Years ago when we lived in Gunma Hydi and I became friends with a Buddhist priest by the name of Asakawa. He is unique even among his peers and we found him to be unusually friendly and helpful. He is a musician in his own rite, specializing in a highly stylized genre of singing/chanting Buddhist sutras. He visited our church several times, even participating in worship… and he also was very interested in the gospel choir that practiced at our church.

When he got married in 2000 (at something like 50 years of age!) I was given the honor of speaking at the ceremony and thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to share a tidbit of Biblical wisdom regarding marriage from Genesis 2:25.

Since then Priest Asakawa and his wife have organized and hosted a monthly open forum on the topic of life and death. I was invited as a guest speaker back in 2003 and today I was once again given the opportunity to be the featured speaker.

Having lost both my parents during the past 2 years has given me much to think about and even led to some surprising discoveries. At today’s forum I talked about Christian perspectives on death and dying, American perspectives on death and dying, and then reflected on my own experience with the death of my parents. The forum was attended by about 50 people,  fewer than 10 of whom were Christians. And yet I was given complete freedom to share whatever I wanted. During the Q&A time it seemed that there were more questions about Christianity and the church than anything else.

Too often we fall into the trap of thinking it’s hard to talk freely with others about our faith. And we end up guilt tripping ourselves for been such “poor witnesses”. My hunch is that the perceived difficulty stems from our notion that we somehow have to create opportunities where people will eagerly want to hear what we have to say. In reality that’s a pretty manipulative perspective to begin with. But what encouraged me about today was the vivid reminder that in the context of friendship, mutual respect and mutual willingness to listen, incredibly opportunities really do present themselves in ways that frequently surprise me.

Take for example, the Japanese man in his  sixties (traditionally considered one of the hardest groups to reach with the Gospel) who says to me; “I’ve never been very religious, but the older I get the more I think about it. I’ve studied a bit about Buddhism and a bit about Christianity… but some how it’s not quite clicking. So please tell me, what is the best way to really get into the heart of Christianity?”

How would you respond???

The last couple of weeks have been full of year-end events at CAJ.

• A week ago Wednesday Miles and his classmates gave their senior comprehensive presentations, culminating a year long project. We all went to watch and Miles did quite well, and was selected as one of six recipients for the Joan Johnston Senior Comprehensives Award.
• Thursday night we attended the Co-curricular Awards Event and both Miles and Kendra received recognition for their participation in the varsity track and field team. Miles received a league all-star patch for winning the shot-put event and was selected as a co-recipient of the team MVP award. Kendra also received a league all-star patch for winning the discus event and was chosen as the Rookie of the Year.
• Friday night was the spring concert at CAJ and during the concert they announced some of athletic awards as well. Miles was very pleased to be selected as the Male Athlete of the Year and also received the Senior Medallion Award for lettering in three sports. Kendra sang in the choir and was also recognized as a three sport varsity athlete.
• Saturday was the Middle School year end picnic, which was a time for fun, games and food; hosted by the parents of the graduating 8th grade class. (Eli’s class)
• The following Tuesday was the Middle School Graduation; which is always a lot of fun since those “almost high schoolers” love to show off just how grown up they’ve become! Eli didn’t have to do much in that regard, as he was standing head and shoulders above most of his classmates as they received their diplomas and stood on the risers.
• Thursday was the Senior Banquet. This event is sponsored by the parents of the graduating seniors and is a formal dinner/party. This year it was held at a nice restaurant on the 58th floor of a high rise building in Ikebukuro. I volunteered to be the event photographer and set up a small studio on-site, which proved to be quite a hit.
• Finally on Friday the culminating event; the High School Graduation. Miles and his classmates donned their gowns and mortarboards and tried to keep their tassels on the right side until the special moment. Miles was again recognized for a couple of awards. First was the Career Knights Roll of Honor award for being on the honor roll every semester of his high school career. And the big award for Miles this night was the Fitzgerald Career Athletic Award.
• And although it seems like it should have been over by then, there was one more event for the graduating seniors. Immediately following the graduation reception on Friday night they all piled into several vans, one of which was driven by Hydi and drove out to the coast in Chiba to watch their first post-high school sunrise together. By the time they got home around noon on Saturday everyone was pretty beat! But that didn’t stop Miles and his friends from hopping on the train and going over to ASIJ to attend graduation there as well, watching several of their friends receive diplomas.

