AHN'S MOTHER

I forgot to tell you--the end of 2022--Dec, 31, my COVID had cleared, and I did a last spurt on reading the Japanese translation of If I Perish, that book about Esther Ahn Kim. I finished all 609 pages of it. (Thank you for praying!)

Ahn not only made it over the border into free Korea, but the chapter ended with her leaving the country to give testimony, in the U.S., of God's unmistakable power. I couldn't help but cry when the last memory she had of her mother was how she urged Ahn to go for even a few short months to encourage the believers there. "We will always be meeting later SomeDay," the older woman had told her.

That was so consistent with the way she had lived. Few mothers would speak of their daughters needing to prepare to die, as did this one, the years before real persecution began--and she stood by and watched Ahn's choosing of rotten foods, even living in bacteria-ridden places to strengthen physical resistance. They were training themselves for the hardships of prison life! Years later, on the day her incarcerated daughter was about to be released from prison because of failing eyesight, this mother reminded her when she gave her life to God, she gave Him her eyes too! Ahn bows gratefully to her mother for the reminder and instead of seeking freedom, returns to her prison cell. The mother could not see Ahn's form disappearing behind those gray walls--as many other persecuted Christians, she herself had become blind.

This mother--who didn't know how to cry--but was entrusted with the gift of laughter to put the entire prison compound in stitches...this mother made a strong impression on me when I read the book decades ago in English, and the impact was just as great reading the book in Japanese this time around.

When Ahn and her mother meet in Heaven...and my moms and I will be there too...I wonder, what language will we be speaking in?

CATS & MICE

I was cleaning up some old e-mails and found two silly expressions I'd thought of years ago, Can you figure out what they mean?

1. FELINE EMANCIPATION - Welll; the first is just a fancy way to say, "Let the cat out of the bag"(!) The feline was emancipated, get it? Get it? ? Okay, not so good. The next one, maybe:

2. RODENT OLEFACTORED - Try guess. Yup. "Smell a rat". Like the cat one better? Hey, that's not fair! But I agree.

Are you done groaning? I won't send you any more quirky expressions. But can you guess what this is?

MOUSE IN A BAG - This is a Japanese expression to show the sure capturing of something that has been cornered. Ahn must've felt this way when she was kidnapped by the communists and whisked away to a home in the middle of a heavily-guarded hill. By all appearances, there was no way she could get out of this one, p. 596.

But it's not just cats who find their ways out of bags; by p.598, Ahn found herself out of breath but on the floor of a neighbor's home, free of the Communists' hold.

Onto Part 3...

YAAAY! But I'd completely forgotten about this incident. I'd read If I Perish in English before, but this part slipped my mind until I read it again in Japanese awhile ago.

On p. 552, Ahn is terribly frightened at what could possibly happen to her when the powerful men come to the prison the next day to settle her case. She chides herself for her timidity, but she can't help but cower in fright. Why can't she be like some of those other brave martyrs she's seen? But torture scares her silly. That night, God gives her a dream--I won't spoil it by giving details--instilling her with utter confidence.

The next day, the highest commander of the visiting brass, enraged at the female prisoner's "defiance", slams his fist down on the table and commands her, as a faithful ambassador of the great nation of Imperial Japan, to submit and obey. Ahn, however, instead of shrinking back in fear, had been sent secret bolstering from Heaven the night before. Without a split second to lose; she runs up to the same table; slams her fist down on it as well, retorting, that as a loyal servant of the God Who created the Heaven and all things in it, she cannot submit to ordinances that break His commandments!

Needless to say, everyone in the room was taken aback at her response, and for awhile didn't know what to do. After a moment, that officer told Ahn that it was the God she served Who had saved her that day. He asked the head jailer not to be too harsh with this prisoner, then had the court write up instructions to ensure they would not do so.

When the officers came that morning, Ahn's friends had been certain that was the day her punishment and doom would be legalized, officialized. But it seemed she was freer for a while after that to sing hymns and testify of her living God!

