A few days ago Owen came home and told us that it has been a thousand days since the tsunami hit.  Woah.  That sounds like such a long time;  but in some ways it feels here like it was still a short time ago. Many hearts are still raw;  many people still living in temporary homes;  many still unemployed.

This morning we had a very intense worship time.  We did not do what was planned;  but rather ended up focusing on some of the challenges that are being faced by our friends in this region.  One friend was grieving over the tragic suicidal death of her father a year ago;  another shared that a mutual friend is contemplating suicide. We cried, and prayed, and cried and prayed some more.  One friend just buried her head in my arms and sobbed.  I held her, and cried.  I sat at lunch with a junior high girl who is just so sad, so often, since the tsunami.  There was a great deal of heaviness.  But Jesus was in our midst.  I am convinced of that.

Tonight one worshipping friend from this community got into a fender bender and called me — so so discouraged.  She is a single mom and lost the discussion with the police and the other driver about who’s fault the accident was.  She will need to write it up with the insurance and pay for it.  She was so sad; struggling so hard with being single and not having a husband to be there by her side.

All of us felt pretty worn out!  But I looked around the room this morning – maybe forty-some of us crammed together into a combined dining/living/kitchen area.  And I felt so thankful for our Be One team… a group of us who are committed to being here – for whatever that means.  To walk with our friends from Tohoku through their sorrows, their joys, their jobs, their singleness.  To be here, God willing, for the next one thousand days.

There have been a few people over my lifetime who, in particular, have gone out of their way to believe in me.  Doug Birdsall is one of those mentors.

I first worked with Doug when I came to Japan in 1990.  I was asked to be on a church planting team that was launching — a new thing for our mission at that time, with new leadership.  After months of meeting, praying, and planning, the plug was pulled on the project for a number of reasons.  Thorughout that year, I had a few chances to interact with Doug, and it became the start of a special friendship.

Doug over the years has been called to serve in some amazing capacities.  But even when traveling around the world to sixty or so countries as the leader of the Lausanne Movement, he didn’t forget his old friends while he was making many amazing new ones.  Such a gift!  And he would drop my name for some totally ridiculous positions and convince me that he wasn’t just being nice.  (I think he was!)

It was such a great treat to have the last 24 hours to again sit under his tutelage and renew my friendship with a remarkably godly man. (Photo below:  having coffee with Doug and Elliott Snuggs, another man I admire greatly)

I think what makes Doug – and others who command attention like him – so unusual is how they have responded in the face of adversity.  Doug and his wife Jeanie have undergone some huge challenges.  I have learned much by watching close and afar how they have chosen to respond to God in the midst.  I remember in the midst of one most difficult season that every morning the two of them would read Psalm 27 together  Every morning for a year.  The most recent two adversities have been huge and deep — discovery of cancer (we are all thankful that it was discovered so very early and prayerful for a continued good prognosis), and shortly after that being let go just six months after becoming president of one of the largest mission organizations in North America.  

Today he shared with a room full of eager-to-learn Japanese pastors and a handful of North American missionaries some of his reflections on leadership renewal.  Besides my own desire to hear from Doug, I realized that God had me there for His purposes as well.  I have needed reminders and renewal in our work in Ishinomaki.  Here are a few snippets (in no particular order):

**One big area of responsibility for leaders is to articulate the vision…  Vision brings life.  People looking to us for something bigger than themselves. I’ve realized that in the day to day challenges of the Nozomi Project, I have not always been good at articulating the vision and helping our staff to recognize that we are part of something bigger than ourselves. It is so important!

**God typically imparts vision to a person He can trust.  Vision usually imparts large quantities of people.  Person to whom its entrusted is someone he can trust…  Be faithful to the  vision God has given you.  Busyness can obstruct the very thing we have set out to do.   I am convicted today that God entrusted me with a special vision for the Nozomi Project – I am so thankful that God has trusted me enough with these amazing women!   At times it is daunting;  I falter and forget the vision.  I need to keep the vision before us – both for the rest of our team and for myself as well.

**Need for perseverance;  opportunity to trust God at a new level.  What goes deepest in our heart goes widest to the world.   For me (Sue), there have been challenging days over the past year and three months!  And I know there will continue to be.  Sometimes we lose sight of why we are doing all of this.