These are days that we will always remember. They are milestone events in the lives of our children, particularly Miles. We feel blessed and are thankful; and I am particularly glad that we can close this chapter and go on to the next with so much celebration.

Celebrating with Miles

The festival concluded today, and for us it was a rushed morning followed by yet another surprise.
At the morning worship service the liturgy was led by the eclectic and highly acclaimed John Bell, who was supposed to have been here all week but ending up being delayed until Thursday evening due to another cloud of volcanic ash that shut down the London airport. Then the sermon was given by Bishop William Willimon, whom we interviewed yesterday. He preached a Pentecost sermon from Acts entitled Inebriated Homiletics. He talked about why so many people depend on alcohol to get thru the difficult parts of life. In one anecdote he recounted asking a senior clergy how to go about preparing seminarians for a more meaningful practice of the Eucharist, to which the senior clergy replied;
“Start with cooking classes.”
“Why on earth would you do that?” exclaimed the young Willimon.
“How else will they ever understand what it means to prepare a table and serve a meal.” he responded. “And then offer lessons in bar tending.”
“You’ve got to be kidding!” says Willimon incredulously.
“Wasn’t that what Jesus was doing in preparing the cup and passing it around?”
“But you can’t be serious.” objects Willimon. “People get drunk in bars.”
“Uh huh… and how do people act when they get drunk?”
“Well, that depends on the person.”
“Go on.”
“Some people get all friendly and gregarious, putting their arms around everyone; and then they start singing.”
“Yes”
“But others get all quiet and drawn into themselves, pensive like.”
“Yes”
“And then others get abrasive and belligerent, ready to pick a fight.”
“Aren’t those exactly the things you would hope for in your church when the Spirit is as work?” responded the senior clergy and young Willimon finally got it.

Being a Christian is actually harder than just living life normally. So for all the same reasons that many people look to chemicals for the help they need, we who follow Christ are also desperately in need of some help. We simply make it on our own.

When the apostles were filled with the Spirit on Pentecost and began speaking boldly in foreign languages the people thought they were drunk. Peter responded, “No, we’re not drunk. It’s only 9AM. Of course we’re not drunk!”
Ya, well Peter lied!
End of sermon…

How’s that for a conclusion that catches you off guard?
We had an airport shuttle to catch and so we slipped out right after the sermon and ran up the hill to the hotel three blocks away and got there just in time to catch the shuttle and totally out of breath. We made good time getting to the airport and were pleased to find no lines at the check in counter. We were scheduled to leave at 11:45AM for a flight to Detroit, where we would catch the homebound flight to Narita… except, the flight to Detroit was delayed more than an hour. The ground crew at check in looked thru the entire flight schedule with every rerouting option she could think of, and then began checking alternate airlines. Alas, ours was the last flight to Narita from anywhere and there simply were no options but to wait a day. We had our choice of spending the night in Los Angeles or here in Nashville so we chose the latter and glumly gathered our luggage and headed to the hotel shuttle stop. The driver was a cheerful sort who beamed a smile and said, “Welcome to Nashville!”… I wasn’t quite sure how to respond, but fortunately he hardly gave us a chance as he basically shared his entire life story with us during the 10 minute drive back to the hotel. (Why are Americans so weird like that anyway…)

Well, the good part is that Delta Airlines put us up in a really nice hotel… much nicer than the one we actually paid for and stayed at for the past 4 days. And they even gave us 3 meal vouchers redeemable at any vendor. Imagine that! I guess the only glitch is that each meal voucher is good for up to, get this.., $6! Our light lunch at the hotel restaurant pretty much used up our entire voucher budget. Oh well, I guess I shouldn’t complain about everything. Actually the delay is not nearly as much trouble for me as it is for Pastor Hirano. He was scheduled to preach on Sunday, which of course is Pentecost Sunday. And they are receiving two new members into their congregation during the worship service as well. So it was his recently hired, very young and inexperienced associate pastor who got the dreaded phone call at around midnight on Friday Tokyo time, telling him of his sudden change in duties for Sunday morning. As much trouble as it is, Pastor Hirano appeared to have a distinct smirk on his face as he made the tough phone call…

Thanks for following my reports from the Festival of Homiletics. I highly recommend it for any of you who are preachers or interested in preaching. Next year it will be in Minneapolis. Go to goodpreacher.com to learn more.

