NO TIME FOR PICS, JUST DO IT

Yesterday, my sisters and I went out. We couldn't have had a better time at the hotel lunch fellowshipping with Nara and Eddie--Eddie greeted us, not in his wheelchair, but WALKING!

We talked about everything--including the way he used to sign his drawings in high school "the adidas". This is his drawing on the first page of school yearbook in 12th grade.

We made a stop at a Christian Bookstore and said hello to a pastor doing part-time work there who Joyce and Janice once taught in Sunday School, then we went to a hospice to see Norimi, someone who came to see my Dad in the hospital in his last days. We were given 5 mins. by the nurse, but Norimi was alert, and I believe we had a blessed time. ended the visit with prayer.

Our last stop was supposed to be to a hospital where a pastor's wife was--she's in the first stages of Alzheimer's and was hospitalized a few months ago for pneumonia altho' he'd been caring for her at home for years.

On our way there however, Joyce began noticing landmarks telling her she was in the wrong place. On checking the map, she realized we'd been going in the wrong direction and wouldn't make it in time, so we ended up phoning, and decided with the pastor, who visits his wife everyday, to change the visit to WED afternoon instead.

So...did you see this post without any photos, or are you seeing it now with the pics? At any rate, I, for one, am NOT a people person, who naturally runs around making social calls (believe it or not, many missionaries are NOT)...but God seems to tell some of us we are to do what's not "really me"--does that make sense? So we just figure He knows what He's doing...and DO IT!

And I think God usually shows us after every encounter, by the way our hearts get strangely warmed or invigorated, He really DOES KNOW.

THE PAST TWO DAYS AT THE PARK

Remember the three turtles mentioned in my "first bilingual photo story" post? For a while, I went back to that branch to see them, but they left after a few days, and their place was empty.

Yesterday I found them basking in a spot a little ways away from the branch. Only, I could see no splashing around going on this time. It looked like all three shells were relatively still, its occupants completely content to simmer in their puddles of pond water atop lily pads.

To be totally honest, I am not sure it is the same threesome I saw around that branch...it could be a different family, three completely different turtles after all.

As a matter of fact, I saw another branch sticking out of the pond at Lower Bridge, and I could see an unnatural bump on it. Before seeing it up close, I knew what it was!

My Buddhist friend had seen the branch too. We went to see it--yes, a darling hatchling was climbing up it--and we took photos.

We walked around to the other side of the park, where we saw carp swimming under the brush, and a huge golden-ringed dragonfly actually landed on her visor!

I couldn't get out my camera in time. But the mallards right there at Step Creek saw!

Please pray Takako would realize the Creator of Salvation has been loving her all her life; more importantly that she needs Him; and most importantly, like that golden-ringed dragonfly, HE WILL COME SET HIMSELF DOWN IN HER HEART if she would ask Him to.

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.)