They weren't in any hurry to go home

Fri 6PM! Time to head down to Joyce's apartment...hey, there was no sign on that 2F door across the alley when Janice and I looked yesterday; what does it say now? Ohhh. It's a "juku", where those pitiful students have to study their heads off for the intense school entrance examination competition (You've heard, haven't you, how the suicide rate in Japan is highest among junior high students during high school entrance testing season?)

But we weren't going to juku. We didn't have to worry about any of that stress; we were just going to pig out and enjoy ourselves. The expression "pig out" was chosen rather intentionally, as the main dish Kinya was preparing was "tonjiru", a pork, or pig stew. An hour before we ate, Kinya became Master Chef and taught Janice how to make it, giving her handwritten list so she would have reference when she was by herself in the U.S.

The tonjiru was good. I didn't realize how good--until Janice commented she would never get tonjiru in the U.S. I'd forgotten how blessed I am, since Kinya makes it for us about once a week. Father, I'm so sorry I haven't been more grateful.

After the meal, Janice gave the menfolk some gifts (Kariyushi shirts, like Okinawan Aloha shirts), and we played some games around the table. Most people hear the word "game" and imagine the monitor with electronic images moving across the screen, but we still have loads of fun with Pit (the "Peek" version) or Phase 10 too. Actually, no one was bored; we would've played much longer, except we knew Joyce still had preparations for tomorrow's women's Bible Study, so we cut it short, and the fellas went home while the 3 J's ran through the special music a few times before I ran back upstairs too.

The Kariyushi shirts? I forgot to take a picture. Sorry!

THURSDAY

Janice and I went for a walk nearby. "The past few days," she said, "I haven't had pictures taken of the people I've been with, because my cameraman's been gone." I was about to say, "really? That's too bad," when I realized she was talking about ME. I always took lots of pictures. But fever had kept me in bed the past few days.

It had been only Sun, Mon, Tues, Wed. Hmm. I looked up. Those foot-long things on the tree looked like green beans, pea pods--what were they? I guess God knew! As much as He knew what he was doing when keeping me bedridden during cousins' and friends' visits.

The wind picked up, the temperature dropped, and Jannie didn't want my fever coming back, so we decided to head back. On the way home, I looked through the fence and saw a bright lime green sprout pushing its way up through the rocky soil. A few seconds later it seemed a yellow-red bunch of hibiscus blooms whispered to me it wasn't just pushing through obstacles but being drawn by delicious, strong sunlight.

When we got home a few minutes later, we walked around back where there were steps to the building nextdoor, took a peek, saw it was empty and wondered if God might use it for ministry someday. Joycie came back after teaching her piano lesson, and we practiced for the special music we'll be doing for Sunday. I can't post pictures of us practicing. We were being pretty silly--I think we'd be able to give a better offering to the church if we recorded some of our practice sessions on TikTok and asked for donations!

P.S. (Sorry Janice; these old photos are the only ones I could find I took of you with Kazue or Toshie who came Mon and Tues, and you saw the ones of Masako and Chieko from '70. Kishimoto-san's pic with Joycie was posted Dec 3. I have one of you and her son Kei, but not of you and Kishimoto-san!)

こころからさんび

久しぶりに日本語でブログさせていただきます。日本語の聖歌についてなので。

今朝、「ああ十字架、ああ十字架」と、口荒みながら目覚めました。この歌、どこから来たのかな（なんで自分、考えていたのかな）と、思っていました。「カルバリやまの十字架につきて・・・イエスはとうときちしおをながし・・・」と歌詞が次々とうかんできました。なんで？「すくいのみちをひらきたまえり・・・カルバリの十字架わがためなり。」

あ！わかった！郡山BCの手話コーラスだったのです。ギザギザ山道の「カルバリ」・・・聾唖者信者による十字架の縦・横についての説明・・・少しづつあの練習の日々を思い出しました。

自分のように、独唱は、できないけれど、なんとか賛美したい、自分を愛しあがなってくれて、心を喜びで満たしてくれた神様を褒めたたえたい者たちが集まり、声でなく、手で特別賛美した。天から見ている神様は受け取ってくれたにちがいない。

ホラ、自分が手話を間違っても神様は「いい子」と、喜んでくれるの。

TURNKEY

A charming song in Joyce's master's voice recital was of a doll that wound down and couldn't go on singing without a little help from the accompanist, who turned an invisible key on her back. I think that's how I felt the past 2 days--wound down with fever--and needed to stay in bed while my key was turned.

Isn't it good God "slumbers not nor sleeps", never has to have HIS key turned?

WINTER IN OKINAWA

Jannie, these are some photos taken of wildlife Oct,-Dec. in front of the Tengan house. 

Wildflowers, Great Blue Heron

It's too hot in Okinawan summers for most of them to come out, but they're plentiful in the cooler months. 

Butterfly, Morehouse Hen

Maybe you could make a calendar, mug, or picture book titled, "Winters--Only In Okinawa" or something like that.

Dragonfly, Spider Hibiscus

Yeah. While there are people elsewhere in the world grumbling about the "Winter of our Discontent", there are others of us VERY CONTENTED with the Winter Wonderland our Heavenly Father gives us!

Banana plant, Calliandra

It's really not the changing seasons, the conditions themselves, that are important, but where we are in relation to the ONE in charge of those seasons, isn't it?