Today was the last full day of the Festival.

In the morning worship we heard a sermon by Michael Curry, Anglican Bishop of North Carolina. He delivered a lively sermon steeped in the traditions of African American preaching, reminding us that our primary message to the world is that “There Is Another Way”.

He was followed by a lecture from Lillian Daniel, a well known author and teacher of homiletics and current senior minister of the First Congregational Church of Glen Ellyn. She talked about her highly acclaimed efforts to get mainline Christians to become for comfortable with the notion of talking to others about their personal faith; a practice that has largely fallen by the wayside in mainline and liberal churches. As a Covenanter I sort of felt like the proverbial choir to whom the preacher was preaching, but it was a good reminder of just how important our long held emphasis on personal testimony really is.

In the afternoon pastor Hirano and I had the privilege of interviewing William Willimon, a Methodist Bishop and very well known writer of numerous volumes about preaching. In particular his notion of resident aliens speaks powerfully to the Japanese church. He contends that as the myth of a Christian nation is quickly eroding in the U.S., it is essential for Christians to recognize that following Christ in any culture essentially renders us as resident aliens, following a path that puts us in sharp distinction with society at large. Pastor Hirano has already translated at least two of his books into Japanese and is currently working on another one. Look for the interview in print in the Japanese magazine Ministry in the coming months.

The evening program was entitled “Songwriters and Theologians in the Round” and featured musical performances by four outstanding musicians (Ashley Cleveland, Beth Nielsen Chapman, Marcus Hummon and Mike Reid) and comments from four theologians (Margaret Aymer, Anthony Bailey, Claudio Carvalhaes and Amy Jill Levine) about the lyrics. It is a somewhat novel format, and yet makes all the sense in the world given the numerous commonalities between musicians and preachers. They are both public communicators, they both are poetic in their use of words, and they both seek to speak to the hearts of their listeners. Oh, and by the way, the music was profoundly moving.

Tomorrow morning we will hopefully catch the morning worship featuring William Willimon as preacher and then head for the airport and the long journey back to Tokyo.

By the way, photos of the festival can be seen at the following link.
Photos

Today was another full day in Nashville.

During the morning worship time we received an incredibly funny and deeply moving sermon from Craig Barnes, entitled “Preaching to the Rabble”. In Numbers 11:4 we read of the rabble who never stopped complaining and continually brought the wrath of God upon the people. Dr. Barnes reflected on how we seem to encounter the rabble in every congregation we serve; those who continually complain and make our work so much more challenging.

God provided manna for the people, and the literal meaning of the word “manna” is, “What is it?” Every day they ate “What is it?” When the children looked at yet another meal in which mother had tried her best to work it into something tasty they probably stared at their plates and asked, “What is it?”; to which mother’s only reply was, “yes!”

But more significantly we are reminded that God’s people were nurtured with a question; “What is it?” We too need to start every day with a similar question; “What is it… that you are doing, Jesus?” That question will nurture us and get us through the day. Unfortunately the rabble didn’t like eating “What is it?” Their preferred questions always began with, “What if…”. What if we could go back to Egypt? What if we could get out of this wilderness? What if we could eat meat? The problem is that “What if…” questions only refer to the past or the future. But God’s gift of manna could only be found in the present; one day at a time.

