GREW UP THERE

I really couldn't tell if I'd posted this picture or not, but since I couldn't find it anywhere, I thought I'd chance posting it. Apologies if it's a repeat.

Recently, I've been in touch with Noriko Sensei (teacher), the person who sent that monetary gift to Okinawa. I got excited about the newspaper article series she'd written, and she responded for me to send her my drawings/writings. She had time now to see them all, she said. So, I began with sketches and snatches of life and short paragraphs, then I went onto longer works of several pages, all dealing with myself, family, or Okinawa: all topics of interest to Noriko Sensei.

I didn't realize there were so many things I remembered about Okinawa until I started gathering them to send Noriko Sensei. More importantly, I didn't realize, until I was in the middle of doing this, how much I'd loved the island I grew up on..or dear servants of God I knew like Noriko Sensei when I was growing up there.

KANGAROO SLEDDING

Go, go, go! My daughter sent videos of her two-year-old on a pink sled sliding down an artificial grass hill. At the bottom, he lifts his finger up in the air.: one more time! Again? Doesn't it make him a tiny bit squeamish? No; not with Mommy or Daddy sitting behind him and holding the rope. In fact, they're so big, they're all around the little feller who fits plop in their tummy like a kangaroo's pocket.

Maybe I should call Yusei "Joey" from now on--that' what they call baby kangaroos.

TURTLE TALK

It was a warm afternoon, and my shelled friends had come swimming out to welcome me back from Okinawa. But when I mentioned temperatures were dropping tomorrow and it would probably be too cold to come see them, he stopped paddling and peered up at me.

"But you're coming back when it's warmer, right?" it seemed the turtle asked.

"Of course. Then you know nothing could keep me away."

He seemed satisfied and flipped around, swam happily home, but I sensed something akin to "See? I told you so." What?

Later on, when looking at the photos I'd taken, I saw several red dots in the water--the patches those turtles have on their heads--so...that last remark was probably addressed to them!

NEWS FROM THE HERON

When I returned to Iwatsuki, I didn't go back to the park right away...gimme a break...IT WAS SNOWING! So I assumed God wanted me to stay home and draw all those pictures about my time down in Okinawa, until it got warm enough for me to go see my critter friends again.

Yesterday, warm or no, I HAD to go out. I needed to go to the doctor's. Last weekend, I'd asked Kinya to go pick up my medicine for me--the clinic said they'd give it to him--but he couldn't take the blood test in my place; I had to go now and take that myself. What a relief tho'; it got up to 22 degrees Celcius (72 Farenheit) by the afternoon! Thank You, Lord! It was so warm, in fact, on the way back, I asked Kinya to come with me, and we both went to the park.

What fun to see the carp, mallards, crows, turtles, herons...but as I was zooming in on Little Blue Boy (a Great Blue Heron), it seemed he craned his long neck to the south side of the park.

Yes, I'd seen that level piece of ground covered by loose soil, but what...I sucked in my breath...oh! The Old Storytelling Tree (July 6 post) was no longer there!

It had stood there and seen so many things, but it wasn't there anymore, was it? I was glad then, I'd drawn it last year when I felt the urge to do so.

No, he doesn't have two heads; I just didn't know how to draw him.

He probably felt something else...

Maybe it was to avoid getting seasick.

That thought never crossed my mind until this year. When my sisters and I took the ferry to the island of Izena, our cousin told us the ocean crossing can get rather choppy at times. She advised us to go up to the open room with carpeting and lie down there and sleep for the hour ride. You can completely avoid any discomfort that way, she said. And it was so true.

The story about Jonah being asleep in the ship...I wondered if he'd decided to catch a nap when his ship hoisted anchor and tried to avoid seasickness that way? Nah--he was probably feeling something else in the pit of his stomach.

Strange prophet, running from the God He knew so well and daring Him to prove Himself True!

SATISFACTORILY

This last time in Okinawa, my younger sister Janice and I remarked how Joyce spent all her time looking to others' needs and didn't have time to keep up her own place. It was complicated with both parents' Homegoing (they lived on the 2nd floor; Joyce lived in the F1 apartment).

We decided to spend as much time as we could this year working on clearing out, organizing the home.

We spent hours working; didn't have to think about adhering to a stringent schedule; threw together snacks and meals we understood--and let ourselves enjoy breaks and video goodies through the day.

At the end of this visit, the upstairs looked satisfactorily cleared out; Joyce's apartment looked satisfactorily cleaned; and we three realized we were now donning sixty-year-old bodies. We were tired, but satisfactorily happy, until, hopefully, God lets us come back again for the next clean-up session.

