The old man is me. 'Old' may be an exaggeration. The young'uns on the TV crew think I'm some kind of walking historical artifact just because I can remember a time when VCRs didn't exist. But to me, old means remembering a time when TV didn't exist!

But no doubt I am getting older, and I find that the older I get the easier I emote. Is that part of aging?

We had a guest speaker in church today, Rev. Okamura. Spent his career serving in TEAM churches. He talked about how the Church is a family, and a place for families to get saved. When he took his church over from a missionary, the verse from Acts, "Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you and your family will be saved" was written on the church sign. He liked that, so he got in the habit of making it part of the benediction and had the congregation repeat the verse each week.

Years went by. One Sunday after everyone else had left, a housewife came to talk to him.
     "Pastor, it's no good. I'm hopeless. I'm going to quit coming to church."
     "Now, why is that?"
     "It's been 20 years since I got saved, and 20 years I've been saying that verse about your family getting saved. But I'm still the only believer in my home. My husband and daughter want nothing to do with Christianity. I'm ready to give up."
     "You know, that's not just something painted on our sign. That's a promise from God Himself! Let's pray for your family and for you to believe God's promise."

Rev. Okamura continued the story, relating how the daughter moved and made new friends who were believers, and it wasn't long before she believed, too. But the husband was another story. The housewife had bad arthritis, so he would drive her to church -- but would always make a quick getaway before the pastor could say two words to him. The arthritis got bad enough that she was housebound, so Rev. Okamura and his wife would often go to her home to visit. Her husband would make tea, bring into the three of them and then run away to another part of the house. After many visits, "I was finally able to get him to sit down and chat a bit. Now he knew me a little, and couldn't run away anymore! We kept visiting, chatting about all kinds of things, but always making sure he was there when we read the Bible and prayed for his wife's health."

In time, the housewife got better and was attending church again. But her husband fell seriously ill, and was in intensive care for 6 weeks. Finally he was out of intensive care and the doctor said he could have visitors. "I want to see your pastor," he told his wife.

     "I have three requests," he told the pastor when he got there.
     "Okay, what are they?"
     "All these years my wife has talked about going to heaven when she dies. I want to go to heaven too. Please tell me how I can do that. Next, when I die, please look after my wife. Finally, I want you to do my funeral."

So Rev. Okamura explained the gospel to him, explained how he could have his sins forgiven. He prayed, and still flat on his back in the hospital bed, tears were streaming down the sides of his face into the pillow. He kept repeating,'I'm so glad. It's so good.'"

Two days later, at the husband's request, the pastor came back to baptize him. And two days after that, he was gone. The pastor kept his promise to do his funeral and the church is looking after his wife.

As our speaker wrapped up the story, relating the wife's joy at seeing both her daughter and husband finally saved, it got hard to see for the tears welling up in my own eyes. I never used to cry. Am I turning into an old softie?

Or am I learning how precious it is when a Japanese family is saved?

One of PBA's interesting outreaches is their "Summer Camp." The word "camp" has not been brought over into Japanese very well -- there is nothing camp-like about it. It's held at a Bible Conference Center that's related to TEAM and located in a mountain resort town that became especially famous when Japan's current emperor courted his wife there many years ago. They played tennis together, setting off a huge tennis boom in Japan. Ah, but I digress...

The purpose of our 'camp' is to give seeking listeners and viewers a chance to come meet with Japanese Christians, listen to our radio pastors in person, and get counseling if they want it.

Unfortunately, while we often have about 200 people there, attendance was way down this year. Last year, we maxed out the facilities and had to turn down late applications. This year there were only about 60 folk. We'll have to try to figure out why that happened!

Still, there was a real good spirit at the camp, and it felt a lot more intimate than usual. It ran last Wednesday thru Friday, so I haven't heard about any results yet. In addition to messages from our radio pastors, we had a music group come and give a concert too. They were a lot of fun. They've taken a Japanese music style called 'Enka' and put gospel lyrics to it. Enka is strongly associated with bars and alcohol, and generally has themes that are like US blues -- my woman left me, the law is after me, farewell cruel world. But these guys have redeemed enka in the same way Martin Luther redeemed German drinking songs by turning them into hymns of the Reformation.

We taped the concert and the messages, so I was busy with the TV camera. The photos here were taken by another PBA staffer. When I get a chance, I'll put up a video of the group's music.

This coming week will be spent at TEAM Japan's Annual Conference. Messages and seminars in the morning, mission business sessions in the afternoons.

Setting up for the shoots...




Long shot of the concert...

Medium shot of the concert. That's me on the camera over at the left. Sorry, no close ups!