A MISSIONS IDEA

A past post begins with the label "Community Baptist Church" on a family quilt. 

Actually, there were a lot of quilts sent us growing up, but the church label I remember is one I actually saw as an adult, I realized. A supporting church's missionary circle, deciding to make Joyce their quilting project, had written her and asked what colors she liked, so it had been no accident she had been able to cover her bed with her favorite hues of purple, pink, and teal.

The time Joyce was here in Okinawa caring for her elderly parents, that lavender covering kept her warm in the downstairs apartment. Actually, I don't remember how many years I saw that blanket. TOO many years, I used to think. But today, she told me how personal a gift it was. Crowell Community had made that patchwork bedspread just for her! That was a special, special quilt. I rather wish everyone who worked on it could've heard Joyce.

Several things happened in my mind then:

1. Perhaps Joyce's reluctance to discard old gifts springs from an appreciation and regard  for, an unconscious desire to honor, the giver. It made me smile.

2. Are missions ideas attractions to put before the church about foreign work, or are missions ideas meant to encourage everyone to support each other in love to follow Jesus' command to go into all the world?

Do these ideas make God smile?

STRINGED SPECIAL

I knew my sister would try all sorts of things, but I never expected her to be able to do this. 

When it was time for the special music, I saw my sister step into the aisle with what looked like the samisen, the traditional Okinawan three-stringed banjo-like musical instrument (made of polished ebony, body covered in snakeskin). It sounded nothing like a guitar or banjo however; I could only describe its twangy sound as fitting the distinctly Okinawan island tunes. I mean, I can even pick out the sound of the rounder Okinawan samisen from the sound of the more boxy mainland Japanese samisen (covered in catgut). 

But the number being introduced was a hymn. What in the world? I decided to sit back and just watch...listen. And Joyce had managed to transfer all the music from regular sheet music to samisen (they have different "music" too) to be able to play it on that instrument as well! For verses 3-5, the entire congregation joined in, and everybody sang.

I wish my parents could see how God is using my sister's musical gifts, her love for the Okinawans, and then their response of His Love for them! God makes each and every one of us unique and then does with us things, sometimes unthinkable, to glorify Himself. Hallelujah!

What a sweet little surprise!

BOOKS & BLOGS

"What do you do indoors then, when you can't go out in the summer heat because of your medicine?" I was once asked. I've done a lot of reading, especially because I've seen a lot of books on my parents' bookshelves.

Illustration: Graham Wade

One such book, by Paul White, Jungle Doctor's Fables, was written by a missionary to Africa, copyrighted in 1955 and translated into Japanese in 1958, and it had found its way onto my mother's bookshelf in 1972. I'm just reading it this year, in 2025!

One of its first stories told of a monkey trap, altho' that monkey was caught with peanuts, not with a banana, like in the picture posted. He thought he'd found something really good and wouldn't release his grip even when his friend the giraffe warned him to do so; he wouldn't be fooled by the giraffe!

Peanuts and bananas are better than worms that fish seem to prefer, don't you think? I've always preferred sherbet to ice cream, jello to pudding, fruit punch to milkshake. What makes YOU happy? Yummies? Comforts? Friends and Popularity? Success? Promotion? Work? Attractiveness? 

The apostle Paul talked about the one thing that appealed to him and for which he would give his entire life. I wrote about it on another blog. If you wouldn't mind reading boring posts that don't have pictures, you might look at https://graceexceeding.blogspot.com (the post Captive to One Thing is Aug. 11,'25).

RIPPLE EFFECT

"Go ye therefore, and teach all nations," the Lord had said, "baptizing them."   (Matt. 28:19)

But we see Jesus turned Everything around, Pastor Nishino showed us. After all, it didn't stop with individuals being set free from sin and giving testimony of it through baptism. They were the ones going out and spreading the message of life to others who in turn were baptizing others!

His mother was one of the first members baptized at Gushikawa Baptist Church. Medical professionals had told her she would never be able to have a child.

Her son, now its pastor, was baptizing believers into its membership.

One of them, who just graduated from Bible School this year, is getting married in the fall and leaving for Bangladesh where the Lord called her as a missionary--no doubt they will be baptizing others there who find new life in Christ.

Have you ever seen tsunami waves? Most don't have to be the big, scary ones you see in movies. They can be small but just keep coming, coming, coming; tsunami strength is in their relentless force. We need to be like that. Not like big spotlights, but just sending steady beams, beams, beams of hope into the dark.

Lord, let us ripple with energy, even little ripples.