A TILE FOR THE ISLE

Remember "She Won", my Jan. 23 post? Well, I caught sight of a wooden tile with Okinawan art she made with John 8:12 (n the Okinawan main island dialect) on the back. I wanted it so bad (to be completely honest, I didn't really understand what she'd done. She mentioned something about burning the calligraphy into the wood, but I'm not familiar with that medium at all). I wished our stay in Okinawa was longer than the few weeks we'd scheduled so I could have time to really see what she did but knew we'd have to go back right away. The week before we were to return, she GAVE it to me!

That day, my cousin Rumiko's late husband's younger sister, Kuniko, was visiting, who could read and pronounce the dialect the way it is sounded among the islanders. Music has been put into the dialect but not yet the entire Bible, she said. Yet we can see God's life has worked such that those who've found Him, have not had to walk in darkness any longer!

SPOT, Masaki, Sachie

Two of my friends yesterday were Masaki and Sachie Nakamatsu, siblings we met as children. Spot, their stuffed animal, remembers. Sachie fixed his torn tail. Lucky little feller; not every worn-out doll has such a kind owner.

Masaki and Sachie were both saved--their father passed away last year, but not before he too found Christ. I couldn't believe I was talking to a grown man in his 40's, when I said to Masaki, "You've got to be the spiritual pillar in the house now, you know. God is able to give you the strength you need."

Japanese society, hostile towards Christianity, makes it improbable to have Christian friends, difficult to maintain a good testimony. Would you pray for those like Masaki and Sachie?

(Spot's not really this big; he was just drawn from a close-up photograph!)

FIRE DANCE

"Look! FIRE DANCE!" My friends laughed at me, shook their heads incredulously. "No, really!"

But I saw flames whirling in the air above the heads of the tourists at the Nakijin castle site on the 26th. But...the Tahitian Fire Dance is usually done by a somber, muscle-clad Polynesian, not by a witty, fully-clothed street performer like the one we saw. I think new equipment and safer methods were supposed to make it a better act, but somehow, the burning-batons juggling act didn't have the same awe as "Duel of Death".

Maybe that's what's been done with awe due saints who've given their lives battling the gates of hell. Some imps come along and belittle them, claim the enlightened, relevant way is to play with fire in moderation!

SHE COULDN'T HELP HERSELF

Okay, this one's out of order. But I had to write about her. I just phoned her and thanked her for the special blessing of reading what she'd written...oh; I got ahead of myself again. Let me backtrack...

A person we grew up knowing as "Noriko Sensei", one of the workers my Mom referred to as our "Bible women,", now lives up in northern Japan, but when she heard all three of us were back in Okinawa. She contacted my cousin Rumiko, telling her she would send a financial gift instead of coming down herself; could Rumiko please take the three girls out to a specific favorite restaurant?

"Guess where we're going? And you can get anything on the menu!" We went Jan. 15, and we noticed an automated waiter was used here too. It seems most of the eating establishments have them now.

Miss Ishikawa (then; Mrs. Yoshida now) participated in ground-breaking of our first quonset-hut church in the 1950's--I found photographs of Noriko Sensei and fellow missionary Edna Prinsell scooping up shovelfuls of dirt.

Just before going back to Saitama, I found a short documentary booklet by Noriko Sensei. There are 10 chapters, and I am only on the 5th one, but already I am bubbling over with excitement seeing how she wrote about experiences to show how God brought her to Himself and then to talk about various understandings of simple truths. She wasn't just recording accurate data but conveying life...life that made her pick up the pen and write. She couldn't stop herself.

Rather like the person who couldn't help herself from making a long-distance call from Kumamoto Prefecture and asking if several missionary daughters from her past could be treated to a meal.

"Secret things belong to the Lord"

The time in Okinawa, I wasn't the only one that felt unwell. A touch of stomach flu kept Janice, the sister who'd come from the U.S, from going to the ladies' meeting on Jan. 20. Joyce had asked us to give our testimonies, but it looked like it would be just me.

Right after we got to church, we received a phone call saying one of the cars had a collision on the way there. Nobody was hurt, but there was no way to make the meeting on time. It looked like it would be just three ladies, Joyce, and me. Can I share the testimony I gave that afternoon?

God taught me once from Deut. 29:29, starting, "The secret things belong to the Lord our God". We're not to try to figure out what we don't know, but to leave it with Him.

I was in training in the U.S. to be a missionary, when thyroid illness struck; but when I was sent back to Okinawa for rest and treatment, the hospital there wasn't fully equipped so took months to do what could've been done in 45 mins. at a modern hospital. I argued with God then, "What're you doing?!"