I must keep reading. To give me incentive to read even in Japanese, I abbreviated the chapter headings of Part 2 of the book as well as the number of pages per chapter and wrote it on the back of a bookmark my sister Joyce gave me, and crossed it off whenever I finished a chapter.

That commander just helped me finish Part 2, so I sketched a Kawasemi and made a makeshift bookmark on which to write the last 8 chapter title abbreviations plus the Epilogue to mark off. It's nothing fancy, but it should last 55 pages of reading, don't you think?

RICE!

Prison menus aren’t just apples and bananas. I wanted to cry when reading p. 496. Ahn was telling the inmates about how God provided manna and quail for the Israelites, and they challenged her faith--could He provide them with rice and meat too? The country was in the middle of a war; food was scarce; and prisoners usually saw little of anything available for the rest of the country--they were practically starving every day. They dared Ahn to pray her God would send them food.

I figured, since it was written in the book, the prayer would be answered, but...

At first, what was given to the prisoners was rotten bean scum on top of the usual small portion of grain servings, actually making the food poisonous, resulting in the bloating and massive death of much of the prison population. "Is this what your God does?" Many angrily shouted at her--"Stop praying already!"

Ahn herself wanted to die when she saw this happening, but she rethought even this wish, realizing she had to continue testifying God was a faithful, living God and did answer prayer. She couldn't die letting others think God was a Liar!

He kept her alive. Actually, Ahn was very disappointed, thinking she would die and have eternal bliss but found God still had work for her to do back in her prison cell--but then she heard patter of feet and clamor of voices as someone yelled, "Ahn! It really happened! It's really come!"

You can guess the rest.

---------

But I think the thing that really hit home was--Ahn felt she couldn't die letting others think God was a Liar. Is what others think of God that big in the forefront of my mind too?

ENTRUSTED

The little boy near me kicked at some dry leaves. I was nearly done drawing the mallards anyway. I took a step at the leaves near my feet and kicked at them too.

"Yup, that feels good, doesn't it?" I said. He studied my face, then looked at the sketch in my hand.

"Hey, you're good!"

"Thank you! You're so kind."

It was the older brother that had come with his little sister. I'd shown their parents the Kawasemi bird who'd come to perch right above the two mallards in the creek. I hadn't started drawing them yet so had only a blank sheet of paper to show the children at the time, but the boy had come back an hour later. By then, the paper looked like this:

I realize now I was engrossed in my drawing, and the little boy, trying not to interrupt me, simply played nearby, kicking at the leaves from time to time, trying to look at what I was doing without being too obvious about it. My unexpected act of kicking at the leaves and playing with him had enabled him to openly look at the picture and talk about it.

Embarrassed with my response, he turned his face towards the creek and began to mutter about coming more often to the park, but how it was getting colder now, so...and with a "Hope you do well with your picture anyway!" he ran off.

Oh-oh; it looked like rain. My brush pens are watercolor, and the picture would be ruined if it got spattered with raindrops. The picture wasn't completely finished, but I decided it would be better safe than sorry. Besides, don't you think this picture is way better than my first drawing back at the park, when Peter asked me what I was trying to draw, 10 days ago? When I was putting away my things, I told the mallards, who came back, if they wanted to see the picture, they had only a few moments, because I had to put away my things and go home--somebody must've told Peter, because he came flying to see too.

I noticed at the very end some other large birds came flying to some trees behind Step Creek. They were crows. Remember how one stopped on a branch over my head and peered down pityingly at my work before? I think now they would entrust me to sketch their black iridescent forms.

And remember that person who couldn't cry out loud? Well, on p.359, she mispronounced "How are you?" sincerely inquiring about the "toilet seat cover" instead, putting the prison in a fit of laughter. Prison had been dark, tense, depressive, gloomy...until the Lord sent one of His servants entrusted with his oil of laughter.

I'm not the only one!

Everyone cries differently.

Once, I remember doing the voice part for the animated story of Ruth, and when we got to the part where the girls part with Naomi, they were to "lift up their voices and weep". I have never raised my voice to cry--that is just not the way I cry. So, when I was told, "Just let your voice out," I tried, but then I was told it sounded like I was laughing, and I heard someone whispering I must be embarrassed. That wasn't it. I didn't know how to make those sounds people called "natural".

