If Wishes Were Horses, Beggars Would Ride

If I were rich in time and money I would attend this conference (and visit Daughter # 2 while I was at it!)

But alas, I'm rich in neither money nor time.

So I ordered two books instead: "Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down: A Theology of Worship for the Turn-of-the-Century Culture" (which I've wanted ever since I saw it on somebody's shelf a few years ago) and "A Royal "Waste" of Time: The Splendor of Worshiping God and Being Church for the World".

After I'd ordered, I had second thoughts and wished I'd ordered "Is It a Lost Cause?: Having the Heart of God for the Church's Children" (instead of A Royal Waste of Time.)

Waiting Mothers

All over the world
Mothers wait for their children
To come home-
Their children who have gone away
Into the world.
If those children walk in sorrow,
Or if they walk in sin,
Even though they walk in forgetfulness
Of the loving heart
They are to their mothers
Only as little children
Wandering in the dark.

Some mothers sit with folded hands
And wait- and wait-
Others knit with skillful fingers
Or work with busy preoccupation;
But in the evening,
When lamps are lighted,
Mothers all over the world
Go to their doors
And peer anxiously
Into the darkness.

All over the world there are mothers waiting-
Waiting for their children to come home.

- Anonymous Author

This poem makes me think of Paul writing to the Galatians "My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you."

Or Paul writing to the Thessalonians "... we were gentle among you, like a mother caring for her children. We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well."

The Farm

We took Dijir - and since Kris was visiting we took him, too - up to "the farm" last week. There are actually any number of farms in Ajigasawa, but when we say "the farm" we inevititably mean Hasegawa Bokujo. We dropped in to show Dijir around before he committed himself for a week - and stayed to make sausage.

The young men worked

And Mary took pictures

And then we all sat down for dinner - sausages, of course!

KGK Spring Camp

This spring the theme was - roughly translated - "I want to know what God expects of me". And our speaker, Pastor Yoshida, talked about dealing with sin (and unforgiveness) in our lives and reflecting God's glory in EVERYTHING we do.

Pastor Yoshida

His message kind of doubled with something I read before bed in Edith Schaeffer's "The Tapestry":

"...how many people living in Germany at the time Bach was composing heard the sheer wonder of that gorgeous music with their ears, or felt it flow through their whole beings? Only those of Leipzig's St. Thomas Lutheran Church, which had a new composition of his every Sunday of the year as an expected part of their worship service, and very few others. ... Many of us would like to be able to slip back through the years and sit in a pew in that Lutheran Church to listen to Bach play week after week. Would we have really been conscious of what was taking place in that service? How astonished Bach himself would have been to know how widely appreciated his music would be one day. ... Faithfully he continued what he was doing, believing that God was sufficient audience."

My group

I'm not all that keen on small group Bible Studies. But some good stuff happened in my group - despite sidetracks and yoga stretches - confessions and soulsearching...

Graduates

There were a lot of graduates this year - so many that we were able to devote a whole evening their testimonies. Of course, some of them are coming back next year as graduates students! It was encouraging to hear - and sometimes see as I first met some of them 4 years ago - the changes God has worked in their lives.

Joshua and Yoshimi with their daughter

The good things didn't end at the camp. We stopped halfway home to drop one of the girls off to stay with the couple pictured above. (For interest sake, Joshua remembers Daughter #1 from KGK/ICF in Tokyo! Now he's a pastor in Morioka.)

But Joshua and Yoshimi weren't the only people we met at Morioka Jusco. As I waited for my hamburger suddenly, Jun, one of the boys from my small group a few years ago was standing in front of me. I had been thinking about him in the morning - a bit worried - and there he was! We spent half an hour talking over supper before he had to leave - he was on his way to a new school in Tokyo.

Angela's Big Move - or, why I haven't been writing!

For many years (20) we worked alone in Ajigasawa. But in May 2005 a German OMF worker, Angela Menzel, joined us. Today she left us.

Angela Menzel (with her delicious Donauwellen Cake)

On Thursday last week she moved out of her own apartment into our home for the last few days before she left for a year's Home Assignment in Germany.

The moving crew

They had to be fed!

I don't know as though we actually relaxed this week! But with the move over and the weekend over we did have some fun yesterday. Angela made one of the richest, tastiest cakes I've had in a long time - Donauwellen Cake. Then we went to Suigun no Yado for a two hour soak before eating pizza toast (and more cake) while watching a DVD.

Donauwellen Cake

The flowers she bought us.

Yesterday morning Angela and I spent an hour praying before lunch. We've prayed together a lot this winter. I'm going to miss that. Our relationship was a bit like that line in an old Joanie Mitchell song "You don't know what you've got till its gone."

I have done with questionings and fears...

“During the more than thirty years of my missionary life I have seen the seed spring up in such unexpected places that I have done with questionings and fears as to whether there will be results. Statistics in things spiritual mean nothing to me now. It is ours unstintingly to sow the seed whose life is in itself. It is God’s husbandry and He will give the increase.”

Mildred Cable, China’s Millions (July, 1933)

MY HEROES - I love this intrepid trio!

I have many heroes. (Most of them are old women.) But these three really stand out.

"The China Trio"

They may look a bit dowdy and plain, but they were truly amazing! Valerie Griffiths in her book "Not Less Than Everything: Courageous women who carried the Christian gospel to China" writes:

“Our bodies are hardened like tempered steel through exposure to such extreme temperatures.” The words conjure up a picture of young energetic sportsmen engaged in mountain climbing, ocean-sailing, or artic exploration. They scarcely bring to mind three middle-aged women, who had spent the first 20 years of their adult lives working in the structured, orderly activity of the girls’ school and women’s Bible college in Shanxi province. For only after that did Mildred Cable, with her two colleagues, Eva and Francesca French, embark on years of traveling the main trade route of Central Asia.