Blossoms near home...don't know names yet

I guess we need to keep our eyes on that.

Egret, Blue Rock Thrush

 

I was going to say God bless you Jannie, as you return to the other side of the globe and to the changes He has for you there...but you still have over a week in Okinawa, don't you? Yes! Silly me.

FEVER

I try to refrain from doing several posts in one day, but this needed to be posted today, so...

This is a picture of what my Bible looked like in 2015. I get carried away when I start writing--that is usually the way I talk with my heavenly Father--in my journal. I pretty much lose track of time. So last night, I chose and laid out clothes for today. As soon as I got up, I washed and changed first, telling myself I could then take all the time I wanted in my time with the Lord; when it was time to leave for church, I'd be mostly ready.

And...surprise, surprise: one of the things Joyce was giving away was a burgundy wrap-around Bible almost identical to the one I had used 10 years ago! But when I went to have my time with the Lord...1. I felt strangely chilled. 2. I just couldn't concentrate on the words, and my head hurt. Hey...could it be possible...? Oh-oh. When I checked, I had a fever of 100.4 degrees Farenheit. WAIT! God, weren't Masako and Chieko coming over this afternoon for dinner?

The decision was made for me to stay home from morning church activities (I watched online), see if I felt better by the afternoon. And even if I didn't feel well enough by the meal, I would be living in Okinawa so could see my cousins later; Janice would be leaving for the U.S. next week, so they needed to meet with her today. Could I enlist your prayers that I be feeling better by tomorrow, when Kazue comes? (She's the cousin whose mother gave us the land for this house.)

LAP BLANKET'S SECOND USE

I'm sitting on top of the bed, using the lap blanket under the laptop like a little desk! Hm; I used to think "laptop" meant the computer was made to sit on my legs, but it looks like it fits better on my lap blanket! I remember flinging myself down on the bed when I was little; sometimes to rest when exhausted after a good run, at other times to have a good cry with my stuffed bear Jolly Olly.

Oh--here are pics of my sisters on their beds too: Janice with her friend Cuddly as well as Joyce perhaps dreaming about the time she'd win the island-wide spelling bee. Okay, she didn't win; she placed.

But there's another memory from growing-up days: Uncle Seiko's family. For a long time, only the mother, who was freed from her demon oppressors, was saved. I didn't know when I was little that one day my stepmother would lead my uncle too to the Lord. I thought my cousin Chieko was pretty, her brother Moriyasu was good-looking, and Masako was like a kids' TV animation main character to me. I liked them--none have made professions of faith--but by this photo, it looks like I'm up to no good. Please pray; Chieko and Masako will be coming over for a meal Sunday afternoon.

Grampa and Gramma were visiting from Canada when this picture was taken, I guess, and Mommy must've taken the picture; she's not in it. I don't know who the littlest girl in the center of the picture is or the man at the very right might be

LAP BLANKET

Community Baptist Church of Croswell, Michigan. That name sticks in my mind, not because it has an exceptional missions program but because I've seen its name so much on a cloth label on a quilt on the bed. I don't remember how many years I've seen it--and the supporters who gathered to make and send it to their missionaries overseas may be with my parents in Glory now.   

Anyway, it's getting chilly at night, even in Okinawa--did you know we turn on the air conditioning some days in Dec. and Jan.--so I felt it was time to get out the quilts again...but...when I looked carefully, the blanket no longer looks, of course, the way it was years ago but is torn here and there.

No problem; I would just cover it with another quilt when I made it in the morning, I decided. But when I spread the Croswell quilt over it, I realized it had been given to us at approximately the same time too and has a huge bald spot. Would pillows cover it? No; they come right down to it, but...THE LAP BLANKET! I sometimes rolled it up and had it handy nearby. It was handy, all right: to pretend it had been lightly folded and placed there on the bed for using, when in reality, it was mostly to cover up that bald spot!

I guess we never know when or what we'll be needed for; we're just to be faithful even if we're just lap blankets, not fancy quilts. 

KEEP ON ANYWAY

"Ooh, much better." Janice said, after Kinya and Keima removed the plywood wall my Dad had erected in the apartment downstairs. The wall had been put up for 108-year-old Grandma Tomari to help her steady herself as she moved back and forth between bedroom and kitchen, but it wasn't necessary after she moved out to the hospital/nursing home. In fact, having the wall there merely made the opening narrower so harder to move from one room to another.

Kinya and Keima stayed at home while Joyce was out teaching piano, and a friend came to pick up Janice and me to see her farm. (Yes, the friend who found and adopted the stray kitties and is looking for owners.) While showing us her fields of papaya trees, cucumber plants, and passion fruit plant (also called water lemon), she told us an interesting story:

The men in the fields around are helpful, she said, seeing she is a girl and knowing she left her job in the U.S. to take care of her father's land when his health failed. But there had been a plot of land on which she had been able to grow several mango trees successfully. A kind farmhand of the plot next to hers offered to cut the unruly grass of the area and unknowingly cut down all the mango growths at the same time! She didn't have the heart to tell him, of course, that's what he'd done.

I suppose scaffolding can temporarily support but if left there can be a bit suffocating. And you can think you're getting rid of irritation but do away with potential for growth and fruit. God tells us to just keep on keeping on anyway.

That farmer's doggy came by while we were talking around the banana trees. Maybe he knew what we were saying. and apologized, "My master wanted to be kind, really." We know, sweetie.