THIS WAS 1981

No wonder. God wanted Mommy to see that church completed. He had to get it up in 1980. Mommy NEVER missed a meeting, no matter how poorly she felt, from what I remember. Maybe it was somebody else in the family, with Mommy taking care of us, but never Mommy...until 1980 (remember, I was born 1959). I knew something was wrong when she asked to stay home once. And it happened again.

I thought I was the one with health problems and had to leave college for it, but just as I was heading back after a year of discovering my problem, spending time with my parents, improving with proper medication (to say nothing of experiencing a year full of seeing souls saved and lives changed as well--I've only told you about the building, not about the incredible life changes I saw that year)...anyway, as I was about to head back, it seemed Mommy was in bed!

Back in the U.S., I plunged into summer school, trying to catch up on studies I missed during my year's absence. One of the senior leaders pulled me aside and informed me I needed to hear a rumor before it reached me that my mother had been flown to Hawaii and it was discovered she had inoperable cancer. But when I phoned to confirm the facts, Mommy told me altho' it was true, not to interrupt studies. Stay and finish summer school, she said; then come to Hawaii. And when I got there, I discovered she'd spent hours from her hospital bed sending taped letters to Okinawa telling of the incredible peace God gives.

Several weeks later, Mommy was face to face with the One Who gave her that Peace. He'd made sure she saw that church go up; He'd made sure the runt of her litter came home the last year of her life; He'd made sure she was overwhelmed with joy those last few weeks. 

"Delight thyself also in the Lord," Ps, 37:4, had been her life verse, and He, she'd said, becomes the Desire of your life.

This last picture? It's our family--Joyce was already at Bob Jones, so Grampa Oshiro "is in her place", I guess. This is one of my last memories of the family on deputation together.

My sister and I used to remark how our parents were so happy they shined in our little church. They really are shining now, and one day we'll join them.

THIS WAS 1980...

When it was all happening, it didn't seem like a big deal because a lot of things kept happening a little at a time, but when I read about it all now, I'm kind of amazed.

When our little flock was starting up a church, God knew full well we did not have anywhere near the economic means to put up a building. We started with just a handful of a few farmers' wives from the village of Uken. God HAD to intervene if we were to have a meeting place--and He did, I realize now.

There was a medical doctor who had had a clinic quite a few years back in the middle of the city, but he had closed his practice so long ago there was no longer light, electricity, water, in the building. Termites had eaten through so much of the woodwork you could poke your finger into some of the pillars. Newspapers patched up holes in the walls.

The owner said if we were willing to clean and fix up the place, we could use it FREE for at least a year, maybe 2. But as soon as business in the city picked up, he wanted to move back in. Right away, Daddy, fellow missionary Russel Waala, and Christian servicemen began cleaning, hammering, sawing, painting, laying cement!

Right about that time, my parents' first converts' son was released from prison. He had found the Lord there and earned qualification as a licensed electrician. He GAVE hours of his ability to the wiring of the new church--our little group would not have had money to ask for another company to do it. His father, a professional signmaker, came by to do the church billboard for us.

A family moving off island donated a piano to the church when the buyer failed to show up. Another family gave their carpet to us for the same reason. No one was donating pews tho'. We decided to get some inexpensive chairs. However, when the salesman mistakenly ordered the wrong color, he pled with us to buy them for almost nothing.

There is a bus stop just in front of the church. Just before church, Daddy used to play Gospel song recordings and have it flowing out the front window of the church. No doubt, the people must've wondered what in the world caused the metamorphosis --surely, that is the spot that used to be the sorry eyesore? There's a Church there now? That IS a cross, isn't it?