父が最後に入院した中頭病院の窓からの景色

見よ。わたしは新しいことをする。

今、もうそれが起ころうとしている。

あなたがたは、それを知らないのか。

確かに、わたしは荒野に道を、

荒地に川を設ける。


郡山市のせせらぎの道から

わたしが荒野に水をわき出させ、

荒地に川を流し、

わたしの民、

わたしの選んだ者に飲ませるからだ。


イザヤ４３章１９節～２０節

Faces at the Funeral

Nobby Tajima speaking at funeral in May

"So how are you?" I said as he got out of the car at the parking lot; "I worried about you." All I did was begin to ask a simple question, and I realized my voice was breaking.

Nobby Tajima, my beloved pastor at the church in Koriyama where we had been for 20 years, had had a heart attack last month (he has had 2 strokes also!) But earlier this week, he was in Iwatsuki and gave the board chairman's greeting at the Bible School opening service.

Pastor Tajima, also the Baptist Mid-Missions Japan Field chairman, came down to speak at Daddy's funeral, and my present pastor, Joe Mita, also came down to give the closing prayer. I suppose it gave me a scare; at that funeral was Daddy's closest missionary-pastor friend in Okinawa who passed away a month later. When I heard about Nobby Tajima's heart attack, my entire being was already in the mode of "not again?!"

Joyce singing at funeral

But I suppose it is not necessarily just the men up on the frontline of battle God sees as important. There are others He needs as much in His forces. Matt Starin, pastor of Gushikawa Baptist Church, prayed and gave freely of his church people that we could have the most God-honoring funeral for Daddy as possible (he and his entire missionary family, I might add). And you'll have to excuse me for being unorthodox. You're not supposed to speak highly of own family members. But I think God needs soldiers who pray, work, give of themselves, heedless of own emotional, mental, physical needs that others could smile and sing, and I saw that in my sister Joyce. A recent Bible School graduate led funeral service proceedings. Near the end of the funeral, a present pastor gave a testimony, someone we saw growing up in one of my Dad's first churches--the one the villagers erected themselves--who has been a pastor now for decades. Dad introduced him to lemonade as a teenager, later to Christ.


Pastor Ishikawa: "It was lemonade!"

   Pastor Starin was the special speaker for our
   September 5th Bible School's opening service,
   introduced by pastor Joe Mita, listened to by
   aspiring BibleSchool students. Anyone can
   serve God, he attested.  God calls the lowliest,
   as it tell us in I Cor. 1:26-28. Maybe God wants
   followers of Jesus to be people that others want
   to be around, even simple people that introduce
   others to lemonade.