Aileen's extended family keeps quite an active email list going, with family members all around the globe chiming in regularly. At the end of last year, one of her cousins sent out a request to help compile a list of memory verses for the new year.

I do a fair amount of programming for both PBA and BJapan. There's a new web scripting language that I've been wanting to test, so when he sent out the list of verses to everyone, I made my first project with the scripting language a web-base Scripture Memory Calendar. Take a look at it here; any feedback appreciated!

Oh, and even if you're not part of the Seely/Crum/Ogden/Wilson clan, feel free to use the calendar to memorize verses this year :-)

No, we're not having a crisis of faith! LifeLine this week features J-pop singer/songwriter Jinnouchi Taizou. Jinnouchi-san is a recording artist who had several hits in his early career, as well as having penned a number of well-known jingles for TV commercials. He has just released his 11th album to commemorate the 20th anniversary of his debut. (Hmmm... 20 year anniversaries are all the rage this year.)

This link will take you to a YouTube clip of the song that he's probably most well-known for.

But he is also a pastor! He was a young man going to seminary when his music got noticed. He dropped out to pursue a career with a major label. As a middle-aged man, he went back to finish seminary and has been pastoring a church since 2007.

"Where is God" is the top track of the new CD. Here is a link to a page selling the CD, which will also let you listen to bits of it.

I did a quick translation of the lyrics

Where is God? Where is God?

I pray He is near to you in that pain
Beside you in that dark loneliness

What is Love? What is Love?

If you would just notice it and hope for it
It is the Hand that wants to block the blow
It is the Hand that wants to reach out
It is the Hand that wants to embrace

I sing my song, looking up to the blue sky
I sing my song, riding the rustling winds
Maybe God is here
If only you would listen
If only you would listen

He still performs in smaller venues, and we were able to tape one of his concerts. He's a very engaging speaker as well, and his interview and testimony were a lot of fun. The viewers seemed to think so, too. Here's a bit from one email that came in through our web site after the broadcast this morning:

I saw this program for the first time today. Jinnouchi-san's talk was really interesting. From listening to Jinnouchi-san's music before I've thought I ought to try going to church sometime, but now having watched this program, I'm really interested in going!

Our followup people will get him pointed in the right direction! (^ ^)

Click above video to play.

Another post precipitated by hard disk housekeeping... I found this recent video of the last official recording PBA's Rev. Akira Hatori. Rev. Hatori has been with PBA nearly since its beginning, serving as chairman and main radio pastor for decades. Over the years, other men have also come on board to make programs, and run PBA -- but it was Rev. Hatori who worked tirelessly travelling around Japan, building a network of churches that would reach out to their cities, towns and villages with gospel radio, and then TV. PBA is a successful ministry because it works with over 2,000 churches around the country, connecting broadcast listeners to local congregations. He is a man of prayer, and I believe has been anointed by the Lord. People respond to his preaching more than any other minister I know.

Rev. Hatori has been trying to retire for years, but the staff has begged him to stay on. But finally, it was time. I'm glad that as he was headed into the studio for the last time, the head of our radio department came running to get me -- "Tim, we have to get this on tape!" Hadn't thought that far ahead myself!

Also have some photos of Rev. Hatori and the TEAM missionaries from PBA's early days here.

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!

Growing up in the midwest, "cruising" had nothing to do with boats, and everything to doing with driving aimlessly around with your friends, preferably at night or the wee hours of the morning.

Well, ya' live long enough and anything can happen. Took my first cruise this past Monday, on the good ship "Bianca," and travelled hither and yon on Lake Biwa -- the largest lake in all Japan!

'Course, I didn't have Aileen with me, so that was a bummer. (She was with our church on its first ever retreat, which I missed.) And I wasn't there to kick up my heels and snooze on a deck chair in the summer sun. The rest of the TV crew and I were there to shoot a concert, interview and evangelistic message. LifeLine is broadcast in the Lake Biwa area, and the cruise was co-sponsored by PBA and the church group in Shiga Prefecture that sponsors the broadcast there.

The four of us got to the dock with two vans full of TV and PA gear at 6:30 in the morning to load into the boat, and at 9:30 p.m., finished packing the gear out of the boat and back into the vans.

And in between was a three ring circus!

The boat had three large meeting/conference rooms, and the churches created a program that used them to the max! We had professional accordion concerts, southern gospel choirs, a classic concert and a gospel singer solo concert. There were 5 or 6 Bible messages, a kids' program and a drama team. The place was hopping. One meeting in the morning, three in the afternoon, and two at night -- in each of the three rooms. So, that's like, what, 18 different events in one day?!

