A surprise in California

Well, I must be one of the world’s worst bloggers.  Surprising that I fantasize about writing a book someday (HA!)  . . .

I am on a month-long journey to visit friends and make presentations about my work in Japan.  Perhaps I will raise funds, perhaps I will add prayers, perhaps I will recruit someone to come.  Those are always my three goals.

My first week in California was just supposed to be pure friend-visiting.  Imagine my surprise, more like shock, when at the very tippy end of my visit they brought up a glimmer of a call to go to Japan and help with the school!!!  What an asset they would be, too!  I could hardly wait to get to my next destination to send off an email getting the recruiting process going.  They are at the point of just wanting to follow God step-by-step to see where this goes (I was there once).

But isn’t God terrific?!?  He does such unexpected things for us (not to mention the blessing that bringing these friends from my past into my present would be).  ”Raising support” for me means following along in faith while God does wonders.  Praise be to Him!!

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Parting is such sweet (?) sorrow . . .

I had my last Open House classes at Kokubunjidai on Friday. My afternoon ladies came 30 minutes early, since we needed to make up a class, and stayed 45 minutes late because it was so hard to admit that our time together was over. This is the class that was born when we convinced the two person evening class to join the afternoon class. What fun it turned out to be! How well they bonded! I really enjoyed these ladies, and it was a very nice way to end the week. Please pray that God will send a very godly and gifted teacher to take the helm of my Kokubunjidai classes in the fall. There is not much “turn around” time for getting here, but our God is never limited by these kinds of circumstances. In fact, once when a teacher came in this kind of a hurry, she ended up marrying someone she met on the field. So you never know what other wonderful things God is going to weave together as He continues to care for these ladies and all my Open House students.

Of course, the Friday afternoon ladies don’t yet know what a wonderful and true God we serve! You, or someone you know, might just be the “last link in the chain” for them to come to faith. Let’s pray earnestly for a replacement.

Filed under: English class stories, Prayer Requests

Recent insight – the widow of Zarephath

Jesus mentions the story of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath during His confrontation with the synagogue in His hometown of Nazareth. Recently I covered that story in Bible time, and while I was preparing for it was led to wonder “Why?” Why did God send Elijah to a gentile widow when there were so many widows in Israel at the time? I was hoping against hope that no student would bring that up (none did), but am always prepared to point them to the utter sovereignty of God and the mystery of His will (iow, “God doesn’t always tell us why He is doing something, but we know that He is most wise and most good.”)

But, in this case, God actually does give us insight. Elijah is placed with the widow because of a famine that God had brought upon Israel; the widow provided Elijah with food and in doing so was provided for herself during the famine. This is recorded in I Kings 17, and in I Kings 18 we find out that at the same time, in Israel, wicked Jezebel was keeping busy trying to kill all the prophets of the Lord, while Ahab was searching “every nation and kingdom on earth and from end to end” (New Living) to try to find Elijah, whom he blamed for the famine. Two very good reasons to send Elijah out of the country! So God safely tucked Elijah away with the widow, hiding him in plain sight, as it were, in her humble home, keeping him safe until it was time to confront the wickedness in Israel.

Filed under: Recent insight

CCSI needs a headmaster!

In an earlier post I talked about considering teaching at our school, CCSI, full-time next year. Please continue to pray for me, since, although I am leaning that way, I do not feel I have confirmation.

But the real prayer request – I’ll say “important” rather than “urgent” prayer request – is for a new headmaster to take the helm of the school. We’ve had several wonderfully capable and visionary men fill that position in the past, and God has seen fit to remove each one to their next assignment for the Kingdom. Please pray that He will now raise up a new man to guide the school further.

This man should be deeply centered in Christ, love children, have experience in education, (CCSI is K-12), willing to live in and learn to love Japan. He should have high academic standards and be able to inspire the students to excel. He should have good interpersonal skills, and will need cross-cultural training. He will need to raise his support, so he needs a firm belief in the vital role that CCSI plays in establishing Christ’s kingdom in Japan.

Please pray for such a man to be raised up in God’s timing. If you know of someone whom you could challenge to consider this opportunity, by all means please do so! If God is stirring in your heart that YOU might be that person, give us a call so we might seek God’s face together about it. (Respond to this post and I can give you details.)

Most of all, thank you for praying!!!

Filed under: Prayer Requests

Friday morning moms with kids class

I had one of those rare opportunities on Friday, the opportunity to tie in several of the concepts we have been learning about in Bible time with a little gospel illustration that I learned ever so long ago. The title was “Jesus Dies on the Cross.” The Spirit was present so sweetly, and I was able to share very naturally in the context of their questions that we are separated from God so completely that only the cross of Christ can bridge the chasm. After they left, I realized that during the same Bible time with a class that is a bit ahead, there was no such prompting, no questions that made sharing the illustration apropos. God works so personally and individually not only from person to person, but from class to class.

Please pray for these dear ladies, bringing precious little toddlers with them, to “decide” to believe in Jesus!

p.s. This is “Sheri’s” class. Sheri continues to be open to the Bible and eager to learn. Please keep praying for her!
p.p.s Sheri’s story is contained in an earlier post. If I knew how to link to it, I would . . . .

