FISH EGGS

When Rumiko first expressed a burden to meet with our cousin on Dad's side, I wasn't sure of what to do.

It was really hot, I wasn't doing very well, and I said to myself, I couldn't ask Kazue if we could make an appointment to see her and then--knowing me and my medical condition--be the very one who might have to cancel if temperatures got too high that day. 

I'd hand-delivered a note to Kazue's home (I wanted to see if I could walk to her house in the heat) telling her about how Rumiko wanted to meet her but it might be my fault she wouldn't get to do so, etc.) She phoned saying we could meet again when it got cooler, not to worry about it this time around. BUT Rumiko decided she'd just go over by herself.

We prayed, and God had Kazue come home from at the right time, and they had a good talk--for 2 hours? Thank you so much for praying.

And the Bible Conference and Bible School graduation Joyce went to, I was able to see online. Someone I noticed viewing proceedings via ZOOM was Kaoru Kurokawa, who had been in Bible School the same time as my husband Kinya.

Kaoru introduced me to Ikura, or Japanese Caviar. Pastor Ishikawa remembers how Daddy introduced him to lemonade. We remember the strangest things, yes? We just need to be faithful in the smallest, seemingly insignificant ways. Then maybe someday God will ask us to speak to a distant relative about important eternal matters, answering questions and talking for 2 hours.

For now, we just need to give out fish eggs...I mean, we need to be faithful.

THEY CAME

Artists are told when they hit artist's block to do easy stuff or just scribble until something comes to you and you find yourself wanting to create. For part of our Christmas activities, my sister had craft activities that 5-year-olds were supposed to be able to do. But as I told you, the snowman I began working on...well, I took it home, and partly a result of watching an online "Painting Marathon", I felt an itch to do more painting and found myself adding to that sno dome.

Several minutes later, God brought a few people I really love to the Tengan home. My cousin Rumiko, who suddenly lost her husband then continued their work in Izena herself, came with Kuniko, the younger sister of her deceased husband. Rumiko, Takashi, his Kuniko, her sisters, and my sisters all grew up in Sunday School together, but of course we had no idea way back then we'd all be relatives one day! But God knew.

Kuniko had an engagement in mainland Japan she needed to go to, but Rumiko stayed to spend the night with us, and the next day, she came to Gushikawa Baptist Church with us. She was one of the grass roots church people with us (when she was still single, even before she went to Bible School!), one of the very few people alive today who know my first mom Kimiko. Looking at my photographs, I realized God had brought together my sister Janice across the Pacific Ocean, seasoned saints the Scot Garners, the young Christian couple, the Masahiro Kinas (newlyweds of a few weeks)!

In the afternoon, we drove Rumiko home. On the way, we saw a wall with an illustration of the Okinawan style bullfighting in which bulls lock horns (there is no human bullfighter) and PUSH each other. The match is a show of brute force. Isn't it a good thing the Potentate of the Universe didn't come to earth to dare any of us to lock horns with Him?

He came...for a very different reason, didn't He.

ANGEL FROM YAGAJI BEACH

I couldn't not post this. Remember my cousin Rumiko, who: came out to see the MK's last year ? I realized I posted about her at least 7 times...and guess what? She's come back into my life again! She's the one we visited for a week earlier this year in Izena.

Oh--I got distracted--Rumiko is in mainland Okinawa for a while, and she offered to help my sister clean and get the house ready for my family! For Joyce, who hadn't been feeling well plus had to direct wedding music as soon as she returned from furlough, Rumiko was an angel in disguise.

I am one of Rumiko's biggest fans when it comes to soulwinning. She always finds a soft way to give out the Gospel. When we were in Yagaji, she was asking directions--like Jesus, she asked for help, tho' not for a cup of cold water, and you can see she thanked her with clearly written directions for an eternal destination. Of course, we talked more about this; she didn't just stick a tract in her hand (I don't like tracts because a lot of Christians do this) and assume her "Christian duty" was done!

So thank you for coming, Rumiko...er, thank You Father, for sending Rumiko!

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.

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."

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?

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.

MORE GRANDMAS IN IZENA

The morning we left Izena, another grandma--in her 80's--came to Rumiko's yard to see us off. We'd met her at the community old folks' calisthenics' activity a few days before, and she had come to the beach the next day for a walk with us too. It seems like Rumiko made another friend and is praying about how God would use her to lead this new friend to Himself. Would you pray with us? Her name is Mitsue.

