I get myself in trouble sometimes. Maybe you do this too... You think about something you're supposed to do. Get the stuff together that you need to do it, think through your angle of approach... and then tick it off your mental list of Things To Do. Without actually ever having done it. And then you get the phone call, email, or your kid bugging you, whatever. After a bit of confused mental protest ("I know I did that!") you realize that you're all plans and no action. I'd blame it on age, but I think I've been doing it all my life :-)

So here it is March 1, and at church we've been using our new hymnbooks for a full two months now! Want to say a special "Thank you" to those of you who helped purchase these for the church.

The hymnals are nice -- full of the old traditional standbys along with a good dose of more recent melodies and worship songs. Anybody up for a chorus of "Amazing Grace?!"

We just got word today that an old friend from church died in a traffic accident this past Sunday. Mr. and Mrs. Ozaki were part of Kotake Bible Church since it's beginning days. They retired to a small town a few years ago. Mrs. Ozaki was out walking on Sunday and was hit by a 35 year old man riding a motorcycle. She was taken to a local hospital, but had already died. Not a lot of details, but if you read Japanese there is a brief news article here. (Jan 14, 2010 Update: This link no longer works; apparently the news site keeps stories up for only a month.)

Mr. Ozaki called our church today, to tell Pastor Hojo the news. Understandably it's been a hectic week for him. The church they attend now has already held her funeral. Pastor Hojo says he sounded depressed and tired. I'm sure he would appreciate your prayers; may the Lord be his comfort in these difficult days.




Mr. and Mrs. Ozaki, from a group photo at church.

Our church, Kotake Cho Bible Church, is a typical small Japanese church. About 20 people most Sundays. We all eat lunch together afterward, and this week I was chatting with the fellow next to me, a guy in his mid-70's I'd guess.

"Well, tomorrow's the big anniversary," he suddenly says. Huh? What anniversary? "Pearl Harbor." Oh, yeah! We'd been talking about Christmas and the kids' party we're going to do -- hadn't even entered my head. "That was quite a day. It completely shocked everyone in the country." Were you old enough to realize what was going on? "Sure, it was huge news. All us kids were running around being crazy, talking about how we were going to beat up all the Americans. But the grownups all seemed subdued. Well, not everyone - my teacher was all excited, getting us all pumped up, saying how we would win this war. But my dad just shook his head over and over. He'd say, "This is wrong. It's dumb. What in the world did we attack the Americans for? Now they're our enemies and we're having a hard enough time with the war in China. What are they thinking about?"

"And over night, you couldn't listen to jazz any more. It was outlawed. But jazz was really, really popular at that time. Some college kids would sneak into basement clubs on the fringes of Ginza. The plainclothes police went in and busted them, hauled them off to jail. That's ridiculous."

Then he wanted to know if the US soldiers, then and now, get a salary. Sure, it's not a lot, but they get paid. "The Japanese soldiers didn't get any salary. They got a little pocket money - only enough to go get a couple drinks on their day off. No money to send home. It was really tough on families. Your draft number would come up, the military police would come to your door -- "Congratulations! Your father/husband has been selected to serve the nation and the Emperor. They had to bow and scrape, acting like they'd just gotten some great honor, but on the inside they were cursing the military. They took dad away, and suddenly the family has no income. Families were starving. The mothers really had to get tough. After the fathers were all taken, then they started coming back for the sons. And all these guys came home in little boxes, ash urns. The urns would come by train to the station and the families had to go pick them up. They'd walk home caring the boxes, crying, and there'd be a whole slew of us kids trailing behind. What a zoo."

One lady in the neighborhood had all three of her sons taken away on the same day. "She went kinda of crazy for awhile. You couldn't blame her." The guy sitting across the lunch table wanted to know if they came back in boxes too. "No, actually that was the darnedest thing -- all three of her boys made it back alive. That never happened. It was like a miracle..." We were all quiet for a few seconds.

"War is hell," he said. Somebody came around with a pot of coffee, filling cups and talk drifted back to Christmas decorations and party treats...