Well, in the book I'm reading, p.317, a person with the exact same problem goes to a funeral and is told she needs to cry. Her herculean efforts to produce heartbroken wailing results in first a ripple of laughter then an uproar. See there, I chuckled, and felt a smidgeon of vindication as I read--I'm not the only one.

Oh--this is a sketch made from a photo I saw in Okinawa. It was taken when the kids were little, just before bedtime. My daughter reached down to her little brother, assuring him, "Don't worry. Your Big Sis will be by your side all your life." It was a precious picture.

I know it looks like my son wants to cringe and cry at the thought. But that is because the artist is only a year and a half into her craft and doesn't know how to draw expressions right yet. Give it time, and maybe some drawings will be more accurate and bring out smiles instead of making you want to cry.

Besides, everyone smiles differently too.

I'D FORGOTTEN ABOUT THE PEACHES

Pages 419-427 were about the Apples Ahn craved when she was in prison, and that story made such a strong impression on me when I read it in English, it made me think I might want to read the book in Japanese too.

A little about what happened. Ahn had been a prisoner for several years already, and her teeth and health were very poor by this time. For some reason, she had a strong urge for apples. The apples the guards brought were rotten, but for Ahn, whose teeth were too weak to bite into good apples, God had brought apples to drink. Ahn downed about 50 apples, strengthened in body and mind that her Heavenly Father was caring for her tailor-made yearnings.

No; I'm nowhere near 400 pages; I've read only 264. But I couldn't wait to share another story about myself, kinda related to this chapter. Kinda.

See, there had been another testimony I'd heard online about Darlene Diebler Rose, another persecuted Christian, who had a longing for a banana, and God sent her 92!

I love fruit. Cake, pies, ice cream and chocolate are nice, but I'd take fruit over them any day..."but God, you never did this for me," I found myself complaining. I found myself quickly saying, "No; I'm not asking to be put in prison and needing to hear your voice of approval. You don't have to send 'fruit stuff', okay?"

"Have you forgotten about the peaches?" I seemed to hear.

That wasn't in prison. Yes, I had completely forgotten. Over a decade ago, up in Koriyama, I had a longing for peaches one day. I don't know why peaches, because that is not my favorite fruit or have any special meaning.

The doorbell rang. There was my mother-in-law with a gift of a bowl of cut, peeled, peaches!

Sometimes God blesses us, not because we need it, but just because He wants to. Doesn't it make you want to cry?

GETTING THERE

I'm still not back to what I could do last month before I stopped drawing park friends for a while when I went down to Okinawa, but I think this sketch is better than yesterday's--I'm making some sort of comeback.

Peter, the Kawasemi bird that came yesterday, came today too, and he seemed to approve of my effort, while showing off some of his diving and fishing skills.

And no, he wasn't after big fish like that orange one swimming at the bottom of the picture. That's Slit, one of my oldest friends at the Pond, and he's one of the biggest carp there too.

In case anyone's wondering, that red stuff at the top of the picture is supposed to be the Zig Zag Bridge. It got drawn like it's floating in the air; sorry.

Oh--remember I was reading the Japanese translation of the book, "If I Perish", by Esther Ahn Kim? I've read 140 pages thus far. This old hardcover Japanese version has 600 pages, so I have 460 to go!

But the part I read recently, she felt like she and the fiery prophet by her side had been commissioned to warn an entire nation not to rebel against Almighty God; and she described it as two mallards facing waves of a raging sea. What could mallards do?

TURTLE CASTLE

I saw「たといそうでなくても」on my stepmother’s bookshelf and really wondered if I could tackle it—but God surprised me.

He pulled my eyes to some passages I clearly recognized as what I’d read in English decades earlier, and I found I couldn’t put it down…until I found myself escorted away, after 70 pages of reading, to a location translated “Turtle Castle”.

I can’t blame my white hair on this and say it was some kind of Urashima Taro experience, can I?