Today, August 15th, is Japan’s Obon (basically commemorated several days before and after this day, as well), which is when most Japanese will return to their hometowns in order to welcome back their ancestors’ spirits. Many homes will set out lanterns to help guide home their departed loved ones. It is, spiritually speaking, a dark time in this country, and often a challenging time for believers who must resist the desire to partake in the ceremonial ancestral worship.

Because this week is a holiday for most Japanese, we have meetings set up most days with Japanese friends who are returning to this area to visit family and friends. Today, we had a chance to meet with our friend Rikako and her two daughters. Their family lives in Tokyo, but her mother is in the Kobe area so they are down in our area for a week to visit.

I first met Rikako when I fly to Tokyo for a 4 hour visit expressly to see her this past spring! Rikako’s sister, Yumiko and her family, are special friends of ours from our church in Los Angeles. Yumiko had decided over spring break to fly to see her sister after Rikako was diagnosed for the second time with cancer. Rikako and her family were not believers, and Yumiko was especially worried as the prognosis for such returning cancer (now in her bones) is not too good.

More importantly than Yumiko and I meeting with Rikako for those four hours one day in April, GOD MET WITH US. And during that time, Rikako decided to follow Jesus. We all cried a lot, and it was clear that I was leaving my new friend with new hope.

Since that time, Rikako has been going to church when she can (her husband is still not a believer, and the heat has made her weaker than she had been). We have talked on the phone at different times, but it was such a treat to meet her today.

The woman I met today is a different person than she was four months ago. She has hope; she has joy. She is not afraid. When I asked her what it is like this year to go through the Obon holidays, she said it very different…now she is praying and singing praise songs throughout the day, and she just has a thankful heart. It was such a joy to be with her. Her two girls are beautiful, and they have enjoyed the chances to go with their mom to church on occasion as well as to pray together every night before bedtime. We are praying that God will continue to do great things in their family, and bring about complete healing.

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:6).
Ancestor worship…cancer…these things cannot smother the beauty and the radiance of the permeating light of Christ.

A lot has happened in the past two weeks. It’s been a privilege to host twelve amazing partners from Cerritos, California. Here are a few favorite scenes that show some of the learning and the loving that has gone on in Sanda as two cultures have partnered together and learned from each other…

Scene #1:
Our friends Damon and Brett were hosted this past week by our Sanda friends, the Hajis. (For those of you who know the story, Mrs. Haji is our postal delivery lady). Mr. Haji and all three boy have studied the Japanese martial art of kendo, and had both of the American guys wear the kendo uniform and give it a try. Take it a look at the video of Brett giving it his best shot, and then the photo that follows to see what happened:

(Note hole in top right panel) Oh, those flimsy Japanese paper doors!

Scene #2:
One of the members, Evan, (18 years old), is a great break-dancer (see blog post of how his break-dancing caught the attention of the waiter, and what happened after that). The first video is Evan, the second is his latest protege:

Scene #3:
It’s all about relationships! One of our main prayers as we prepare for short-term teams to come and work with us is that they will build strong relationships with our Japanese friends, and help us and church members, as well, to deepen relationships. It was wonderful to see this happening on many levels over the last 2 weeks.

One of our favorite stories is about “George” (see Transformers). George’s wife, Aiko, became a Christian last fall after hosting a mother/daughter combo from our New Jersey church. George and their son and daughter are still not believers, though George has been showing more and more interest. This year, a father/son team from L.A., Mike and Evan, stayed with George and his family.

It was so neat to see the friendship develop between these Mike and George. Mike is a very talented musician, and taught George how to play the uekele. Before coming to Japan, Mike had a dream in which he was giving away his uekele to someone. He woke up, and thought what a strange dream because he could never part with it. But after a week of spending time with George, on the last evening together, Mike gave his uekele to George. After our final worship service together, I recorded the following video of the two guys doing a little Hawaiian number they had practiced all week. Aiko is on the left holding the sheet music; then George in the center, with his old touristy uekele, and Mike is on the right playing his former uekele for the last time.

Scene #4:

The team’s last Sunday we had a special combined worship. It was a wonderful few hours of fellowship, sharing, joy, and tears. We sang Jesus Loves Me over and over in Japanese, and then in English. We sang it enough times so that most could sing the chorus in either language. Amazing how much learning and loving can happen in just a few short days….

It’s been fun to have our friend Paul visiting again this month. Paul teaches at a year-round school in the LA area, so he often uses his vacation time to come to Japan. He buys a rail pass, and has been to all 47 prefectures and probably almost all the hotsprings there are to be found in this country!

In all of his travels, Paul will often hitch-hike, especially in the remoter regions. On Friday, Paul hitch-hiked across Kyushu, a large island southwest of us. He will go into a local grocery store, and ask for a cardboard box. Then he will take a piece of the box and ask someone in the store to write in Japanese (kanji) the place location where he is trying to get to. He will then hold it up at a nearby intersection and catch rides.

So, this could happen anywhere across the world. What is different about Japan hitch-hiking, though, is that Paul is often given gifts by the people who pick him up. One couple who picked him up tried to give him money for his travels. He refused ,and finally the wife hid the money in Paul’s backpack… Here is a picture of Paul with his booty from Friday, and the sign that got him across Kyushu.