Anyone who knows Doug knows of his favorite missionary hero.  He told this story again – I needed to hear it:  Adoniram Judson – pioneer in American missions.  Rejected from India – spent life in Burma.  First twenty years – performed many funerals before any baptisms.  Funerals for his own family and team.  Wife Ann died; bible translation work taken away- thought it was destroyed.  Not a fruitful ministry career. Went back after twenty years to report on his work.  Someone stood up and asked, “Now, Mr. Judson, what do you think about the future of the Gospel in Burma?” Judson’s answer –  The future is as bright as the promises of God.  God used hardships to strengthen the heart of a man/woman he can trust.

And my last summarized note from today:  ** Being Bible-centered Leader

The word of God is all we have.  Not meant to generate our own ideas- made guardians of eternal truths of God.  Our privilege to speak words of God to men and women that he has made. The impact of your life and ministry will be in direct correlation with the degree to which we have mastered the word of God.  

Convicting words;  messages that I know God wanted me to hear today.  So thankful for His timing after some rough patches.

Last night as I was walking to the onsen with two friends after the evening meeting, I noticed a call had come through on my cell phone.  It was the daughter of one of our Nozomi staff.  Because of various challenges recently, I have been praying for her every single day.  She called me out of the blue;  I had a chance to pray with her over the phone.  I know she is part of the vision that God has given to us.  I am so convinced that God  wants to communicate his love to her and bring her hope! — and use us to do that.

This afternoon two of my colleagues went to the home of another Nozomi staff to pray because of various issues she has had.  God is at work – breaking open His plan for salvation and bringing hope to the hopeless.  Yes- the future is as bright as the promises of God.

Tonight we had a last minute dinner gathering hosted by the team from Singapore that is up here with us for three days.  We invited our friends and their families at the Nozomi Project, called a few regulars, and prepared for the possible maximum number of guests we could imagine — 60.  (With just our team, kids, and current volunteers, we have close to 40!).  The Singapore team, led by their member Chi who is a chef by trade, made a Singapore stew for us that was really delicious.  And between 6 and 7 pm, A LOT of people came through those doors!  The last father and daughter guests who came quite late ate the last of the stew.  Before them, there could have been 70 or more who had a hot bowl of delicious Asian cuisine.

What made tonight so special was the strange and beautiful mix of cultures and spontaneous fun that emerged (when I left with our four kids a ping pong tournament had just started!).  Our Singapore friends sang a beautiful song in Chinese for us;  two members of the Hawaii team shared a few words;  we were surprised after that when the dad of one of our Nozomi staff stood up and wanted to sing a song… perhaps his daughter was the most surprised!  Her dad had had quite a bit to drink (he had brought his own big bottle of sake) – so she wasn’t quite sure what he would do or say!  At the end of his song, he shared how very thankful he was for the Hawaii team and Be One team that a year and a half ago crawled under his floors and pulled out tsunami grime and refinished his home.  During dinner we had watched a short video clip of a celebration BBQ we had had in front of his home  at that time to celebrate the refinishing.  It was fun to see the other members of the Hawaii team who had been a part of that, as well as several other teams who had all been serving together.

As he got to the part of sharing about volunteers crawling under his home, his voice broke.  And he cried in front of all of us.   His family had known  even at that point that the government was going to make them tear down their home (it is too close to the water in the case of future tsunamis);  but the love shown him through those acts of service in repairing his home for whatever time left they have to live in it, gave him hope again to keep going.  We were all so moved by his sharing.

One of the more mature members of the Nozomi Project, N., sang a song about her hometown, Onagawa, that was almost completely washed away.  Then she and two other Ishinomaki friends sang the very famous “Suki Yaki” classic.  At one point tonight N. pulled me aside and said, “you know how you told me last weekend that you and Eric and others from Be One are praying about possibly sending a team to the Philippines to help?  Well, I think my husband would like to go if you do that.”  Her husband lost his mother and their home in the tsunami.  He almost lost his wife.  Last year he got angry at his wife after she had started working at Nozomi for becoming too happy, too soon.  Last weekend they came together to worship with us on Sunday;  tonight came to a Singapore dinner;  and his heart is opened to go to another country and serve.  God’s ways are so beautiful.  We don’t know if God’s plan is to have us send a team, but either way — I love to see God at work in so many wonderful ways.