This was another of the LifeLine 20th anniversary "Thanks Giving" events. Down towards the middle of Japan, in an area called Kansai -- and the cultural differences from Tokyo were very evident. Much less uptight, "It'll work out!" "Hey, let's have fun!" -- a little more, well, America-like than I'm used to here in Tokyo. No one got seasick, the footage looks okay (I've been feeding it into the computers for editing this week.) and the audio was fine -- the engines weren't nearly as loud as I feared they might be.

And even amidst the three ring chaos, there were plenty of times to reflect on what God has done through 20 years LifeLine broadcasts. PTL.


The Bianca! (Not exactly the Queen Elizabeth, but, hey, it's a real live cruise ship!



The Skippers. No Gilligans on this crew -- made all ports on time and got back home safe and sound.


Boarding the Bianca. Stairs? No gang plank? I'm terribly disappointed....



The Bianca's rear deck. (Okay, I don't think it's really called a rear deck -- how about one of you nautical types leave a comment to straighten me out!)




Accordion Concert by Manabu Hiyama. Has studied in Italy, won all kinds of awards -- and played 4 concerts in one day on a cruise ship on Lake Biwa, Japan!



This guy was a mixed bag -- I think there were as many wee ones that ran away screaming in terror as there were who hung around to get a balloon!




LifeLine host, Rev. Hirooki Sekine, kicking off a meeting.



Rev. Murakami, PBA board chairman, bringing a message from the Word.


Gospel Choir



Evening Concert

This weekend's LifeLine TV program will be a lecture by English missionary Patrick McElligot (Spelling?? I've never seen his name written out in English, only Japanese!)

This lecture series was taped at a seminar sponsored by Family Forum Japan (FFJ), which is the Japan affiliate of Focus on the Family in the US. I've been on the board of this organization since it started over 10 years ago. We've had tremendous ups and downs, but the Lord has seen fit to keep us going this far. Less than a year ago, it looked like we were going to hit the financial brick wall at the proverbial 100 miles an hour... but God was gracious, and we stopped inches short of disaster, and have been slowly backing away from the wall.

Family issues are huge in Japan, and there are not nearly the resources available here as in the US -- secular, let alone Christian. FFJ has a good ministry -- very popular radio program in two prefectures, lots of resources, both translated from the US and original from Japanese authors, and a heavy schedule of speaking in churches, to school groups and more. But financing the work has been problematic, and our extremely dedicated staff work for embarrassingly low wages. Seems to be a recurring theme to ministry in Japan.

This broadcast of lecture series has been very well received. This will be the fourth program. Common Biblical themes for those of us in the Christian West, but really kind of radical, eye-opening stuff for Japan.

As a P.S. here, we'll be traveling some 10 hours away from Tokyo to tape a LifeLine 20th anniversary event this coming Monday -- a national holiday. The event will be on a cruise boat on Lake Biwa, Japan's biggest lake. Will be my first time on a cruise boat, and the first time (duh) to film on a cruise boat. It's going to be a full slate with gospel and classical concerts, kids' program, various speakers and more. I'm slightly worried about seasickness, but even more worried about recording decent audio -- how loud are the engines on a cruise boat?!

After more than 200 years of self imposed isolation from the rest of the world, American Commodore Matthew Perry's show of force opened the ports of Japan in the mid-1800's. In 1859 the first Protestant missionaries were officially sent to serve in Japan. This past week there was a big 2 day event in Yokohama, celebrating that anniversary.

In addition to the meetings, lots of organizations had PR booths, including PBA, and the Dendankyo I made the videos for.

I attended the meetings; lots of impressions that I will probably write about in the future here. But the day before the events began, I was eating lunch with a couple of other PBA staffers, talking about the anniversary and all. Missionaries are often discouraged by the relatively meager fruit of evangelism here, and relatively slow growth of Christianity in Japan. "150 years -- so long and so little progress made," I mused out loud. The other two, almost in unison, said, "What do you mean, 'so long'? Buddhism has been here for 1, 500 years. We evangelicals are just getting started!" Another cultural eye-opener. For us young Americans, 1859 feels like ancient history. For Japan, well, it was just the day before yesterday! Here's to the Protestant church in Japan -- congratulations on being 150 years young!

