JUMPING THE GUN

"Mind the STOPS June." The Okinawan blown-glass turtle in the corner seemed to whisper to me as I polished it and set it back down on the shelf. But where have I heard that before?

Would you please pray with me that I wouldn't jump ahead of God?

I mean, it's a pretty sad thing if an athlete trains for months for an important meet then gets disqualified for jumping out of the starting blocks early! (No; this isn't a photograph of a historic Olympic race in which that happened; it's a picture taken during Daddy's coaching days at Coaldale High.

 

The reason I say all this is because AFTER putting slide images of all the pictures into the computer; turning Daddy's corner room shed of sorts into a semblance of order; and remembering then reorganizing everything from writing I'd started 18 years ago and re-writing 40 pages of it...God seems to be slamming on the brakes.

At first, it was confusing, to say the least. Didn't God want me to go forward now, I wondered.

But for some reason, He seems to want me to get a CLEAR HANDLE on everything that's happened up 'til this segment and go no further. Actually, I see His wisdom in making me wait even the 18 years since the last time I left off writing.

I shared with another friend how God knew someone would give me permission to write about something which, at the very beginning had told me I could not write about: unbelievers wouldn't understand. They died in the 18 years. (So did the Christians they might've been upset with!)

We can never question God's ways. Okay Lord--18 days, 18 months, another 18 years--it's Your timetable. Help me not to jump the gun.

COULD IT BE?

While clearing Daddy's shelves, I was just about to throw out a stack of old-looking mail when I saw some things sticking out of a large manila envelope. Daddy had saved two copies of my first attempts at writing "Kimiko's Travel Agent". On the same shelf, he kept the "Roy's Pathfinder" Gospel tract I'd composed from Daddy's testimony, a result of my sister Janice's encouragement.

I kept looking. He had, after all, had those e-mail excerpts stapled together in pamphlets on the desk shelf... Yes; even the long book I'd told Daddy I wanted to start but never finished due to the 2011 tsunami--he had notes of what I'd been thinking about in another manila envelope on which were scrawled across the bottom: "UNFINISHED." When Daddy said he'd give me his study, did he know I'd find these?

I picked up the "Travel Agent" booklets I'd found and went to my stepmother's reading room...it felt like I'd be spending a lot more time here writing than I thought. On the bookshelf above that desk was a book, I knew, written by another MK like myself who liked to write. Let's see...THERE! Sisco--Kent Sisco! An MK to Japan, he'd written about how kanjis, Japanese calligraphy, illustrated the grace of God in his book, Finding Rest.

For example, the character for "Rest" has a man next to a tree. Kent reminds readers true rest is found only at the foot of a TREE. "Cursed is the man who hangeth on a tree," the Bible tells us, and Jesus was cursed for us, Mommy used to teach, telling us the old kanji for the cross included two small men hanging on the arms of the cross, one large man at the center of the cross, formed a tree. Mommy, like Kent and me, wanted to write too.

KIYO'S TURN

I wonder if Kiyo's sister talked to a lot of butterflies, birds, and cats as she lay there?

The following was written about in the Nov. 15, '22 post:  Kiyo's 7-year-old sister had her baby sister strapped onto her back every afternoon and was told to care for her while her mother was out working in the fields.

But one day, she had lost her footing by the side of the dirt road and ended up falling backwards--in other words, right on top of the baby--and couldn't get up no matter how hard she tried. So she lay there for hours, like an upturned turtle, until someone came by. By then the suffocated baby had begun to turn blue.

But God had more plans for this baby.  After a few sharp slaps on the behind by the grandmother, Kiyo's wails told the sister and mother she was going to live after all.

Threats of war filled the skies, and Kiyo was coming home from school one day when someone shouted to run. Maybe there were screams, but there was a much louder drone and razing. Everyone was running, some falling. Kiyo was so overcome with desperation she couldn't look to the side...but she must've seen something, she says, because to this day she is haunted by the sight of a tongue hanging out of a cheek and can't eat sashimi or any kind of raw meat.

Kiyo saw human bodies thrown through the air by the force of exploding bombs, and heard a soldier with his arm raised call out for his mother just before he died. But God had plans for Kiyo, and she made it safely across the open field.

Kiyo survived the war years and excelled in sewing; worked her way to the main island of Okinawa (she had been living on Ishigaki, one of the outer islands of the Ryukyu Island chain of the Prefecture of Okinawa). Her co-worker there, Matayoshi-san, invited her to a nearby church started by strange foreigners from Canada and Hawaii.

These "missionaries"--didn't newspaper headlines say they were involved in a hit-and-run? But when Kiyo got to know Roy and Kimmiko, she not only got the full story, she was also introduced to the Living Savior. And despite her quiet personality, she became the very first young person in the church to go to Bible School to train for and return fully equipped as a church worker!

One of the greatest surprises my Dad had when he began his ministry in Uken was a person who told him, "I've been praying God would send someone to my village to start a church." This person, saved and cured of Hodgkin's Disease in a leprosarium, had returned to her village where there was no other Gospel Witness, and asked God to send help. For 15 years--even in the hot summer months, when old wounds would emit unpleasant odors, Kiyo would hold Bible Studies with this healed-leper-now-sister--and encourage her in things of Christ.

Yes, God had plans for Kiyo and had been protecting her all this time. Kiyo ended up leading her mother to Christ, and altho' her father had forsaken the family and left home decades ago, she ministered to him at his hospital bedside.

But I suppose the biggest thing God saved Kiyo for was for us. When our mother, Kimiko, went to Glory, the one who knew our work inside out, Kiyo, was asked to step in and become the new Mrs. Oshiro (Mommy and Daddy had prayed together about this). and as such, she could now rejoice with us, not only as church member, but as family member as well!

I almost forgot. A few years later, it was this new Mrs. Oshiro who led Seiko Oshiro, my Dad's cousin, to the Lord!

I almost forgotten; God hadn't.