Our friend Megumi has some New Zealand friends who want to go hitchhiking in pairs. They were going to do a contest to see who can get to a certain location the fastest. Instead, we think they should see who can get the best loot….

It has been an amazing and full week as we have continued hosting a team of twelve from Cerritos, CA who have come to minister with us. Eric and I are very much the “brokers” or middlemen for the team and the church. It has been great to see the church members partner with the team, and vice versa. But always we need to stay on the ball and make sure that the right communication is happening.

One of the challenges that we face is being the only main drivers for the team (Sanda doesn’t have convenient public transportation). We have rented a van, so if Eric drives the rental and I drive our van we can mostly fit our family and the team into the two vehicles. But it requires a lot of coordination when everyone has to go to different places, like their homestays each evening.

Sometime around Wednesday I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown as there were a number of details that needed to be figured out and it felt beyond me. I know I lost my cool a few times and didn’t communication with the love of Jesus.

On Thursday, i woke up and just felt different. I sat with Olivia on the couch and read my devotional (I’ve been going again through Streams in the Desert, though I hadn’t read it the few previous days!) and was so encouraged by these words from Psalm 84:5,6: “Blessed are those whose strength is in you…As they pass through the valley of Baca, they make it a place of springs.” I was so struck with these truths – 1) my strength needs to be in God, not in me (Wednesday sure proved that!); 2) if we choose to place our strength in God, He can make our challenging places like an oasis -a place of springs. The past two days have felt so much better as I’ve tried to keep God with me in the middle.

Here are some highlights of our past few days:

One of my favorite events with this team was the chance to pass out flyers around Osaka station, which is the biggest Japan Rail station in Japan. We were passing out flyers that shared about Ai no Kesshin (Loving Decisions) adoption agency, the organization that we used to adopt our three children. The flyers provide a tollfree phone number for counseling for pregnant women, and encourage women to think about adoption, which isn’t very popular here. I was moved to see nine of our church members, including our pastor, come and join our team as we handed out over a thousand flyers to people walking by. Afterwards, we all enjoyed yummy Osaka okonomiyakik (Japanese pancakes).

We continue to pray that there are people who received these flyers who will choose life for their unborn babies.

On Thursday morning, we had a cooking class for 30 women and provided English games and songs for their 50 children! Two of the American team members taught how to make ravioli from scratch, and oatmeal cookies. What really impressed Eric and me was the team’s heart to serve and pitch in wherever help was needed. We had about ten women from our neighborhood attend, and they all had a great time.

Yesterday we had a scrapbooking class, and it was great to have four moms participate from Owen’s kindergarten class – it was their first “ministry-type” of event to attend. Their sons, Owen’s good friends, had a great time playing English games with the team staff, as well.

Please pray for us these last few days that God gives us energy and wisdom as we try and stay with Jesus in the middle.

Despite a crazy typhoon and a very busy schedule, it has been great the past 4 days to partner with a team of twelve Americans from Cerritos, CA, who have come to work with us here over the next two weeks.

Here are a few glimpses of what’s been going on:

We spent the first day training, prayer walking, and enjoying a welcome lunch hosted by our church, Sanda Chapel.

The next morning we woke up to a wild typhoon as we prepared to leave for English camp. Just as we left to pick the team up, the winds started blowing the torrential rain horizontally… The real picture that we don’t have is all of us completely drenched…

But it didn’t stop the fun at camp! Over 60 attended, and it was great fun to watch the team teach English, hula dance, poi balls…and really give our Japanese friends an opportunity to get away and have a great time.

We celebrated Rachel’s first birthday, the youngest Cerritos team member:

Here’s our whole camp group:

…and a rising musician at camp:

The next night, after camp, we went with several friends and enjoy Sanda’s annual summer festival.

One of the greatest stories from camp happened after a banquet dinner that we had. There was a young college guy, Yamada, who was serving the banquet. He was really friendly… and seemed intrigued by our strange group of Americans and Japanese. We finished the banquet, and then had to clear out of the room while he and his crew set up for our program. It took them a LONG time, and we knew our time was getting shorter before we had to be out of that room. I was sure we had made a mistake in booking this room (vs. a cheaper room we could have chosen). Finally, some of us went in and worked with Yamada and his crew to get the room read. Then our program began, and he and some of the staff were able to watch part of it.

When it was finished, and Yamada got off work, he went over to one of the team members and started asking some questions. He said that they all noticed how different we are, and wondered why. Evan, and our coworker Bobby, started sharing with him, and then brought our pastor into the conversation. Listen to this: right there, in the hotel lobby, Yamada gave his life to Jesus! He’s a rocker – now he can use his love for music for the kingdom. Here, I was sure that we had made a mistake in using the room –but God was just setting everything in place so that one of His creations could come into the Kingdom. Our inconveniences – – God’s hidden workings.
(Yamada is second from the right– the beaming face!)

This photo was taken by my friend Megumi at a recent festival… and this is the “look” for many of the hip young guys here. (Yes, it really is for serious).

How about it, guys?