When frustrated by the rabble who always want to ask “What if…” questions, it’s tempting for us pastors to think it is our job to get these people to the promised land. But it isn’t! Our job is to love them along the way, just like Moses continued to love the rabble and intercede on their behalf when God’s anger was kindled. But we are free… free to simply walk away from our vocation any time we want. Our daily manna is found in the daily renewed question, “What is it you are doing, Jesus?” We live out our vocation by making the choice to ask that question in complete freedom every day. Because in truth, the most dangerous rabble isn’t in our congregations; it’s in our own heart. So we make the choice, knowing that God will honor our choice, what ever it is.

Let us never forget that at the end of the story Moses was separated from the people who had so often frustrated and discouraged him when they entered the Promised Land. And in spite of how he had so many times wished to be freed of the burden of being their leader… in the end, being separated from them did not make him as happy as he had thought it would! Amen.

Dr. Barnes’ sermon was followed by a lecture from the delightfully quirky Lauren Winner in which we were poignantly reminded that the connection between our personal spirituality and good preaching isn’t just a one way road. Of course a robust spiritual life reinforces good preaching, but the inverse is also very true. Preaching and the preparation of sermons can and should be a richly nurturing experience for the preacher in many ways.

After a break Craig Barnes lectured from the story of the prodigal son, reflecting on the challenges of preaching to congregations that are made up primarily of “elder brother” figures; i.e. those who have never really left the fold and have lived good, faithful lives. Reflecting on his own pastoral experience he helped us wrestle with the question of how to preach to elder brothers.

While the default answer may be to simply remind them that they too are lost in sin, as we all are, this tends to make for sermons that are not all that engaging because for the most part they already know that. There is something core to American spirituality that craves for this kind of message. After all, why is “Amazing Grace” the most loved hymn of all time? There is a craving amongst American Christians for tent revival meetings and the sawdust trail. It is at the very heart of our corporate spirituality.

But there is another approach that Barnes calls the “sacramental approach”. One of the trademarks of elder brother types is intense anxiety and fear. Even though everything may be going well in their successful and cautiously planned lives, they seem to be tormented by the fear that it just might all collapse. In the early church the sacred act of baptism served to remind new believers that the old self was crucified with Christ and subsequently new life in Christ was received. This symbolic act freed them from the fear of living under great persecution as potential martyrs. How can you fear death if you have already died?

Elder brothers are confused by the message of grace, because somewhere inside they believe they deserve it. And yet Jesus was often harder on those of little faith than the ones with no faith at all. Elder brothers are anxious and fearful, but no one can ever be talked out of fear. Only love can set us free from fear. So the preacher must repeatedly encourage the elder brothers to consciously choose love over anxiety. We can’t really choose how our lives will turn out; we can’t achieve it. For life is made up of the grace that unfolds before us. No one deserves to be loved, but we can choose to accept Christ’s love.

Ultimately it is harder to repent of being good than to repent of being bad. And at the end of the story in Luke 15 we never really find out if the elder brother actually made it into the loving arms of his father. But what we do know is that the father invited him to come in and celebrate. It is up to the elder brother to complete the story.

After lunch we received a sermon from the previous lecturer, Lauren Winner based on 1 Corinthians 13:1-13. While this may be the most often recited passage in the entire bible, even to the point of being trite and tacky, we were encouraged to reclaim this powerful passage of scripture. In the first 12 chapters of this letter Paul deals with a huge variety of problems and conflicts within the church. But in the 13th chapter he returns to the very core, stressing that practicing love is more important than anything else in the church and in our lives.

Paul uses the word “love” to describe the conditions under which we flourish, and he does so with the strong desire for a specific outcome; that we be transformed. Ultimately, Paul speaks of love to describe the very being of Jesus. The sermon concluded with a powerful reading of the entire text, in which every instance of the word “love” was replaced with the name “Jesus”.

Our final learning moment for the day was a presentation by John McClure on parallels between the act of making music and that of making sermons. We were challenged to try some bold things in our sermon preparation. He spoke primarily in musical terms with lots of actual examples and focussed on the practice of doing covers, i.e. learning the licks of other great masters, the implementation of multiple voices to create harmony, and the practice of letting others create new mixes of your material. He will soon be releasing a new book that elucidates these concepts and shows how they can be applied to sermon crafting.