With a tip o' the hat to Aretha Franklin, I gotta tell you I am respecting Aileen more than ever these days. And I'm so glad she was back at church this weekend.

As I've mentioned here before, our little church started up Sunday School again after at least a decade hiatus and Aileen and I are having fun working with it. Along with singing, a Bible story, praying and play time, Aileen has been doing an English corner with the kids, too. They eat it up.

Well, last week, TEAM sent her to Taiwan to help translate for meetings between folks from HQ in Wheaton, and Japanese missionaries. So on Sunday, I inherited the English corner!

Can you say, "disaster" boys and girls? Good, I knew you could!

Where Aileen has flawless kiddie control and has them eating out her hand, and having a ball doing it, I had said barely three words when this cherub-faced four year girl hollered, "I hate English!" and every single kid there took off running in different directions screaming at the top of their lungs. Managed to herd them back together for another attempt at a simple game using English, which merely disintegrated into more pandemonium. There was nothing to be done, but laugh. The other adult leaders were in stitches, the kids were bouncing off the walls. Time to admit defeat and chase them all outside to let them play for the rest of the time.

And there she was today, that same wild bunch of kids just putty in her hands, eatin' it all up and loving English. I am married to an amazing woman.

Can you say, "R-E-S-P-E-C-T" boys and girls? Good, I knew you could!

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?

Okay, so Aileen and I had forgotten how wound up 6 year old boys can get! It was like having Nic back in his prime. There were only three of 'em, but, wowee, the energy! And the noise! Running in circles, hollering at the top of their lungs, jumping and laughing. One of the girls kept up with 'em pretty well. The rest of the gang -- younger kindergardeners and one three year old -- looked on enviously, and tried to join in the fun, but were completely outclassed.

Fortunately they were able to rein it in when needed, and the Kids' Fair was a grand success. We had 12 kids; hoping for more but 12 is good. There was singing and stories and English Fun and Other Games. The guitarist in the pics is our pastor, and the story teller is his wife. The story was of the 99 and 1 sheep and the good shepherd.

Aileen did the English Fun time, teaching the kids numbers and fruit names, and then turning it into a big game with picture cards -- "Go find 3 watermelons!" The kids ate it up.

Finished off with other games. Everyone seemed to have lots of fun, and we're hoping it leads to some new kids in Sunday School!

Summer vacation for school kids is a lot shorter in Japan than the U.S. Kids are still in school, and will be until the end of the week. Then, finally, summer vacation starts -- the kids get 5 or 6 weeks off.

To help the kids celebrate, and do a little outreach, our church is having a "Kids' Fair" for grade schoolers on Saturday. Bible stories, games, crafts and food. Like a one day VBS. We've done this in the past, attracting 20 or so kids. But we're hoping for a lot more this year. Not only is our Sunday School back up, which should help, but we've conquered a new PR avenue this year.

Japanese neighborhoods are organized around the local Shinto shrine. Every house is registered to a specific shrine, and every community has a Neighborhood Association -- a civic group that, also, is connected to the shrine. The civic groups are very active, organizing neighborhood clean up days, getting public notices out to all the homes, collecting dues, collecting gifts for approved charities, etc., etc. They also have bulletin boards scattered through the community, with official notices for the citizens. All very civic in nature in the minds of most folk, though quite colored by being associated with the Shinto shrine if you look at it objectively.

The bulletin boards would be a great place to advertise the "Kids' Fair" -- except that they are for civic announcements, not religious. We haven't been allowed to use them in the past. Well, our young pastor's wife decided it was time to try again, and went armed with fliers to the local officials. "We want to advertise our Kids' Fair on the community bulletin boards." "You can't, that's a church function -- religious, not civic." "But, the shrine advertises their festivals on the bulletin boards. That's the same, right?" "..." "Right?" "But the shrine priest doesn't like it when other religions advertise." "But these are community bulletin boards, and our church is part of the community." "..." "Right?" "Okay, you can put them up but if anyone complains we'll have to take them down."

A week later, they're still up. Pray the bulletins turn out to be effective advertising and that lots of kids come! Aileen and I will both be involved in the Fair.