It was after I returned to college I learned my mother had been in Stage IV cancer, and God had touched my body to get me all the way across the Pacific to Okinawa then practically forced me to spend those last few months with her--by making sure the hospital wasn't equipped to let me get away any sooner!

Sometimes we don't know why God does what He does: why He sends flu bugs, or uncomfortable waits after accidents either. But they're His secrets, aren't they?

HOW BEAUTIFUL...

One morning in Okinawa, I woke up on the living room sofa bed looking up at the ceiling (this was probably one of the nights after we invited the "ukulele choir" girls over to spend the night). There was the main light, of course, and the ceiling fan--an absolute necessity for the hot and humid weather of the islands. I could see Daddy's handmade aluminum reflector shades for his mounted pictures...

Wait...I'd passed over those two embroidered pictures in the entrance last year. Mommy had spent hours on them. One was of The Good Shepherd, the other was of Jesus in Gethsemane. She'd complained that besides lines showing borders; individuals more or less picked what colors they thought went in best where. She wished they'd been more specific for novices like herself.

Growing up, I remember thinking my family thought studies in school and even musical abilities ought to be trained, but I didn't think art would be given much time or thought. But I've gotta say, our house was decorated with simpler embroidered works of bunny, kitty, doggie, swan we girls had embroidered. Value was taken in prettying up the home.

Even Daddy. Among all those photos were his color-by-number paintings of the swans and herons (the light reflection makes it hard to see). Altho' I always thought Daddy was of a practical nature, I look at the time he spent on the picture museum--and wonder about the art-loving side that may've been lying dormant under his everyday responsibilities.

When Daddy was getting around to decorating the kitchen area, he'd called me long-distance asking if I could find, with floral background, Romans 10:15 in Japanese. I couldn't. So he made it himself. I found it up on kitchen cabinet panels the next time I visited. "How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel..."

We loved the song Takashi sang

Rumiko had been feeling a burden to go back to the place of her birth. My sister Joyce surprised her one day by asking, "We're near Yagaji; can you take us there and show us the area you grew up in?"

She was thrilled to see her kindergarten teacher and was able to talk at length to the person now living in the home she grew up in. After seeing her old schools, looking for graves and playmates, it was well past mealtime. We stopped at an inviting building wondering if we might pick up something to eat, found it wasn't a cafe but were delighted to learn they were Christians who had moved there!

We had Rumiko come to do special music with us that Sunday--it was a song Takashi sang once after his personal testimony. "How much do you love me?" a little boy asks Jesus. "This much," Jesus stretches out his arms on the Cross. The song ends, "I'm so sorry Jesus, but thank you so much."

FIRST....Just a yellow fruit...

Okay. I wondered how I would talk about all that happened, but this is what I think God has shown me to do, so here we go. I'm not going to talk about it, just go--so come on!

What a blessed week God gave us that first week with Rumiko. I told you about drawing a picture of the Gramma who'd memorized Takashi's tract's back page and gotten saved. The second person who had her picture drawn gave us a gift of rice produced commercially on the island. Before we left, another islander gave us a yellow fruit from one of its branches. Rumiko told us it tasted like sweet potato, so we tried it with broccoli and cheese when it ripened, and I rather liked it! I wonder what it's called?

That fruit was given to us by one of the elderly folk we met for their 100-year-olds' calisthenics. Hey, I'm only in my 60's, and I think it was something I needed. No wonder these people stay in good shape and live long!

SHE'D MEMORIZED THE PRAYER

In yesterday's post, I mentioned we went to our cousin's in Izena. She told us quite often of her husband's work reaching children.

Pictured here, just after explaining Jesus took our punishment on the Cross, one of the boys responded, "Meccha Kansha!"(Awesome Grateful)

Takashi wrote and printed little Gospel tracts in clear, plain language, that they would be able to understand. On the very back was the prayer to repent of sin and believe and trust Jesus to save.

Rumiko took time on the Izena beach to talk with the Lord. On one of the days we went with her, she told us an interesting story. 

Takashi gave these out to all he met. One day however, Rumiko and Takashi were talking with an elderly woman about the Lord; and altho' it usually takes much time for older folks to accept Christ, she seemed ripe for salvation.

When it came time to make the decision for salvation, Takashi began to help her, but the grandmother began praying by herself...Takashi realized they were words he had composed for his tract.

She had found and read the tract over and over and so thoroughly learned it, she knew the words on the back page by heart and hadn't been able to wait to pray them!