Tonight — there was joy and laughter spread out across the room.  No one could have planned this night but God.  There is still so much healing that needs to happen, but this evening we saw so much that has already taken place.  “You changed my mourning into dancing.  You took off my funeral clothes and dressed me up in joy.”  (Psalm 30:11, CEB)

The other night a few friends and I had a rare ladies’ might out.  After a great Italian dinner, we had to choose between the two family restaurants open in Ishinomaki after 9 pm – Coco’s won!!

We were sitting around drinking coffee  and shared about different statistics that we have heard recently about Ishinomaki, the city where God has called our families to live.  It is SO depressing!  Here are a few:

**Miyagi prefecture rated 46th out of 47th in educational school testing.  But Sendai (the largest city in Miyagi prefecture) rated above average.  Ishinomaki, the second largest city in this prefecture, rated below average — thus the main cause for the very low rating.  And according to the results, the other side of Ishinomaki had higher scores, and they are quick to throw the blame at Watanoha, the very area where we are living.  The test scores are among the lowest in the nation on “our” side of Ishinomaki.

**Ishinomaki has the highest number of students not attending school – anywhere from elementary/junior high/high school students who should be attending school but are not going.  Maybe drop-outs or just non-attenders.  This was true even before the tsunami, but even moreso since the tsunami (I think I heard 2000 non-attenders before the tsunami;  3000 now after).

**We all commented that there seems to be an extremely high rate of divorce as well as single parents (who may have never been married).  One of our friends here in his forties recently attended his local high school reunion. Forty out of forty-three original members were in attendance.  Thirty-eighth out of the forty were all divorced, at least once.  In his high school class – that’s a 95% divorce rate! That is crazy!! But seems to be about the norm.

Depressing!!  My three friends and I sort of  laughed together a bit nervously…. Why would we move our families into all of this?

I recently came across some notes I wrote two years ago as we were preparing to move up that I called, “My theology for moving to Ishinomaki.”  Here are a few paragraphs:

When we moved to Sanda (Hyogo prefecture) , I read a book called, Invading Secular Space. There were two main ideas that stayed with me.  One was that if we want to have a good chance at seeing God invade a city, it would be best to team up with others who want to see the same thing happen…. The second thing that the book talks about is the need to be involved in the “social Gospel” as well… That it is not just proclamation, but finding and meeting the needs of those in our midst.  And it has puzzled me a lot about where we live[d] – it is so hard to find these kinds of needs.  We have been thankful for how God has used different needs among those in our community in which we could share of God’s power and love — a broken engagement; a heart attack; various illnesses; hurting marriages- these have all given us opportunities to allow Jesus to shine forth. But I think both of our hearts have hungered to be able to present the Gospel in a more holistic way — meeting physical needs as well spiritual and emotional.  

Last December (2010) I read a devotional (its packed away in our christmas things!) that included meditations from Thomas Merton and Brennan Manning.  They talked about the shepherds, living in the country side;  those who didn’t necessarily fit into mainstream society.  It was to these lower-class guys on the fringe to whom the Gospel came;  this is where the Gospel caught on.  What caught my attention and my heart was that the Gospel often “catches on” best when it is delivered to those on the fringes.  As I read that, and again in January, I journaled about what this might look like for us in the midst of our ministry in Sanda… how do we find those on the edges?

A month or so later, I was preparing for the class I was to teach on Evangelism.  I read a book on the history of Christianity in Japan (Furuya), who theorizes that for Christianity to really spread beyond the one percent in Japan, that two things have to happen:  1) families, not just individuals, need to be saved and be influential in spreading the Gospel;  and 2) we need to take the Gospel to the masses/commoners, not just the intellectuals.  His book looks at the history- and how much of the emphasis of missionary work has been to intellectuals.  But the Gospel spreads best when it is brought to the commoners/masses.  (Agnes Liu – moved to Hong Kong among factory workers to spread the Gospel).  I began to ask God who the outskirts/masses people are for us… I remember stopping the car at a side street and just crying out to God, asking him some important questions:  What would it take more us to do more ministry in the margins?  Would our family be able to move into a lower class neighborhood if God called us?  How would we ever get such a call?  It felt really important…

During a day of vision in early March (2011), reflecting on these things, as well as what if perhaps God could be calling our family to move since no home had opened up, no church movement or change had happened, no special vision emerging.

