlock Holmes, Poirot, Miss Marple, Ellery Queen, Lord Peter Wimsey, and many other characters, I read and loved in Japanese.

Ack. I feel silly that the novel that probably worked the greatest change on my life was a kiddy mystery novel: I learned a whole language.

In the last few years, the novels that have hit hardest and made me think through things the most are by Dostoevski: Crime and Punishment, Brothers Karamazov, The Idiot, The Possessed … but they haven’t changed made any drastic life changes.

God has been very gracious in giving me a new job today. Starting next week, I will be a personal secretary to the president of an accounting firm in downtown Tokyo. My work will consist of answering phone calls from overseas, translating Japanese/English e-mails, simultaneous interpreting when foreign clients visit, and … <drum roll> … teaching the president how to speak English. At this point, he speaks none whatsoever. It’s my job to make sure that by the end of February, when there’s some huge conference for an international accounting network, he can speak basic English and hold conversations there. I have no idea how things will turn out in the short time I’ll be there, but it’ll be very challenging and very interesting, if nothing else.

One of the best things about this job is that it’s daily, but it’s not full-time, which means I can continue teaching most of the students I have now.

All this has happened in an incredibly timely manner. I didn’t even look for or apply for the job. It sorta fell into my lap by “accident.” God has provided and worked things so well, down to the smallest details (which I won’t bore you with), it is amazing.