Test tomorrow

I have a test tomorrow - I have to recite a short (memorized) speech in Chinese about my grandfather.

L. Alfred Mannhardt with his mother Jesse

At the Bible study Monday night one of the boys said that testing is what motivates us to learn and we wouldn't learn much with out it. He said we know a whole lot more after at test.

It's funny... that's exactly the point of last week's Bible Study with KGK OB and also one of the points in John's morning sermon on Sunday. God tests us to improve us. The difficulties we dislike so much are for our benefit.

...the testing of your faith develops perseverance... so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

I wish I were a cat...

Not really! But it is admirable the way they can sleep just about anywhere - like this!

Our cat Intrepid

I like Psalm 127:2:

"In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat - for he grants sleep to those he loves."

But the passage I think missionaries need to bear in mind is Mark 4:26 - 28:

"This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain--first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head."

We can rest... it's God that makes the seed grow.

The Weight of Glory

For some reason - the word glory? - thinking about the 1 Peter passage reminded me of C.S Lewis's sermon The Weight of Glory . Perhaps that would make good Sabbath reading. After all tomorrow is Sunday... and there's the long trip (4 hours) to Kazamaura for the monthly meeting.

If We Let It...

A friend whose life - or at least his plan - has just gone tipsy turvy wrote tonight and finished off with this interesting statement "... what doesn't kill us only makes us godlier, if we let it."

I was just thinking about this yesterday. (One of my former KGK kids and I have a study every Wednesday and Friday and had just hit the topic of trials.) 1 Peter puts it this way:

"... trials. These have come so that your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed."

Yes,what doesn't kill us only makes us godlier, if we let it.

But will we let it?

Wicked men and fools

We're reading "Kidnapped" together over our after dinner tea and coffee these days and I was really struck with this passage a few days ago:

A sea-bred boy would not have stayed a day on Earraid; ... even I, if I had sat down to think instead of raging at my fate, must have soon guessed the secret, and got free. It was no wonder that the fishers had not understood me. The wonder was rather that they had guessed my pitiful illusion, and taken the trouble to come back. I starved with cold and hunger on that island for close upon one hundred hours. But for the fishers, I might have left my bones there, in pure folly. And even as it was I had paid for it pretty dear, ...

I have seen wicked men and fools, a great many of both; and I believe they both get paid in the end; but the fools first.

--Robert Lewis Stevenson, "Kidnapped"

So often our troubles are pretty much of our own making. Obvious to the world - at first the fishermen laugh at David Balfour, unable to believe he doesn't know he can get off the island - but somehow uncomprehended by ourselves!

Times have changed! (And I'm glad!)

Today heading toward Hirosaki on # 31 I saw an old woman dropping her drawers (in the middle of blizzard!) by the side of the road. I haven't seen that in a L O N G time.

When I first came to Japan in 1979 it really puzzled me that people were so very particular about covering the grass in the park before they sat on it - until we learned that when our predecessors had arrived in Japan it wasn't always doggy-do one stepped on in the park!

Of course, that's unthinkable now! When my daughter walks her dog in the park she has to carry a bag and shovel... and I seldom remember the "old days" - days I'm perfectly happy to let pass forever.

But the snow was L O V E L Y and I didn't mind that I was 15 minutes late for class.

My niece took this photo and its not actually # 31

But its a pretty view as well!

Tea Partying Again

We may have been very busy with Camp prep but did actually take time out to kick back and take it easy sometimes during the holiday... and here's the proof.

Mary likes to throw a Tea Party when Ghent boys are home

She uses the pink dishes Ghents gave her for Christmas

And we have fun together!

This was on January 3rd. The boys are now back at Moody Bible Institute and I'm back to Hirosaki University tomorrow. (Classes actually started last week but I was deeply committed at the Camp.)

Camp Photo Album

We didn't have a camera man so this time camp photos are rather few and random.... We didn't take the group photo until people started leaving! But for what its worth, here is the album.

January 09 Winter Living English Camp

Aomori Christian Center, Moya, Aomori City, Japan

We had a LOT of fun! And maybe learned some English, too!

You can link to the lessons (and my husband's talks) from the Living English Camp Homepage.

These kids can really sing!

Most everyone had to catch the 1:15 bus this time. So the Truss kids helped us clean up the Center after the English Camp was over. That was a lot of fun, too! We Elliots like to sing while we work but we're rather ordinary next to the Truss kids - they can really sing! Tried to catch it on these short video clips... didn't quite catch the quality but should give you the idea.

Finishing up the Dishes!

One more time - for the camera!

(If you only view one clip make it this one.)

Home Again

Mary walking up the ACC Driveway to our car

We're home again. English Camp finished at lunch today. It was hard work - we were short staffed this time - but worth it!

Last Day of Camp

...and I'm glad it's snowing. When I heard the rain last night I started worrying about traveling home on icy roads. But we woke up this morning to a quiet snowfall. Thank you, God.

BEAUTIFUL DAY

After the program ended last night my husband and I walked up the road in the moonlight. The air was so clear and the moon was so bright. Now the sun is shining. I love Aomori Christian Center in the winter! (I love it in the summer, spring and fall, too.)