3/11 – the tsunami happening.  I remember most vividly at the retreat two days later as we were taking communion that I could not stop the sobs that wretched through my body.  I physically hurt for the Japanese people God has placed on our hearts.  I could only sob on their behalf for mercy at this incomprehensible disaster.  I didn’t know what these sobs meant but it felt very deep and very real. … 

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So God in His sweet sovereignty had prepared my heart with longings for precisely this type of ministry…  and has placed us in a city where we can love on the fishermen and their families;  single/working moms who now come and make jewelry for a living;  kids from broken homes who aren’t really making it in school.  And we really believe that God has a great plan to transform this city!  Jesus’ own model was to “move into the neighborhood” (John 14:10).  We pray for His transformation to come as we are authentic witnesses of His grace.   And I am so thankful that He has called a team of families and singles to work together, spread out in different schools, kindergartens, communities, groups.  And most importantly that true transformation is up to Him and His power and the movement of His spirit.  It is a joy to be a recipient, participant, and messenger of His grace to a place in such dire need of hope and change.  I can’t wait to see the statistics in ten years….

this fall – 

I have taken a break from blogging.  I sort of needed it.

kid-filled life – four so beautiful, unique, life-giving, exasperating, watchful. gifts to us.  

homework – isitdoneornot? haveyoudoneallyourreading?  struggling more than previously with our kids’ current school situation.  asking God to break through.

the cold is coming – changing out summer clothes for winter.

emptying the last of the cardboard boxes;  hanging pictures ’round the house.

sustaining friendships – far and close.

pulling out fall decorations for the first time in two years.

friends who have left holes in their absence.

soup nights on monday.  pasta on tuesday. crockpot thursdays. weekend homemade pizza and movie nights (when we can).  these weekly rituals have become oh! so important.

a community/business next door.  four days a week and the quitting time is 3:45 pm but in reality the nozomi project is part of our nights and weekends, dinner conversations, and driving prayer.  The women I work with are part of my whole world.  I love that.

having a few friends over to celebrate halloween, much to our children’s delight.  it came and went last year without notice or fanfare – that can’t happen twice! The three oldest made up their own costumes– so much fun being creative.

a team — much like volleyball… we are setting to each other, backing each other up, at times yelling words of encouragement to each other when we miss a ball or become too weary for yet another serve.  They revive me so often.  Our times this fall of praying have been rich, frequent, joyous — Jesus has met with us.  i love them dearly.  i know they, like Jesus, are for me.

new homes being built; others still being demolished; too many quiet empty lots that used to teem with life.  still too many hanging clouds of sadness here.

persimmons.  in salads. tonight – thick slices, just by itself, after dinner.  

figuring out what this next season of ministry and life up here should look like.  expectant.  sometimes wanting to hide because of challenging relationships. Isaiah 53.  thankful for his touch on my heart.  ready to obey.  humbled.  impatient.

holding a 14 year old today in my arms while her body shuttered in pain, sobbing. Hold on tight.  so many bad, hard things the past two and a half years for one so young.  crying together cuts through all that is not important in my fall. 

Our mission organization recently blitzed through the Tohoku area, interviewing and videoing Asian Access missionaries who are working up here.  They are putting together shorter videos of some of us.  After a thirty minute or so interview with me, they did a great job editing it down to five minutes to give a brief summary of the Nozomi Project.

Here is the blog post that they wrote about it.

 

 

 

 

Yesterday was one of my favorite hours in the new Nozomi House.

An elementary-aged girl, S., had been studying violin the year before the tsunami. She was scheduled to have her first big recital on March 19, 2011. The big earthquake and tsunami canceled the event, and took with it her violin and their home as well.

This past summer, S. received a violin from a volunteer group up here and has had a chance to study with two fabulous Christian violin teachers. Finally, she was able to have the recital that she couldn’t have two and a half years ago.

S. is Owen’s classmate at school, and her mom works with me at the Nozomi Project. She did awesome! We were all so proud of her! In addition, several of the musicians performed before and after her. It was really special to be there with her whole family- I know they must have been proud of her as well.

I am sure that her recital in March 2011 would have felt very different! Probably there would have been more people there – definitely more children performing — more formal perhaps. But there was something so special about Sunday — three

different groups working up here in Ishinomaki who were united in helping fulfill the dreams of a fifth grader. So thankful for the small and large ways that God is all about bringing healing to people.