The small, two-room cabin in the background was something Rumiko's husband built with his own hands, dreaming it would be a church in Izena someday. Most of his time had been spent in reaching children, but Rumiko is praying some of them might hear a call to return to their home island. God is able.

Oh--the gray-haired person with the glasses standing next to Mitsue is me. I guess I'm a gramma in my 60's now.

No Wi-Fi for Izena Grandma Evangelism!

Well, I wasn't "at Grandma's"; I lived with my cousin Rumiko (Mar. 8 post) all last week.

Rumiko had decided to go to the small island of Izena where her she and her late husband had worked while he was alive, and that place is so out of the way, there are few cars there, only one traffic light on the entire island, and no Wi-fi in her home. When I went down to Okinawa, my sisters and I spent one week with her--and I went without my laptop or cellphone.

What a full week it was though. God had been helping Rumiko live simply and form special bonds with the elderly folk in the rural villages of Izena island. The first day we were there, she took my sisters and me to visit her hundred- year-old friend.

She had found the Lord, and on the day before we left the island, I was able to hand her a sketch I'd drawn from a photograph taken on that visit, along with words from her favorite verse, "In everything give thanks,"

(The hibiscus in the background were growing in her yard.)

Seed Sowing...except a seed dies...

I was looking back at the July 17, 2016 post "Refreshed" (my 2nd most read post), and realized something. In the post, there are 3 sisters I am having a meal with. I mentioned they were children of my Dad's first convert.

Here they are as children. When the entire clan (mother, 3 aunts, spouses, families, grandmother) became Christians, they often went around the island giving testimonies; the girls and their cousins' added their part with the traditional dance of the Seed Sower.

Well, it was these 3 girls' older brother Takashi who got saved, married my cousin Rumiko, and was active in children's work until paralyzed from an accident and then was called Home on Mar. 6. That was the person mentioned in the Mar. 8 post!

Rumiko is actually my second cousin. Her mother, my Mom's cousin, had been chosen to become a priestess in the Ancestor Worship system, as was Dad's cousin Seiko's wife. However, different from Seiko's wife, who was merely tormented by the demons, Rumiko's mother was at times actually possessed by them.

Sometimes, Rumiko and her siblings would come home from school to find their mother at home claiming identity of an island aristocrat, addressing them in dialects they did not know, speaking with frightening voices she did not possess.

"Bow down, bow down, I am the lord..."

No wonder when she came over to our house, there was usually some kind of trouble between Rumiko's mother and Grampa Nagata (Mommy's retired uncle). He had come from Hawaii to help my parents with their missionary work among the elderly. You would expect dissonance between the evil spirit in her and the Holy Spirit in him, as staunch and outspoken as he was.

Oh--it was just before the day of the new priestesses' initiation ceremony that Grampa Nagata died, and she missed the ceremony in order to come to his funeral. It was that day she cried before Grampa's form that lay there.

"Your God is powerful even when you are dead," she admitted; "What can I say--I lose." And she found salvation in Jesus Christ that day.

I remember Rumiko's mother's eyes had looked hard and bulging before but looked soft and beautiful after that. But I shouldn't keep calling her "Rumiko's mother". Her name was "Kiku".

RUMIKO

So many things happened during those three and a half weeks in Okinawa, I couldn't write about all of them.

Here is one I missed:

I told you about having grown up with Sharon and Brian. My cousin Rumiko, now in her seventies, heard we would be at Gushikawa Baptist Church. She knew all of us in high school, and made the special effort to meet us.

Rumiko accepted Christ, went to Bible School, was led in marriage and children's work for decades until an accident left her husband bedridden. At Gushikawa Baptist Church she shed tears of joy as she listened to our song in testimony, "Little Village Church" (Little Brown Church in the Wildwood), of the establishment of the first few churches in Okinawa. Rumiko herself gave testimony in the fellowship session we had later.

When I got back to Iwatsuki, I sketched the photo from the day Rumiko came to Gushikawa Baptist, also the MK choir, and sent them to her along with a letter of reminiscing, of prayer, and of praise for God's faithfulness.

Little did we know that the very next month, her husband would be called Home. He would not need to fellowship at a little village church any more, but would live forever with Him Who is our eternal Dwelling Place!