MORE NOTES COMING HOME

On the way back from the doctor's, where we turn onto the road at the top of the hill, there's a bunch of banana trees. I'd asked Kinya if he wanted any banana, but he grinned and shook his head. I noticed the only one on the red-purple banana flower who was interested was a bee!

Along that river were a kawasemi (Japanese kingfisher), sandpiper, beetle, butterfly...but I knew most living things would disappear from Okinawa's heat and humidity until the fall. I took pictures of as much as I could--even if I wasn't getting good shots--just knowing I wouldn't be seeing my friends for very much longer this year.

I saw a family of turtles, remembering how, in mainland Japan, I wanted to spend as much time with them as possible before hibernation because I wouldn't see them during the winter months; would it be backwards now, did it never get that cold in Okinawa that they had to hibernate?

I mean, it never snows; the ponds never freeze over; and some people don't even own overcoats. I remember growing up as a little girl in Okinawa there used to be shops that rented overcoats--honest! I'd forgotten what the climates here were like and have to remember again.  

One thing I remembered fast I told Kinya about were the Okinawan outdoors afternoons, and how you had to keep moving if you sweat a lot, or the mosquitos ate you up.

Why I gotta make do what I make do

In the doctor's waiting room yesterday, I read a chapter from a book about a person trying to encourage a person with tuberculosis. She'd felt like giving up, but seeing the dried flowers gave her just the bit of extra energy she needed to keep going, she said. When this information came to light, of course more pressed flowers were made and sent whenever possible from then on!

On the way home, I wondered if I was seeing things--could that be a clump of pearlescent pink, orange, and purple dried flowers in the creek? But as I strained my eyes and looked more carefully, I realized it was the natural iridescence of the Japanese pigeon!

   

Altho' he wasn't thinking "TB", I saw a Eurasian coot (white-shield and partial-webbed bird) closer to the middle of the stream caring for its friend. After all, it stood guard while the friend preened.

We needed to say goodbye to the birdies and go home. I saw the rose-red hibiscus by the roadside but knew it was much too large to make anything with. (I have seen keyrings or bookmarks made with single hibiscus flower petals, however.) Maybe someday somebody will want me to make something like that for them too...

ときには小人

てんかんの発作のときは、自分の舌をかんでしまったけれど、ペコちゃん人形のときは、舌をわざと出しているのよね。

大謝名に住んでいたころ、父はクリスマス・イルミネーションの代わりに、この3つの人形で、家の周りに綺麗に飾ってくれた。明るい赤・青・黄色だったし、ペコちゃんの普段着でなく、小人のコスチュームを着ていたので、クリスマス・デコレーションに適していたと思う。

あのペコちゃん人形は、体がジッパーになって、売られたときは、中にキャンデーが一杯詰まっていていた。だけど、その後も数年間、我が家のクリスマスを明るくし続けてくれた。ペコちゃんは小人じゃないかもしれない。でも、ときには自分が慣れないようなことでも、誰かの祝福のために用いられればいいじゃない。

あれ？思ったんだけど、この写真、夏。クリスマスじゃない。あの人形がいるって、おかしいんじゃない？

HE'LL TAKE CARE OF IT ALL

Ow! I woke up feeling...wasn't my tongue all sore and my head splitting? Yup, I'd had an epileptic seizure in the middle of the night, and when I looked in the mirror, there were ragged bite marks around the edge of my tongue. Did God know about this?

"Yes, I know about this," I almost heard. And he reminded me of the two young ladies who had accompanied me on the first half of my U.S. trip last year. 

One of them, the newlywed (in black) I just blogged about, named Aino, is gifted to play the piano by ear. You can remember her name by saying, "You-know-I-know!" She got married right after getting back to Okinawa.

Her friend Saya (pronounced like the end of Messiah,) finishes Bible School in the summer, and will be marrying and leaving for Bangladesh as a missionary in the fall!

Even a God Mighty enough to rule and regulate the heavens knows my name. And the smallest things that mean nothing to most people--but things I really need--make a difference to God. Would you pray with me that jewels like Aino and Saya will start out their marriages thrilled with what a kind Savior we have.

虫の知らせ

数年前、具志川バプテスト教会の青年たちと交わっていたとき、埼玉県にある岩槻市の公園の昆虫を眺めているときに思ったことを少し分かち合いました： 

人間の心理学・経済・教育・政治・哲学・宗教などを、本能で機能する昆虫に、理解してもらおうと、だれも思わない。かえって、そんなことを期待する方がおかしいし、いくらあたまのいい虫でも、人のことは知ろうとしても、これは絶対無理だと、だれもわかる。だけど、被造物同士に「絶対無理」だと断言することなのに、どうして無限の創造主の神は理解して納得しないと信じないという人間がいるのかな。