This evening we were treated to an incredible musical performance by guitar legend and virtuoso, Tommy Emmanuel. Words cannot describe what he does with his instrument! Listen for yourself and hear the wonder!

Stay tuned for day 4!

Day 2 (Tuesday, May 18th) began with a sermon by yesterday’s lecturer, Anna Carter Florence. Her text was the troublesome Matthew 15:21-28 text in which Jesus essentially uses a racial slur, calling the Canaanite woman a dog. She poked fun at our inherent tendency to try and explain away the offensiveness of Jesus’ words and thereby somehow protect Jesus from his own story, as if he somehow needs our help and isn’t capable of saving the world all by himself. Then she challenged us to fight that temptation and just let Jesus take care of things and save the world by himself. Then, drawing heavily from Mary Oliver’s book, A Poetry Handbook, she encouraged us to view and hear the story like a poet. Because the point of poetry is to use words to break open new possibilities. And Jesus’ insult is little more than a cliche, and everyone knows that cliches don’t make for good poetry because they are old, familiar and don’t break open any new possibilities. But the true poetry in this encounter is in the response of the woman. There were many ways she could have responded. She could have silently and nobly endured the insult, she could have refuted the insult, she could have responded in like and insulted Jesus, or even fought back more violently, as we so often do. But her response is entirely different, and catches us completely off guard. “Yes Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” And THAT is POETRY because it truly opens up new possibilities. And that is why Jesus’ response is in essence; “Wow!” And in all likelihood Jesus never forgot that moment as he went on healing people and sharing the bread of life. In fact he probably did so with renewed zest, intent on letting the crumbs fly far and wide after that encounter.

Do we preachers really think the world is waiting to hear our poetry? Or perhaps, just perhaps, our work is to make the crumbs fly!

Next up was a lecture by Thomas Long, author of many books including Preaching as a Witness, the most widely used and loved preaching text book in the world. He spoke about Ecclesiastes, encouraging us to include it in our preaching schedules. Tom described how things have changed in society and people no longer intuitively know what is right and how we should live as disciples of Christ is this world. This has led to a renewed interest in texts of moral guidance, or something that we might call “wisdom literature”. This includes the beatitudes and many Pauline passages as well as James. But when dealing with this so called wisdom literature, we also need to remember the importance of  ”counter wisdom” that says, “yes, but…!” This is because conventional scriptural wisdom sometimes collapses in the face of innocent suffering. Why to the wicked prosper while the just and righteous are left to suffer?

Ecclesiastes is full of counter wisdom. And even within Ecclesiastes there is an ongoing argument between wisdom and the “yes, but…!” claims of counter wisdom. The good news is that in the end the preacher in Ecclesiastes doesn’t revert to cynicism as is sometimes read into the text. Instead, he commits to the chaos of life, confident that God is also committed to the chaos of life.

Thomas Long was followed by Barbara Lundblad, who encouraged us to give more attention to the Holy Spirit of Pentecost than just one Sunday of the year, just as we do with Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter. She drew our attention to numerous passages in scripture where we are commanded to both “remember” and “forget”. For it is thru our remembering the acts of God that we are sustained, and yet it is only when we allow ourselves to forget the past and be freed of it that we open ourselves to the new and enlivening work of the Holy Spirit.

After lunch Thomas Long came back and preached from Luke 2:25-38. He drew a vivid picture of all the old people in this story; namely Simeon, followed by Anna, and both preceded by Zechariah and Elizabeth. Interestingly all the old people in Luke’s gospel are confined to the first 2 chapters and then are replaced by characters mostly in their twenties and thirties! He went on to describe the difference between “standing up for the faith” which is the default mode of young people, and “leaning forward, into the faith and letting go”, which is what the old people did. Most significantly, standing up for the faith requires you to believe you are right. Leaning forward, into the faith requires you to believe that there is a God! It was the old people who did the latter, and on Easter morning everything they had hoped for and believed on came to pass!

Following the sermon Rev. Hirano and I had the privilege of  interviewing Thomas Long for an article in new Japanese magazine for pastors called Ministry. Dr. Long was great and we thoroughly enjoyed our time with him. Look for the interview to be published in the upcoming fall or winter issue.