Filed under: English class stories, Prayer Requests

Recent insight – “This is My blood”

10.06.04 At the end of II Samuel the writer appends little vignettes about David’s mighty men. In one of these, David, prevented from being in Bethlehem by yet another war with the Philistines, longs for a drink from a well there, and three of his men, for love of him, risk their lives behind enemy lines to bring him water from that very well. Which David pours out as an offering to the Lord, saying (Biblegateway.com) “Shall I drink the blood of these men?” And I thought of other blood that we drink – the blood of Jesus which we drink at each Lord’s supper. I was taught transubstantiation of the elements as a child (I recall the pastor saying, “Is is is and always is is” in reference to “This is my blood”) and have always wondered about this. But today it made sense that what Jesus was saying was that only because of His death were we able to partake of the Lord’s supper. He was, after all, always looking forward to and teaching about His death. David’s mighty men risked their lives, Jesus gave His. To sit at His table is, in this way, truly to drink His blood.

Filed under: Recent insight

Major changes – back to school?

Please pray with me as I consider whether God is calling me to go back to the school full-time next year.

A bit of background:
“The school” refers to CCSI, Covenant Community School International, the school where the missionary kids on the team, as well as other kids, are educated. CCSI provides an education based in a Christian world and life view. There are two tracks: students can study in Japanese from K-6, or in English from K-12. The Japanese track follows the Japanese school calendar, with school starting in April and going until March. The English track follows the American calendar, with school starting in September and going through June.

The English track is currently in a crisis because there are no teachers coming for next school year. This school year was cobbled together, for example, I was the third math teacher for the class I took over in January. I teach the class twice a week, on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, and, in a similar vein, most of the teachers come and go as I do, being involved in other ministry. Good for us, but not so good for the kids, who are left a bit like orphans during the day, with only the gifted, but overworked, acting headmistress there throughout the day.

Carol Iverson returns in the fall to resume being headmistress. (I have even been asked to do that, but I completely lack the administrative skills necessary for that position!) If I were to teach full-time that would give some stability to the students in the English track, and therefore to the school as a whole.

This would mean that I would leave my English outreach classes at Kokubunjidai Christian Center! It is a good time for the congregation there (Forest of Grace Christian Church) to decide whether or not to continue the English program, and if so, we would have to look to God to raise up someone very quickly! I am most upset at the thought of leaving my kids classes, but they require the most preparation, and I would only be asking to suffocate myself with an impossible schedule to keep them while being at the school full time.

So, it is a heart-wrenching decision! I am greatly committed to both ministries. At Kokubunjidai I have the privilege of sowing BIble seed in people’s hearts week by week. At CCSI I would have the privilege of supporting the work of the whole team by making a school possible for the children, as well as sharing the life lessons I have learned about God and the Bible with the students on a daily basis as we live our lives together.

So please pray with me about this!

Also, if you know of anyone whom you might challenge to consider teaching in Japan for a year, please do so. It’s not farfetched that God could use you in this way in another’s life. I am only seriously considering CCSI for next year because I have heard from several different people about the need, and their opinion that I could fill that need. You might not be the first, much less the only voice in that person’s life.

And – could that person be you, yourself? Are you a teacher? Classroom or ESL? What actually stands in the way of you coming to Japan for a year? How might that barrier be surmounted? Are you not a teacher? Could you not be an aide, working with the teachers, being there for the students, pouring your life into theirs? Please consider coming! We need you!

Filed under: Prayer Requests

Precious insight – like a root out of dry ground

09.12.17 I was listening to a sermon about Sarah’s laughter, and thinking about how God designed a miracle birth from her many years of childlessness. That miracle child, Isaac, was the first child born into God’s covenant people, who would become the Jews. Since I was on my way to a Christmas party, I was also thinking of the miracle of Jesus’ birth! Two miracle births, and then I thought of Is. 53:2 “For he grew up before him… like a root out of dry ground.” I have always heard that this describes Mary’s virginity – but “dry ground” for a virgin? It didn’t seem to fit. But today I thought – the dry ground child was Isaac! Isaac grew up out of dry ground – a 90 year old woman – that’s dryness! And Isaiah is referring to the miracle birth that he knew – Isaac’s, and prophesying that the birth of the Messiah – who we now know is Jesus – would be a miracle “like” the birth of the first of the covenant people.

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Just in time

I got back to Japan just in time! I missed the cherry blossoms but just after I got back they started to flood the rice fields. This is my favorite thing in the whole year. The newly flooded fields look like reflecting pools, and do for the landscape what mirrors do for a room, add depth and brightness, even at night, perhaps especially at night with the reflected light. The narrow road that cuts through the rice fields, that brings me home, is transformed into a bridge over exotic waters during this time, and I can imagine that I live in the “Venice” of Japan. . .

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Shouting in the dessert! Burning up chefs!

We’re reading the “Story of Jesus in Luke” this year for Bible time. This week we were in Luke 3, the story of John the Baptist. As they read in English, over and over in the adult classes I heard about “the voice of one shouting in the dessert.” But I must admit I could almost not keep my cool when one student topped that off with “and he will burn up the chef with a fire that never goes out.” I had to assume it was the dessert chef . . . .

In the meantime, they had already told me that the substitute teacher had been very strict, and they “really learned a rot!”

See what you are missing by not teaching English in Japan?

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