FUNCTIONING UNDERWATER

"Will I have to hold my breath a long time underwater, perhaps be willing to die to show my dedication to God?" a new convert and baptismal candidate once expressed. Some Christians who have grown up seeing baptisms forget how strange the concept of ceremonial immersion can be.

Baptisms are occasions believers can invite unsaved to come see them--Sunday was another such occasion. Here are a few photos I witnessed online. (That's Joyce on the piano to the left.) You can see Shoko was beaming. 

Altho' it was the pastor and his wife who were teaching her from the Bible when she found the Lord, it was Jaime who spent the most time with her, and he'll be stationed in mainland Japan at the end of the year, so we're really praying. Jaime helped adjust things on the platform for the baptism.

After her baptism, Shoko gave testimony of how she had found meaning and life in Christ. Then a family who recently visited Gushikawa Baptist Church requesting membership each came up and gave their testimonies too.

I almost forgot to mention this. More and more Okinawan families are becoming cross-cultural. Joyce interpreted the English for the father and son while the mother spoke in her native Japanese. People can usually understand a family member's language without being fluid enough to orate in it.

If human creatures can endure short lifetimes to somehow function in foreign languages and cultures, surely the Creator of humans (Jesus is Creator; without Him was not anything made that was made) is able to let go, during his short early lifetime, of His Divinity (language and culture?) and function according to human time and reason.

...to be continued...

A LYING SPIRIT FROM GOD

Um...I'm going to just go ahead and post something without illustrations and post pictures later, because when I tried posting pictures, I started to change what I'd written, then everything got all funny....

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"Does God ever Lie?" A Sunday School pupil asked. It says in Num. 23:16, "God is not a man, that he should lie," so he doesn't do the same thing as man does, saying untruths to put himself forward or to hide sin or bend righteousness, BUT the Bible does tell us God actually sent a lying spirit, in 2 Chron. 18, the teacher said.

Another teacher said there were many facets to giving truth. He asked us to imagine we were civilians during a war in which a guerilla warrior neighbor came running into our yard, injured, with a desperate look and ran between the bushes to the right. A few moments later, when enemy soldiers with guns came looking for him, without hesitation, you'd probably motion to the left, LYING INSTANTLY, UNASHAMEDLY. And it would seem so right, wouldn't it? To do otherwise, in this case, would seem so wrong.

That was only one instance.

The instance from 2 Chron. cited by the Sunday School teacher frightens me. Those were men who prided themselves as prophets of God who had been sent a lying spirit. How long had they disregarded God's voice, before Yahweh decided He would no longer bless them with his visitation? Why does this frighten me, you ask? Because I wonder if I will ever let that happen to me.

I have seen many a ministerial student on fire for God who, decades later as pastor, has gradually had his heart numbed by busyness here, procrastination there, cutting corners and not having time to listen to the little man. He has countless times ignored the whispers of the Spirit. He looks and sounds very different now, probably like the person he never wanted to be. But perhaps a lying spirit from God tells him to remember the humble person he "really" is on the inside; this deceives him into thinking this is his present condition; he sees no need of repentance.

God, You know I started out sincerely wanting You to use my love for music, art, writing, words. I so want Your Love to engulf all my life and shine through it. Yet, I know that I get so engrossed, carried away with it--and there's nothing wrong with that in itself, but then it gets in the way of everything I wanted to do for You; and I see all the good that took so much time to build crumbles so quickly.

And it takes up so much time and energy, and I don't find myself really enjoying it in comparison to what You gave me--I never ONCE feel anything close to the "wings sprouting on my back"--and there are a handful of times I even feel heartbroken with disappointment; I've told my sisters about this. I think this is the best Art Group I am going to find in my life, and they really are a great group...my heavenly Father wanted me to see----what they have to offer.  But my going back again and again...makes me wonder if God doesn't get close to sending me a lying spirit too.

God Knew What'd Make Me Smile

A thick envelope? I still remember the time I was a young mother and feeling down about something--it was the day of snail mail--and I saw something in the post box from my Dad.

He'd sent two photos: one was of me as a little girl on a co-worker's motorcycle...I hadn't thought of that for decades! I mean, I was a mother of two children now, the oldest a little younger than that girl on the Honda.

The other was of himself on a Harley. Daddy was in his eighties by then, and that bike wasn't his, of course, but belonged to a person whose home he was visiting in the U.S. I found myself looking at those pictures and grinning in spite of myself.

Daddy took one of my sisters by the hand and took her back and forth across the street to show her how to cross it the first time...

He showed another sister his old report card so she wouldn't feel bad about her grades.