This was another very rich day!

Stay tuned for Day 3!

I am in Nashville this week, attending the 2010 Festival of Homiletics with a fellow pastor from Japan. I’ll be posting daily entries if I can keep up.

Day 1: Pastor Hirano and I started the day in Shinagawa at the monthly meeting of the sekkyo juku, a homiletical study group lead by Japan’s best known preacher and teacher of preaching, Tsuneaki Kato. We left at noon and headed for the airport. After a 12 hour flight to Atlanta and a 1 hour connection to Nashville we arrived just in time to get checked into our hotel, get registered and attend the opening session at 7:30PM. Yup, that was one very long day!

Music was provided by 3 time Grammy winner Ashley Cleveland and the incredible Beth Nielsen Chapman. If you don’t know them just google it! Also the 17 year old jazz sax phenom, Grace Kelly added to the celebration.

The preacher was Bishop Vashti Murphy McKenzie of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Preaching from Exodus 14:12 she challenged us to “speak truth to the powers”, noting that we are called to revolutionary preaching that challenges the status quo, because there is always “a Word from the Lord”! Amen!

The concluding event for the evening was a lecture by one of my former teachers, and well known homelitician, Anna Carter Florence. She fascinated us with her exegesis of the 5th chapter of Mark. Her inspiration came from a question that very few preachers ever ask of that text, but one that she repeatedly heard when reading with lay people. “Why do some people get to tell others about Jesus and others don’t?” In particular, why is Jairus prohibited from telling others about Jesus raising his daughter from the dead, while the Gerasene demoniac, the woman who was cured of a 12 year hemorrhage and the 12 year old daughter are not? After debunking the “Messianic secret” answer that most theologians would offer she went on to point out that it had to do with authority. The reason we preachers don’t like to ask that question is because we assume that we do have the authority to tell people about Jesus. Ouch!

In the case of the man formerly known as the Gerasene Demoniac, nobody would think of him as a prime choice for being a convincing evangelist, but never the less Jesus orders him to go home and tell his friends (as if he had any!) what happened simply because it was HIS story. Who else could tell it?

The case of the 12 year old girl was similar. She wasn’t exactly a prime candidate to be an evangelist either (a child, a female…) but if her father was allowed to tell the story she probably would never get the chance do so herself. And in the end, it was HER story!

As for the healed woman, all Jesus does is state a charge, a benediction, and thereby serves notice to the community. “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace and be healed of your disease.” And there is no question in anyone’s mind that she set about telling everyone about HER story; the whole story.

Mark’s point seems to be that the power to speak comes from the very middle of your life, where you have met Jesus. Anna suggested that we view these people as action figures that state their purpose with their very poses. We should view the “hemorrhaging woman figure” when we are doing our own hemorrhaging before we preach; i.e. during the sermon preparation process. Then remember the “healed demoniac figure” as we preach, reminding ourselves that if anyone is going to believe the gospel we proclaim, it certainly isn’t because of who we are. Finally, we can take the “12 year old girl who died figure” and give it to those in our congregation on whom we’ve given up, thus letting them tell THEIR stories.

To say we received a lot to chew on in one evening is an enormous understatement!

Stay tuned for Day 2.

Every three years we have to renew our visa in order to be allowed to remain in Japan legally. The stamp in Hydi and all three kids’ passports says their current period of stay expires today, March 31st 2010. So last weekend I downloaded the forms and began filling them out. Monday morning I took the whole stack with me and got to the closest immigration office around 9:15AM. It was already crowded and I noted that there were some 15 or 20 people ahead of me as I took my number from the little machine.

I asked one of the agents about my paperwork and he said I needed a few more forms so I found those and spent the next 30 minutes filling them out. Finally they called my number and when I tried to turn everything in they said Hydi needed to be there in person. I asked if I could just turn in the kids’ stuff and the guy recommended that I do it all at the same time. He also told me I needed to get a couple more forms from our local city office proving I had paid taxes etc.

