How Things Are

It's been a difficult school year. I love serving as Director of School Support Services (SSS) at Christian Academy in Japan. I've just been too busy. After pushing myself for several months I ended up getting sick and pretty much missed a week of life. Thankfully our daughter was home in Japan and took care of both Russ and me. What a wonderful provision!

I'm slowly catching up with things and today the plum blossoms were glorious! Truly there are so many things to thank God for since I last wrote in October. Here are just a few...

• Granddaughter Aravis born in Maine on November 25, 2012 (I got to go help out for ten days over my Christmas Break from school. She's a dear!!)
• My 88-year-old father was able to stay with us for 7 weeks
• I hosted 16 homeschool teenagers for a week in January (great kids; great week!)
• My sister Lorelei and sister-in-law Jeannie came for a visit from the US and spoke at the Ladies Retreat I led in early February
• Our annual Arts & Skills Day on Feb. 16 was a huge success with close to 100 students attending various classes
• It's been great to have our daughter home with us for 5 1/2 months while she finishes up online classes towards a masters degree in Deaf education
• The routine cycle of responsibilities are all going well
• God has sent me assistants to help me finish out the school year (We restructured SSS and it just took more out of me than I expected.)
• We anticipated a serious shortfall in financial support when our largest supporting church was not able to continue supporting us, but God is providing so that we can keep on keeping on

Tomorrow we'll be remembering the second anniversary of the triple disaster (earthquakes, tsunami, and radiation fallout) that rocked Japan on March 11, 2011. Those of us in Japan will never forget where we were and what it felt like to live through that experience. Our lives here in Tokyo are somewhat back to normal, but everything has changed for thousands of people in the Tohoku area still in temporary shelters, still mourning the loss of family, friends, homes, and livelihoods, and still feeling anxious. Please pray with us that many will find hope in Jesus.

Do the Next Right Thing

We are delighted to still be serving here in Japan after all these years. There are times It's really exciting–when people are baptized or share what God is doing in their lives. Other times we just do the next right thing. Mission work is not like a business where a person can judge how a business is prospering by looking at a balance sheet. Even counting people who have committed themselves to Christ doesn't give the whole picture. So much of what we do is about listening to the Holy Spirit's prompting and doing or saying that thing.

I'm reminded of Zech. 4:6 (NIRV).
"Your strength will not get my temple rebuilt. Your power will not do it either. Only the power of my Spirit will do it," says the LORD who rules over all.

I'm learning more about depending on God's leading. Last night I got a call from a stranger. Ordinarily I would just hang up on an inappropriate caller, but for some reason God led me to keep talking to him. When I asked if he wanted to talk to my husband, he nervously hung up on me. I really couldn't understand everything he was saying, but it occurred to me that maybe God prompted him to call us so that I could pray for him. What if no one else is praying for him?

I can't see the whole picture of our lives or influence, but I know this–God wants me to do the next right thing.

Because my life is very full with school responsibilities, caring for my husband's needs,  and other ministry needs, I don't often go out with friends. But recently the "next right thing" to do was to go out to tea with friends from church. We had a delightful time at Rose Town Tea Garden. I was introduced to Angel Falls Mist tea and discovered that I love it.

Seaweed Sandbag Project

Three Eleven. What do those numbers mean to you? For those of us here in Japan, we immediately remember where we were when the big earthquake hit on March 11, 2011. Our church continues to help with the recovery effort. This weekend there's a group up north who went to prepare a meal for those still in temporary housing. Last weekend we made sandbags. I enjoyed helping prepare these sandbags for seaweed farmers who lost their total livelihood when their wakame plants were washed out to sea.

Wakame, an edible sea plant, plays an important part in the Japanese diet. While admittedly the slime factor bothers me just a tad, the nutritional value is hard to argue with. It's low in saturated fat, is very low in cholesterol, and is a good source of vitamins A, C, E, K, and other helpful nutrients. Japanese use it in many ways, particularly in miso soup and in salads.

Wakame is grown on lines in the ocean. These lines need to be weighted down with sandbags to keep them from floating away. Each farmer needs about 500 sandbags. Our church took up the challenge to help. We sewed the sandbags and decorated them with encouraging messages. I'm not very handy with a sewing machine, but we had good machines and a sandbag doesn't require any complicated stitching, so I made a few. However, most of the time I was on the decorating team. I enjoy writing Japanese and doing anything that even remotely resembles working on a scrapbook page. Thinking that it will help a farmer get on his feet again made the afternoon all that much more rewarding.

Working together with this diverse group of men, women, and children was great fun. Our group hailed from Japan, Hong Kong, Ukraine, Australia, Kenya, and the US. What do we have in common? We love Jesus and the Japanese. I didn't do much, but I was glad for the teeny part I could play in this project.