RIPPLE EFFECT

"Go ye therefore, and teach all nations," the Lord had said, "baptizing them."   (Matt. 28:19)

But we see Jesus turned Everything around, Pastor Nishino showed us. After all, it didn't stop with individuals being set free from sin and giving testimony of it through baptism. They were the ones going out and spreading the message of life to others who in turn were baptizing others!

His mother was one of the first members baptized at Gushikawa Baptist Church. Medical professionals had told her she would never be able to have a child.

Her son, now its pastor, was baptizing believers into its membership.

One of them, who just graduated from Bible School this year, is getting married in the fall and leaving for Bangladesh where the Lord called her as a missionary--no doubt they will be baptizing others there who find new life in Christ.

Have you ever seen tsunami waves? Most don't have to be the big, scary ones you see in movies. They can be small but just keep coming, coming, coming; tsunami strength is in their relentless force. We need to be like that. Not like big spotlights, but just sending steady beams, beams, beams of hope into the dark.

Lord, let us ripple with energy, even little ripples.

A PARTIAL REPORT

I asked you to pray God would keep the temperature down and my health up to be able to make it out to church today. 

Altho' they have made sure I can always "fellowship" via  livestream (like on the left), there are some things that can be done in person only. So...

I asked God to make today's visit to physical assembly possible. Well, I'm sure you've heard the Biblical phrase, "exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think". May I give, in this post, a partial report of the answers to our prayers? Mrs. Kishimoto, the lady in the middle of the photo, offered to pick me up for the worship service.

Of course, the obvious first answer to prayer was that altho' Okinawa is already in air-condition weather, God winked, allowing a sprinkling mist to envelope the island for Sunday and yanked down temperatures to what it was like 2 months ago. Joyce commented you could even don a cardigan, it was almost cold!

And through the worship service and visiting preacher's message, I felt perfectly fine. (I kid you not, it was when we began taking group photos afterwards my head began bothering me, and a few minutes later, I realized I needed to lie down!) It was after waking up from my nap refreshed and feeling much better I recounted various blessings and wrote this post.

One of the mothers was not staying for the fellowship and meal but leaving right away for an errand and, seeing I needed to go home, offered to drive me. God had, of course, hand-picked her to be my driver that afternoon. Her children had interest in art but didn't go to art school either, and on the way home, she showed me 2 places to get art supplies.

Also, she had a friend who has problems with epilepsy, so it felt easier to talk with her. Oh--this is an old photo of Rieko, from one of Daddy's Birthday Banquets. Rieko's husband, now with the Lord, is in the center of the picture. He loved art too.

ONE PLANTS, ANOTHER WATERS

In looking at the photographs over the decades, I've been able to see some faces...oh, I'll stop and let you see yourselves.

Takashi was one of the boys in camp. As a matter of fact, his parents were the first of my parents' converts in the Okinawan missionary work. Here, you can see him enjoying a non-sugar-coated "old-fashion donut hole" with some other campers. Unfortunately, Takashi stopped coming to camp and church completely, began running around with the wrong crowd, found himself in trouble with the law.

I found a report from 1979 telling of my Dad's visit to jail and leading him to Christ there. In a later testimony, Takashi said it was in his cell he'd been ready to die when he realized Someone loved him enough to die for him--then he decided he would live for Him. Takashi served his full term, earned an electrician's certification, and when released from prison donated his expertise to building the new church.

Nothing would stop Takashi. He went on with soulwinning efforts, gifted with disarming ways to talk with young people and children, and, after marrying a Bible School graduate, began children's evangelism. He was no longer the one being handed the "andagi" (Okinawan donut) but was the one handing out the bread of life to other youngsters, whoever would take what he had to offer.

"Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have give I thee," he said. And over the years, thousands of children took.

Thus God continued to use Takashi, until a fall from a rooftop caused him to be bedridden and he could only pray God would water the work he--and other missionaries before him--had started. Last year, Takashi was promoted to Glory. I wonder if he peered over the battlements of Heaven to see how the seedlings were coming along?

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".