I quickly drove back home, called Hydi and agreed to meet her as soon as she finished teaching, and then went to the city hall. It took a while to get the first form and then I went up to the tax division and we discovered that since we have been in the U.S. last year there were no taxes paid. I promptly called the immigration office to ask for direction, only to get the recording saying they were now on lunch break! Grrrr…

I went out to eat lunch and came back, calling again promptly at 1PM. The first 10 or 15 times it was busy. Then I finally got thru, only to get a long recording of options that didn’t apply to me, and finally a short message saying the lines were really busy at the moment so please call back later… click… dial tone. Grrr…

I listened to that message numerous times and finally found a number for the central Tokyo office of immigration and got thru to someone who told me what to do. That involved getting a couple of documents from city office and then going home to get a couple more forms from previous tax filings. By then it was time to pick up Hydi so we headed back to the immigration office.

Traffic was bad and it took nearly an hour to get there. When we did the line was really long… something like 70 people in front of us. We settled in for the long wait and after an hour or more they finally called our number. The guy looked over our documents and asked; “Why aren’t your kids here?”… Turns out any kid over 16 is required to be there in person. I apologized and tried to look sad… he was in a nice mood and decided to process the stuff for us anyway, with a stern reminder to bring the kids next time. He also gave me one more form for Hydi and an envelope to mail it back when we get it filled out.

So finally we headed home with the task partially completed and it was well after 6 when we arrived to find 3 hungry kids.

It’s tempting to get angry or frustrated by all the red tape. Then again I guess there are a few things to be thankful for. In comparison to stories we hear from other missionaries in other parts of the world we are probably pretty fortunate.

• In 17 years of missionary work in Japan I have never once had to pay a bride to anyone.
• The government actually gives us their blessing to openly and freely do our work, with a “religious work” visa.
• As long as we don’t break the law, we are pretty much guaranteed that we can renew this visa as many times as we like.
• Even though the system is complicated and the rules very particular, it all works! If you do everything like you’re told, it is always possible to get things done the way they are supposed to be done.
• Last week Hydi was in Manila for an educators’ conference at the International School. Security is a big issue in the Philippines and there were armed guards everywhere. The school alone has something like 50 or 60 armed guards in its employ. Our kids’ school has ZERO armed guards. Actually I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen an armed guard in Japan other than the guys who collect money from banks and ATMs.
• Japan is a safe, clean, friendly and convenient place to live.

Bureaucracy can be frustrating, but if it means having an infrastructure that works I guess we don’t have much to complain about. No, actually I’d have to say we are pretty blessed!

Over the years our family has been quite fortunate when it comes to sickness and injuries. But you wouldn’t know it from the past couple of months. Kendra started coughing around Christmas and is just getting over it now… She’s been to the doctor more than once and we still aren’t entirely sure what it was.

But lingering coughs are really quite undramatic and make poor fodder for blogs. Let’s try something a tad more exciting… New Years Eve up in the mountains. Eli get’s invited to go to the slopes with his friend for a day of snowboarding but declines for some unknown reason. Later in the day we head out to the little golf course right by our cabin and he decides to take a few shots at the jumps he and his friends designed earlier in the week. The snow is starting to fall really hard but no-one is worried. That is until Eli finds himself practically blinded without goggles and unprepared when he hits the jump ramp. Long story short he pretty much does a face plant… which would be okay if it weren’t for that left arm he stuck out at the last second trying to break the fall. Ouch!!! So we start calling local hospitals and find the one that actually has a doctor on duty on December 31st. Predictably it’s the hospital closest to the ski slopes. We put chains on all four wheels and head out into the blizzard. A couple of x-rays later we get the news; fractured radius, near the wrist… The conclusion of this story is that Eli had a cast on for about 2 weeks (only half as long as the first doctor recommended) and missed a couple of basketball games but was back in action exactly 1 month after the injury and helped lead his team to an undefeated season!