Coffee Like I Remember

On the first day of camp I asked my husband to make coffee and he dragged this percolater off the high shelf.I love it! The comforting sound, the sweet flavor... This is the coffee I remember!

No internet, no time to write...

... but camp is going well and we're having fun studying, working and playing in English - most of the time!

I love Camp!

Winter English Camp starts tomorrow, Wednesday, January 7 th.

I think its going to be good! We've got a good theme, a good menu...

Textbook Cover

今回のテーマは"Is That All There Is?" 先生は大変いいプログラムを準備しましたと思います。水曜日の５時からスタートです。この連絡がこんなに遅くなって本当にすみません。もう遅いですので電話で申し込んでもかまいません。エリオット・ローリー　090-1770-8672 EMAIL

No snow, no show ... no camp!

Sadly, Snow Camp was canceled.

But I have lots of ideas and so do Bruce and Miho Truss... so we're going to see if we can't change our corner of the world. Cheerfully...

I had a good laugh this morning when I viewed this:

One of our recent OMF guests (a Bible school student) sent it. And I find it sums up exactly what I've been thinking about lately. So many pastors (and a lot of other people, too!) push for change and get a mass exodus. They think its because people don't like change, but that's crazy. If people don't like change, why do advertisements abound with words like "NEW!"

Of course its WAY over the top! But this CRAZY video contains the seed of an important truth I sometimes forget when I see a need for change.

Rush forward in the midst of despair!

Yesterday I said I was no longer in the midst of despair.... But today I'm irritable with disappointment!

07 Snow Camp

Not a single person has properly applied to the January 4 - 6th Ski/Snow Camp at the Aomori Christian Center and the deadline is tonight. I thought that my own contribution would be at least 8 - a family of 7 and one of the exchange students at the Hirosaki English Fellowship - maybe even 10 people . But the children got sick, the exchange student has work and the other 2 possiblilities have gone silent.

Today I can almost identify with what gosuperu_bouken wrote earlier this year

"He would be a missionary simpleton who expected plain sailing in any work of God." -J.O. Fraser

So, when I read it I kind of thought to myself that I never considered it to be easy. When I came to Japan, I didn't really expect that I would actually see any fruit during my time, I just figured I'd help plant seeds and water and stuff because it's Japan and people don't convert overnight. (They certainly unconvert overnight though, I'm finding out.) But since I decided more resolutely to come back here I've been learning that although I knew it wasn't going to be easy, the realities of the work of a missionary are much more severe than I have understood them to be up until this point. It's like the more determinedly you decide to follow Christ into a situation, the more of hell's fury He allows to blast at you. (Of course, in this analogy 'hell' isn't referring to the real hell, the wrath of God, but something like the darkness and worldliness at work in the world against God's kingdom.) But every trial is not without encouragement and every challenge is not without hope. I suppose every weariness would not be without rest, but I'm tired.

Will God do something amazing in this 11th hour? Or will I have to submit with patience... We'll be back tomorrow with the final call.

In the mean time, here are a few old photos of Snow Camp. Perhaps it looks like piddling numbers to you, but, believe me, it meant a lot to some of those kids.

Snow Camp Memories

2004年 and 2005 年ACCスキー・スノーキャンプ

More Information about January 4-6, 2009camp - if it happens: ご案内
Application: 申込み書 (Apply by fax)

And the answer is...

For those of you who were wondering who I quoted in my last prayer letter, it was John Calvin... via http://www.whitehorseinn.org/

CHURCH GROWTH ACCORDING TO CALVIN

Related program: "Selling Jesus" and "Mega-Churches Respond to the Reveal Study" May 18, 2008 and December 7, 2008 (If you can't find the programs here you can always try Luke Elliot.)

...the restoration of the church is the work of God, and no more depends on the hopes and opinions of men, than the resurrection of the dead, or any other miracle. Here, therefore, we are not to wait for facility of action, either from the will of men, or the temper of the times, but must rush forward through the midst of despair. It is the will of our Master that his gospel be preached. Let us obey his command, and follow whithersoever he calls.

What the success will be it is not ours to inquire. Our only duty is to wish for what is best, and beseech it of the Lord in prayer; to strive with all zeal, solicitude, and diligence, to bring about the desired result, and at the same time to submit with patience to whatever that result may be. Groundless, therefore, is the charge brought against us of no having done all the good which we wished, and which was to be desired. God bids us plant and water. We have done so. He alone gives the increase. What, then, if he chooses not to give according to our wish? If it is clear that we have faithfully done our part, let not our adversaries require more of us: if the result is unfavorable, let them expostulate with God.

- From The Necessity of Reforming the Church by John Calvin

I really like that phrase "rush forward through the midst of despair" but to be truthful I'm not really in the midst of despair these days. Perhaps its because of White Horse Inn that I'm not in despair... although it probably started with Os Guinness and his book "Dining With the Devil" . (His more recent book "Prophetic Untimeliness" is even better.)