神様がすべてのことを定めいるが、人間にすべてのことを祈れと言う。神様は悪と苦しみを憎んでいるが、その罪を犯し、他の人を苦しめる人を愛していると言う。神様は天国を準備したみたいだが、恐ろしい地獄も作った（これが最も嫌われている教え）と言う。～ん、この神様、信じられるか、わからない。

ちょっとまった。昆虫が、本能を理解する限られた能力で人間界を分析し、私たちの存在価値を認めるようなものだよね。

人間界のことを認める・認めないの問題でなく、ハチは蜜をあつめて・飛び回って・成長していけばいい。私たちも全知全能の神様を理解しようとしたり評価したりするのではなく、目の前の自分の罪を悔い改め、聖書に従い変えられ、天に着く日まで愛の手をしっかり握っていけばいい。

「主はあなたに告げられた。人よ。何がよいことなのか。主は何をあなたに求めておられるのか。それは、ただ講義をおこない、誠実を愛し、へりくだってあなたの神とともに歩むことではないか。」　（ミカ書６：８）

CAN'T TOUCH BOTTOM

For the May 4th worship service special music, newlywed Ayano Kina played "Wonderful Grace of Jesus" on the piano. The Japanese lyrics exclaim in the chorus, "Its width and depth are measureless!" 

Most Christians, if you ask if they believe God the Father loved Jesus the Son, they would have no problem answering something like, "Of course!" 

But if you were to follow that up with another question: does Jesus love Christians--you-- with the same love, most would hesitate: "Impossible." 

But Jesus said: "As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you."

We forget: humans don't "love" objects unworthy of it; but true Love depends on the character of the one doing the loving--God will never run out of love for us!

I remember hearing once in a sermon that one of the hardest things for a Christian to believe is just how much God loves him. It'll probably take him a lifetime, the preacher said, so Ephe. 3:18-19 describes knowing the breadth, length, depth, and height of the love of Christ as knowing something that surpasses knowledge, as being way over our heads.

I think the ocean of God's Love is the only place I wouldn't mind drowning.

MATURE, LIKE JONAH?

Some people think that if you're just a young Christian, you can be excused for falling to temptation, but if you've been saved a while--say you're a missionary or a pastor--you probably got this sanctification thing down pat, right? And you set an example for all the Christians around?

Like Jonah? I mean, he was a mature believer and had so much scripture memorized, he could recite it when he was in the belly of a fish!

But even after the great revival of Nineveh, the Bible shows the veteran missionary Jonah had a pity-party! The sun was beating down on his head, but God made a gourd nearby grow a vine to make leafy shade for Jonah. But all it took was a hungry little worm to get Jonah suicidal--really! Read it--Jonah 4:8.

Do you think pastors and missionaries never have problems like battling depression? Think again. Until we get to Glory, every regenerate child of God will be groaning, along with the rest of nature, awaiting the time all things will be made right.

I mean, the other day, I was feeling down about having to wash my hair. Most people would NEVER imagine people who've walked with God for 60 years struggle with things like that!

KAZUE KAME!

I told you about how most of my parents' relatives rejected the Gospel, but how our house stands on property loaned my Dad by a cousin, Yoshiko Kawasaki. Her daughter Kazue, the rightful property owner, is only a few years older than my sisters and I are and lives about 3 mins.' walk away.

Kazue, Yoshiko, Kiyo

For Easter Sunday this year, Kazue agreed to come to church! Relatives from Canada were coming to Okinawa, and she wanted to meet them. Among those relatives was our cousin Paula, the daughter of my Dad's younger brother George. George had, with my Dad, spent two of his childhood years with Kazue's parents' family in the very spot where our house is now standing. It meant a lot for Paula to see where her Dad had lived. 

Kazue, Paula, Joyce

Perhaps One Day we'll all be able to live in Eternal Dwellings by a Silver River and reminisce about the time we spoke of a little house in Tengan by the Uken River. Will you pray it will be so?

LOOK AT ME

"Look at ME!" Cain had been confident his top agricultural skill would earn him acknowledge-ment from the judge of Heaven. 

But wait...God did not even look at his blue-ribbon altar produce;  He smiled on Abel's bloody sacrifice: a limp corpse instead?

"But he wasn't even trying!" Cain must've thought.

No, he probably wasn't. Abel was too busy looking at God and grateful for what God did, to think about himself. Abel's mind was filled with how God rescued us from our miserable state with the shed blood of His only Son--and how we could commemorate that with a sacrifice lamb. Hm; Abel probably didn't think about making the yucky offering more attractive or of trying to make himself better.

Me? Sigh;  I guess too often I'm like Cain and want God to look at what a prayerful person I am; what a loving person I am; what a hard-working person I am; what an honest person I...you get the idea. I try to make myself into a person God will feel lucky to have believing in Him--as Elizabeth Elliot once said: I am so ridiculous!

Father; help me, like Abel, to get so taken up thinking about all You've done for me I forget about myself.