Skip ahead to February 13th, the night before Miles and his team head to the Far East basketball tournament. They had a record of 22-1 at that point and were considered one of the favorites to win the whole tournament. They were the first CAJ team to be undefeated in league play since 1973! February 13 was a warm-up game against Faith Academy. But early in the first quarter Miles came down on his left ankle and went straight to the bench and a bucket of ice. By the time the game was over his ankle was swollen badly and he went home on crutches. We were all heartbroken but prayed with him that night for healing. His team played without him in the first 3 games of the tournament which was okay since it was just pool play; and they actually did pretty well, winning the first two. But losing the 3rd one put them in a 3-way tie in their pool and score differentials saw them placed 3rd. That was unfortunate because it meant they had to play the only team that had beaten them prior to the tournament, and subsequently the other favorite to win the whole thing, in the very first round. In other words the two best teams had to play each other in the first round of the main bracket, meaning who ever lost wouldn’t make it to the finals. Miles played on a heavily taped ankle with lots of pain killer and actually had a great game with 21 points and 17 rebounds but they came up just a few points short. Such a heartbreaker! They went on to win all their other games and took 5th place. The team that beat them went on to win the tournament. Miles’ ankle is almost completely better!

And you thought that was all? Nope! Amidst all the drama of Miles’ team, Kendra was also playing at the girls’ Far East tournament at a different location. Her team wasn’t really in the running but it was a great tournament for Kendra as she earned a starting position for the last several games. Then it happened! Second to the last game, I was busy taking photos until I looked up for a second and saw Kendra writhing on the floor in pain. It turned out to be yet another sprained Peterson ankle! grrrrr… She was done for the day and had to sit out the following day as well. Her team missed her and they lost that game. Well, the good news is her ankle is healing nicely as well.

It’s hard to watch your own kids get hurt. Even harder to see the injuries affect their goals and dreams. But one thing is for sure: the human body and its ability to heal itself is a wonderful thing.

Followers of Jesus probably end up turning off others when we talk too much about being the “body of Christ”. After all, it does sound a bit presumptuous at best… Nevertheless, it’s a pretty central part of our identity, both corporate and individual, and one that comes back to bite us when it gets ignored.

On February 11th the Covenant Denomination of Japan (NSKK) held its annual business meeting. Pastors and lay delegates from twenty-some NSKK churches gathered to do the business of an organization like ours. The agenda included reports from the various arms and legs, hands and feet of this body, and plans for the coming year. It sounds like a lot of busy-ness, and I guess it is. But lest we forget how important all of this stuff really is, the organizers have done a great job of inserting several excellent reminders into the program.

1. The entire program was designed in the general form of a worship service. We began with songs of praise and had several times of prayer throughout. There was also the reading of God’s Word, a time of thanksgiving as we celebrated those who joined the body thru baptism during the previous year, and in closing we celebrated the Lord’s Supper together. It’s good to be reminded that everything we do, whether in business meetings, in worship services, in the classroom or on the streets, is ultimately meant to give praise and bring glory to God.

2. The morning session featured a guest speaker, Pastor Nakamura who is the director of the Niigata Bible Institute. He gave us fascinating insights about the huge difference between Korea and Japan’s response to Christianity. Lots of great food for thought!

3. During reports we welcomed a new co-worker, Paula Chen, who is a missionary sent to Japan by the Taiwan Covenant Church, to work with the NSKK. We also recognized and said farewell to Ronna Husby, who together with her husband Dave, has lived and served as a Covenant missionary in Japan since 1983 and will be leaving this summer. Dave has taken on a new position as director of Covenant World Relief.

4. In another report we heard of the ongoing struggle to procure visas from US Immigration for Pastor Miyamoto and his wife, who are planning to go to the greater Detroit area to serve with the Three C’s Covenant Church in Novi, MI. And here we thought getting missionaries into unnamed countries in central Asia was hard!

5. During our business session we approved plans for the Saginuma Covenant Church to purchase land and a building. They have been renting space on the second floor of an apartment building for years and years but realize that being “up in a building” limits the impact they can have on their community.

In the end I came away feeling blessed. Taking care of the body is really important, but some parts of the task don’t necessarily have the glitter or sparkle that others do. The same goes for personal body care doesn’t it… sleeping, eating, exercising, studying… it’s all part of staying healthy. So when I can come away from a business meeting feeling blessed and encouraged… what more could I ask for!