Seeds had been sown intended for young hearts, but God had watered and brought about fruit in this 100-year-old's! What a God we serve. Let's just keep planting for His harvest.

THE FIRST THING WE DID

Was, of course, pray. But my sisters and I make it a point of doing that for months before making any trip to Okinawa, to ask God to prepare the way, so it was a matter of course it was the first "thing" we did when we got together to start our month together too. But when it came to thinking about where we were going that first week, well, we decided to visit our cousin Rumiko, now living alone on the nearby island of Izena. Here are some pics from that first Monday.

Little under hour's ferry ride

Rental car to Rumiko's

Takashi rebuilt a hut nextdoor

Where a few believers met before

Cross is still kept in the back

Let's pray to put it up again!

Rumiko and Takashi had been living in a house on Izena island and doing children's evangelism for years when he was healthy. The handful of young Christians, without male leadership, have disbanded. She is now striving to maintain a Christian testimony with the small island's people, praying for workers--maybe one of the children they led to Christ will come back--and pick up what her husband started. Would you pray with us?

VIEW FROM KUNIKO'S, JAN. 30

Here's the drawing. Kuniko is one of the girls in the ukulele choir mentioned in a previous post. She's my age, and somehow we really get along. When she came up to mainland Japan a few times, we spent the night, and this time in Okinawa, she invited me over to her apartment.

I went last week, and this was the view from her 5th floor window. She said some friends tell her to get a lower more accessible floor, but she likes the quiet away from the noisy earth, plus the view is unbeatable.

Her son was a professional artist in his 20's, so that made me nervous at first, but I realized she wouldn't be comparing us...right, Kuniko? (Incidentally, Kuniko loves the Lord dearly and is a constant encouragement in my walk with Him.)

Just Photos from Last Month...

Have you tried hanging onto the plane as it lifted off for its trip? Well, hang on--this post's going to give you a whirlwind overview of our trip.

My sister Janice & I left for Okinawa on Jan. 6...we were with my cousin Rumiko on the island Izena Jan. 8-12...we left by ferry on the 13th to go to her homeplace and she shared with others who had moved into her old home...God arranged meetings with relatives and girls we grew up in Sunday School and ukulele choir, twice with a person whose relative used to be married to one of our relatives--that's a long story, dinner with a special couple in the church, fellowship with my parents' co-workers, so much more.

Oh--I worked several hours today to get one more picture drawn about something special during my stay this past month, but I won't be able to post it just yet...because I can't use the camera.

Remember the post about the church ping pong outreach? The camera memory card was left down in Okinawa when it was asked the photos I took for that--thus, the memory card--be used. A replacement card can be bought quickly, but until then, drawing, photographing, and uploading will have to be put on hold. God knew about this ahead of time.

THAT'S KAZUE ON THE LEFT

God is never in a hurry, but I am. Especially because I realized something really happy.

I looked back at the first time I drew a picture of Mitsue, a grandmother I met at Izena and asked prayer for her...the very next week, my cousin Rumiko was given a wide open witnessing opportunity with her! It thrilled her so much, she called to tell me about it. 

Then, I was looking back at old posts and saw one asking prayer for another unsaved cousin Kazue. God arranged meals and really good times talking with her TWICE during the month!

I've GOTTA draw those pictures and let viewers of the blog see how God is answering prayer, I thot!

I am so behind with my drawing this time. As I said, God is never in a hurry, but I am. For this post tho', you'll just have to settle for a camera selfie--no drawings just yet, ok? But they're coming--promise!

IT'S OVER...ALREADY?!

THANK YOU so much for your prayers! God did so much.

What can I say; I thought a month in Okinawa would be a long time, but before I knew it, it was over. Today's pic, I said to myself would be a conglomeration of images from the last few weeks...then I changed my mind and said it was actually only the last week...then I realized it was only 3 days!

On one day, we went for a drive to see Okinawan cherry blossoms and a historic castle site with some middle-aged folk who we'd known as children. The next day, we'd spent time with several sisters we grew up with, and had tons of fun reliving ukulele choir numbers as well as eating at a merry-go-round-like sushi place afterwards. And there was the "Mile-High Pie"...but that steering wheel...that's Pastor Ishikawa's arm; and he didn't drive us to "Sam's by the Sea" for that dessert--the Garners did--but took us to fellowship with my parents' co-worker. The little boy in center front is the nephew of the people, now in their 40's whom we knew as the Nakamatsu kids. The little boy's mother is the one behind him--of course, she wasn't even born either when we got to know his Uncle and Aunt!!