Middle-aged in this case meant 45, 51 and 54 - that's when they STARTED the hard trekking.

And when after 13 years of grueling adventures - hunger, thirst, pain, sleeplessness, stoning, and bandits - they finally retired to England they went on to live another interesting life.

Francesca French, Topsy, Mildred Cable and Eva French

Mildred Cable died "young"at 74, but the French sisters were still going strong until just months before they passed away in 1961. (Eva was ninety.)

If I could be like Mildred Cable...

Her director once wrote: “I don’t suppose we have in the whole of CIM a more capable teacher of any subject than Miss Cable. She was recently offered a position at the Shanting University.

"The thoroughness with which she teaches the Scriptures to Dr. Kao’s young men is appalling!She makes them go through the whole Bible - no skipping - Minor Prophets, Revelation, everything. You should see their voluminous notebooks and the questions which Miss Cable sets them to puzzle out for themselves.

Mildred Cable

"It is remarkable that whereas so many of us common missionaries have been more or less satisfied with a superficial knowledge of the Bible in our Chinese Christians, here - right up in one of the remotest corners of China - you have a band of young men who are being grounded in the Word of God as very few others are in any part of the country.

"… Miss Cable asks you what book you are reading and if you aren’t reading anything she wants to know why you aren’t.”

Guess Who's Back?!

Our friend and camp caretaker, Bruce Truss, often says "Never feed the monkeys!" And I see what he means. This afternoon I heard Buddy (we're babysitting the Ghents dog) barking and looked out my window. This is what I saw...

A monkey huddled on the roof next door

I think I've been living too much on the edge this winter - I crashed again last night. Consequently, I spent most of the day in bed reading "End of the Spear" by Steve Saint. So it was a bit funny to see a monkey on my own roof. I've always known they're up in the hills behind us but we've lived here for over ten years without being visited. I guess Bruce is right. If you feed them once...

The monkey explores our shed roof

Not All Negatives

I won't be elaborating my views in full this time around, but I suppose I should clarify a statement or two in my last entry... I'm not ALWAYS against short term teams! They have their place.

The 1995 Canadian Team that helped frame our house.

This is one team that should have stayed longer!

Its the sweeping trend to which I object.

Yet Another Goodbye

This morning we sent Matthew off on the first train after breakfast. He flies out of Narita on Wednesday - his birthday.

Farewell at Ajigasawa Station - only 9 trains a day

I love our short term workers. Its kind of hard to say good-by to them - and, of course, I'm always glad to welcome them back.

The supply seems to be drying up though... sacrificed to the latest fad in missions I guess. Now we only get the special cases, like Matthew, who have just a narrow window of time or some other special consideration.

The trend is all toward teams - a subject much too volatile for me to broach today. Suffice to say that I really miss all those UK gap year students that we used to get every spring and summer!

Lent: To fast - or not to fast

Yesterday a young man attempted to interogate me concerning fasting customs during Lent. But on that subject I am not exactly a fountain of information. I did not grow up with any traditions either for Lent or fasting.

A few weeks ago when Daughter # 4 started talking about what to give up for Lent, I felt uneasy... I finally decided to give up coffee. Of course, I've given it up so many times already that it hardly counts anymore!

The more I thought about it the more I felt that I wanted to do something more positive. So I made a commitment to do something (everyday) which for me is a sacrifice but which is really a positive (I hope) thing.

A new tradition? For me, perhaps. But apparently I didn't invent this one either:

Lent does not always involve sacrifice, but rather an offering. For some Christians, giving time to tutor, devoting more time to someone, or working for a non-profit organization is more of a sacrifice than sacrificing food, sex, or a common luxury.

- Wikipedia

The 2nd Sunday of Lent

Today was the 2nd Sunday of Lent and so we lit (instead of extinguishing) 2 candles. Even though I explained to my family that traditionally the candles work backwards and should be extinguished week by week, they maintain that our own tradition is better. So we continue to light...

Our lenten candles in the lily stand that John made.

John preaching despite his voice problems.

My husband spoke from John 15 - he's doing the "I ams" in chronological order after all.

Good-bye - and Happy Birthday! - Matthew

(Dijur, Masa, me, Mary, Rieko, Angela, Matthew)

Not many folk were able to stay for the fellowship hour this week. But those of us who stayed enjoyed the rich chocolate cake that Dijur had made when he found out that Matthew was flying on his birthday. (He leaves Aji tomorrow and flies out of Japan on Wednesday.)

Don't feed the monkeys!

This is why you shouldn't feed feed the monkeys!

They get rather cheeky!

A few minutes after I posted the monkey photos from our morning walk I saw a shadow pass by the 2nd floor window where I was working. When I walked across the hall to our bedroom to get a better look, I found this cheeky fellow looking in at me!

Moral: Don't feed feed the monkeys unless you're ready to be stalked.

Morning Walk - Monkeys

On the way back from our morning walk we noticed several neighbors looking up the hill.

This is what they were looking at!

(If you can't see the monkeys click on the photo.)

They were eating the offerings from in front of these rocks.

Then the neighbors gave them apples.

This one was drinking a yoghurt drink on a nearby roof.

They were mildly interested in us.

They almost looked cute.





Almost awesome.