I don't have to wait a few more weeks to post this, do I? I'm really not boasting, just thanking God. Something inside me says this has to be said.
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| Koriyama, March 2011 |
For the past few days, a childhood friend has been visiting and I found myself telling her about various blessings I've received from God through the choice servants placed around me...I really couldn't talk about the Mitas before, because I was in their church, and it would sound like I was bragging about my own pastor and his wife. But I think I can do so freely now--because I am officially not a member of the Bethel Baptist Church so I can boldly say the following:
Joe and Noney Mita. Special Servants God has put into my life. My friend told me to be careful. She said if I think of people too highly, if I put them up on pedestals and think of them as heroes, God tends to knock them off the platforms we place them on because He wants to make certain we keep HIM and only HIM in the place of preeminence that He deserves.
But had it not been for Joe and Noney Mita, our family might not have gotten out of Koriyama when we did, after that frightful earthquake of 2011. All trains, and various means of public transportation had been stopped; roads and rails had been torn up; everyone was in a panic and frantic to get out of the city; and those that remember--there was no gasoline even if you did want to move. My memory is pretty hazy, but as soon as something started moving, Noney Mita acted quickly to procure seats on a long-distance bus for us. We found ourselves on a bus--my husband, myself, and my son were all in separate rows--because the seats were taken so fast, we couldn't get three seats together. The bus traveled on back roads, bouncing up and down all the way to Shinjuku. Then we caught local denshas, I think, to get back to Iwatsuki, where Joe and Noney waited for us.
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| Keima's Koriyama Junior High, 2011 |
Up in Koriyama, Keima had given up hopes of continuing higher education. He had just finished junior high when that quake came. But Noney spotted a notice on a bulletin board that some Iwatsuki high schools were accepting earthquake victim students and asked if they might take my son. Because of this, Keima was able to get his high school diploma (to say nothing of the fact the school had the course of study in the very area of his interest)! To top it all off, when we left Koriyama, we had left behind all formal clothing, so we had nothing to wear to various ceremonies. Joe Mita loaned my husband his suit so he could attend the high school graduation. There is no handbook on earth that requires pastors to do this for their church members' family members. But he did this. I couldn't talk about this while he was my pastor, but he isn't my pastor right now, so I'm not bragging about my pastor...or my pastor's wife either, because she can't be my pastor's wife if he's not my pastor...!
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| Koriyama Apartment, 2011 |
Joe and Noney Mita spent
countless hours and
money working tirelessly
to help us in the sale of our
Koriyama apartment.
Then, after it sold for an
astronomical amount, they
Spent even more hours
and money working on
contracting land fees.
Both involved legalities,
interaction with real estate
agencies, rent, tax. The
Mitas, for the past five
years, never for a fraction
of a second hesitated to give Japanese help for official papers, legal work, school procedures, medical things. I needed a spiritual male role model for my son, and Joe Mita offered to have friendly meals and Bible Studies with Keima.
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| Noney and Joe Mita at park fellowship, 2011 |
Joe Mita was always a model to us of a person who, when he would sense something that he felt needed to be done, he didn't waste needless time thinking about it--he DID it. There were times I would see that and want to cry wanting God to make me someone like that.
Noney Mita amazed Emi and me the way she seemed to be so naturally organized, yet she seemed to be a treasure chest of ideas too--how can one person be a scattergram and an outline at the same time? Yet that's what Noney seemed to do naturally.
I told my friend Joe and Noney Mita were the type of people that lived so zealously for God they probably wouldn't give it second thought if soldiers came rushing into the church and aimed machine guns at church people demanding that they give up their faith or else--the Mitas would probably throw themselves in front of those machine guns and give their lives for God.
It makes me think of:
"For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord; whether we live therefore, or die,we are the Lord's." (Rom. 14:8)
There was a time I could claim the Mitas as my pastor and pastor's wife. For that time, I could say:
"And we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labour among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you; And to esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake. And be at peace among yourselves." (I Thess. 5:12-13)
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Wherever You would lead in future service Lord, thank You for past protection and example through Special Servants like Joe and Noney Mita. Please reward the Bethel ministry with abundant doses of your loving mercies.