I used to think Daddy was non-expressive, that Mommy was the warm and caring one; but when I think about all this, I realize Daddy just showed his love for his family differently.

I remember one time hearing Daddy pray God would make him a good Christian father...was he sitting at his desk when he muttered that? I can't remember.

I can't remember either, what it was I was depressed about when those photos came. I just remember they made me smile. 

Thank you Lord, for sending me a Daddy who'd make me smile. You knew he'd do that, didn't You?

We sketch; GOD has the Big Picture

Some want to see my drawing of Mommy as an elephant.  You've got to get the whole story. She asked me to draw an elephant, which I did. THEN she informed me she wanted to write a prayer letter about making typhoon preparations alone and feeling like an elephant when she had to climb the ladder to nail down the shutters (Mommy added that part of the drawing)...and I realized I'd been asked to draw HER!

Here's, not a sketch I drew, but a photo taken when I had my schooling in the U.S. interrupted for health issues and had to come back to Okinawa. My parents made regular clinic visits with me, and Mommy got me on an exercise regimen to get me stabelized.  We didn't know cancer was growing inside her body this whole time, and she met her Savior several months later.

What we saw as only a typhoon may've been God's way of getting mother-daughter to work together; what I thought was illness to get a baby elephant into a mud puddle in the Pacific may've been God's way of getting a mommy elephant and her calf together for their last few months. 

This? A recent 10-min. drawing, NOT of  Mommy, but sketched from a live elephant photo!

ANTICIPATION

I didn't know why people wanted to be stalked when they were wanting viewers to "follow" them; I liked hashbrowns, but what were "hashtags"; and was "hardcopy" something sold in stores with pipes and extension cords? I make no secret of how computer illiterate I am. But earlier in the week, I enjoyed another of God's gleanings from technology.

Baby Boomers will remember the greeting card jingle: "the next best thing to being there." My sisters and I were together last year, but since then, we've met an hour a month online, talking about everything sisters talk about and praying at the end. I tell ya, 60 mins. goes by super fast. But with all that God does for us, so does the month in between those meetings.

One Day, we'll be meeting together and having more than 60 mins. to share about what siblings share about and to praise Him. And with everything He's done for us, I'm sure it'll seem like His coming will have been ever so soon. Even so come quickly, Lord Jesus.

DOORKNOCKERS, RINGS, & FROGS

Yesterday, I saw a video of Tom Sawyer.It had been a while since I'd read the story. I forgot he gave his shiny doorknocker to Becky Thatcher as symbol of engagement. We all smile knowingly, but whoever decided it had to be diamond rings? Can't it be one of those "broken medallions" where both partners keep the partial fragments, and the centerpiece is whole only when the two are united? I always liked those heart-shaped lockets.

A very long time ago, in Okinawa, it seemed to have been custom to tattoo married women's fingers black, so you looked down at women's hands to see if she had, not a wedding band, but a tattoo! Nowadays, a tattoo symbolizes a free spirit, but back then it meant you were owned. 

But Grandma Urata, I noticed, was young enough to wear a wedding band. With the ringed hand she poured kerosene on the dead idol she had found freedom from before lighting it aflame. Altho' as head priestess she had set up ancestor worship spots all over the island, she wanted to show homage to her new Love, the One True God and did so with this idol-burning ceremony in front of the family tomb.

"If the Son therefore will make you free, you will be free indeed." (John 8:36)

Some people say it is not in the gift but in the feeling behind the gift. I think it is, as they say, case-by-case. Yes, Becky was special to Tom, and yes, he wanted to give her his most precious possession, but I think I would've done the same thing Becky did: she RAN when Tom put on her hand his bullfrog!

NIGHT LIGHT

 "When God seems to be blowing out your candle and making your room all dark," I once heard, "it could be He wants you to throw open the shutters because He has some secret light from Heaven for you to see."

Would you pray with me for my sister Janice's daughter-in-law Shannon who'll be having cancer surgery at 11 AM tomorrow?

She has 3 little ones at home--the youngest was born last year, just before my Stateside trip--and I'm sure that family's "room" is pretty dark right now.

But they've given testimony before the church of their trust in God in all of this. We are waiting to see how He'll work through the whole situation.

When I was in Iwatsuki, I remember taking a picture of what looked like plain ol' beetles in the daylight. It was only when it got dark and I saw another "plain ol' beetle" spread his wings then...glow from the tail I realized it was a firefly! But the delightful charm of the insect didn't show itself until the darkness came!

I wonder if the Lord is letting the darkness descend on Shannon and her family right now? Please pray the Heaven's light would shine delightfully brightly through them too!