This week we have another musician as our guest on LifeLine. Tsutomu Aragaki had a very rough beginning in life. His father was a Mexican-American G.I. stationed in Okinawa after WWII, his mother is Japanese. Shortly after birth, thinking she was applying eye medicine, the midwife put a powerful salve in his eyes that left him blind. His G.I father divorced his mother and returned to the States, his mother re-married and left Tsutomu to be raised by his grandmother. He grew up thinking his grandmother was his mother; his world was rocked when the neighborhood gossip bluntly told him the truth.

Radio was one of his only joys in life, bringing him music and also Christian radio programs. (His passion for radio is still going strong, and when we went to tape him, he knew my voice right away from listening to the shortwave radio programs I did for PBA for many years!)

Radio led to his attending church, where he was encouraged to sing. To make a long story short, he finally studied voice at a prestigious music school and has become a very well known classical tenor in Japan. He also went to seminary and has pastored a church and is still working as an evangelist as well as singing professionally.

We taped him singing, and then taped an interview with him. His testimony was wide ranging, covering from the joy of finding purpose to his life in the Lord, to the struggle and then victory as a believer to forgive his father for leaving them. He says if he ever has a chance to meet his father again, he'd like to sing, "Amazing Grace" for him!

I don't have a video clip from LifeLine (I'm writing at home, not work) but found a short clip of him singing on YouTube:

The event on Saturday went quite well. At PBA we're celebrating LifeLine's 20th anniversary, but in Gunma Prefecture the local churches have been airing the program for 10 years -- so it was kind of a 10/20 celebration. The rally was held in Maebashi Christ Church, one of the larger, nicer churches I've ever visited in Japan. They even had a pipe organ!

Everyone seemed to like the meeting -- lots of speeches and greetings that are such a big deal here, as well as a short message, and then a concert by a gospel singer who's well known in Christian circles here. The video compilation went over well; got lots of compliments on it.

They also had a nice room for the art display, and had around 8 people to help unload, set up and then tear down when it was all over. The easiest event so far!

Then just this morning before going to church, I was reading the viewer response that comes in through our web page, and there was an email from a guy who just saw the program for the first time. He's a believer and was really excited to 'discover' the show, and he says he's going to tell everyone he knows to watch it. That's exactly how we hope believers and churches will make use of the program!

Here are a few pics from yesterday.

It's not the takes that take the time to take the takes, it's the time between the takes that really takes the time to take the takes.

This is a little saying that gets bandied about in production circles. The "takes," of course, are movie lingo - does that help it make more sense?

Shooting a scene of the hero walking down the alley takes twenty seconds. But setting up the camera, the lights, the props, rigging sound and rehearsals can take hours. Even in the kind of shooting we do, set up and break down can take far longer than the shoot itself. And most people have no idea of how long it takes to plan, shoot, edit and master a 30 minute TV program. And I have no idea, for example, how long it takes to, say, make a pair of shoes.

It was in college that I first became aware of how little we know about the time and effort it takes to create things outside our area of expertise. I was working part time in the school's graphic department, and the president walked in with a list of the school's administrators and said, "I need an organization chart of the administration for a meeting tonight," and left.

It became my job for the day. This was before computers; charts were hand drawn on a drafting table with indian ink, on special coated paper. Took all day. I kept wondering if the president had any idea how much time/money this simple little thing was costing the school.

I find myself musing on this once again tonight. Tomorrow, we're having a LifeLine 20th anniversary meeting. The sponsoring churches contacted us last week and said, we'd really like to show clips of all the LifeLines that feature guests from our prefecture, Gunma. Simple little email. That became one of my jobs this week.

Thirteen programs to load into the editing computer, editing 30 minutes down to 2 minutes for each, string 'em all together and burn a DVD. Loading and editing, a full two days. Double checking, correcting edits/titles and burning DVD -- from about 4 pm today until now, um, exactly 11:55 p.m. Two misfires on the DVD, which take a crazy long time to burn, third one's in the "oven." Let's hope third time's a charm. The computer says it'll be ready in a couple minutes.

Well, on the upside, it did give me time to write a post. Ooh, hey, the DVD just popped out. Need to give it a quick check and go to bed; hit the road at 8 tomorrow morning.

I'm sure they had no idea what they were asking for in terms of time needed to make this DVD. As I have no idea how much time and effort I've caused you. (Well, Mom, maybe except for you... kinda know how much grief I've caused you...)

For everyone else who has spent inordinate amounts of time on Aileen and I (and the kids), that we are totally unaware of, Thank You Very Much!

G'nite,