On Thanksgiving

Beautiful fall leaves in Indiana

Instructions for thanksgiving
“Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, NIV).

It always amazes us that so many Americans are surprised to discover that Japan doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving with turkey, dressing, parades, football, and the works. But think about it. November 22 (this year) is a day that recalls the Pilgrims’ surviving their first few winters in a new land. Why would this historical event that became a U.S. national holiday in 1863 be celebrated in Japan or, for that matter, anywhere else outside the U.S.?

Nevertheless, the Bible instructs us to give thanks always—and that has nothing to do with a certain day in November. It has to do with cultivating a heart of thanksgiving year round. However, in this month when many people are thinking about Thanksgiving, we’d like to join the celebration by recognizing some of our reasons to be THANKFUL.

Baby Ben
We’re pretty sure everyone in the world has heard that we’re going to be first-time grandparents in January—whether they wanted to know or not. Certainly we’ve been doing our best to get this word out! But perhaps you’ve not heard that Stephanie and Donald’s baby will be named Benjamin Donbor, in honor of our Benjamin (a second grade teacher on Guam) and Donald’s roots in Meghalaya, northeast India. (Donbor is a Khasi word meaning “to have strength.”) Needless to say, we’re THANKFUL.

Benjamin will be coming to Japan on December 14 and Stephanie and Donald will arrive from their assignment in Central Asia on December 22. Not only will we all spend Christmas and New Years together, but Little Ben will be born in Tokyo. That’s an extra special blessing, and we are THANKFUL. All the hospital visits so far show that Little Ben is developing well. Please keep Stephanie in your prayers as she continues teaching full-time through the end of the semester on December 21. Despite her exhaustion every evening, she is—we all are—THANKFUL for this new life growing within her.

Successful travels
In late October, Bernie traveled to Korea with 185 second-year Tamagawa Seigakuin high school girls for their annual school trip. One reason for this five-day excursion is the painful history of relationships between Japan and Korea in the early 20th century, some of which continue to impact today. Please pray that what the girls experienced will have long-term effect and encourage them to be peacemakers in the future. Although there were a couple of unexpected bits of trouble—one student’s passport fell into the hotel trash can and was almost lost, and a second student accidentally went through immigration to leave Korea on another girl’s passport—there were no major incidents. In fact, Bernie said it was one of the best school trips he’s been on. We are THANKFUL.

At the same time Bernie was in Korea, Cheryl was in the United States for meetings related to: Kid’s Place, the children’s educational missions program with which she has worked for ten years; Yet I Will Rejoice, the 2008 international testimonies book on which she is working; and Into All the World: A Century of Church of God Missions, a history book on which she is teamed up to research and write with her father. Although her father fell and broke a bone in his foot during the week she was there (ironically, on his way to exercise), it was a productive week for Cheryl’s various writing assignments, and we are THANKFUL. (She was in Anderson during the height of fall color, an added blessing that gave her many opportunities to thank God for the beauty of the world he has created.) Please continue to pray for timely progress on these various projects.

Other prayer concerns
Please continue to pray for a young Japanese woman, Eriko, about whom we've written in some recent newsletters. While her home situation is still difficult, she asked us to share with you her THANKSGIVING that God has radically changed her life and saved her from some bad habits of inflicting self-harm.

Please also pray for our upcoming fall missionary staff meeting on November 23. Pray that this would be an encouraging time for our whole staff. We are THANKFUL for all 10 career and special assignment missionaries (SAMs) on our staff here in Japan. And we are also . . . THANKFUL for you, for your prayers, and for your joining us on this blog.

Random Thoughts on Laughter

The Barton men in 2005:

Bernie (back), his brother, and his father

I was going to write on a different topic today—that of meiwaku, a well-known Japanese word that translates into English as annoyance, nuisance, or trouble. I quickly jotted down some notes yesterday morning and pondered the subject in between a multitude of activities that made up a rather busy day. This morning, as I created my “to do list,” one of my daily routines, turning those scribbles into a blog was high on the list.

Until I opened this morning’s newspaper. I read in The Daily Yoimuri that the British recently conducted a poll to determine the Top 10 of famous wits in that nation. Playwright Oscar Wilde captured the honor of the greatest humorist. His deathbed comment, “Either those curtains go or I do,” explains why.

Comedian Spike Milligan also made the list. He’s famous for the epitaph he had carved on his tombstone: “I told you I was ill.”

But it was the comment of Winston Churchill, number five on the list, which gave me more than a smile. In fact, I laughed out loud. Apparently he was accused of being drunk by a Labor Party parliamentarian named Bessie Braddock. Churchill, perhaps as famous for his putdowns as for his statesmanship, retorted, “Bessie, you’re ugly. And tomorrow morning I will be sober, but you will still be ugly.”

Actually, I’m not much on making laughter from cutting people down—even if they deserve it. But for some reason, this putdown had me laughing so much that I read it several times just to prolong the pleasure. Then, when Bernie came into the dining room where I was enjoying the paper, I read the short piece aloud to him, and together we both laughed heartily. It was a wonderful way to start the day.

As we talked about what great medicine laughter is (check out Proverbs 17:22), Bernie reminded me of his father’s witty comment last fall, just days before he died. Bernie’s mother and brother were bathing his father, physically weak but mentally just as sharp as ever. Had it been his brother and father only, the bath would have been over in minutes, but Bernie’s mother continued scrubbing and rescrubbing Sandlin’s back, despite his brother’s protests that every possible pore had been plumbed and that no germ could possibly have escaped. The scrubbing went on anyway.

Finally, 88-year-old Sandlin spoke up in a feeble voice still characterized by a wry sense of humor, “She thinks I work in a coal mine.”

Laughter. What a priceless treasure (and what a different topic than what I intended to write about originally). Thankfully, laughter is not affected by age, the weather, one’s weight, or the ups and downs of the stock market. Even better, it’s not something expendable that you must worry about using up too soon. On the contrary, the more you use it, the more you have to enjoy and share with others—which is why I shared our morning laughter with you today. How about throwing some back our way?

Confessions of a Crybaby

Purple wisteria in a nearby park in May

One of my favorite children’s books that we read to Ben and Stephanie when they were growing up is titled Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. All the weather in the fictional town of Chewandswallow was food. It came three times a day: at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. So no one ever had to cook, which sounded great to me. The weather rained soup and juice, snowed mashed potatoes and green peas, and occasionally there was wind that blew in storms of hamburgers, pancakes, or sausages. On one of the worst days, spaghetti tied up the town. We enjoyed laughing at the weather with our kids.

But I confess that today I’m not laughing at the weather at all. In fact, I’m really sick and tired of this grayness. Rainy season was bad enough when it was supposed to be rainy, back in June, and worse when it just kept on going into July. But this is October, my favorite month of the year because the sky is a clear blue and the temperatures are just right—cool in the mornings and evenings, and warm, but not too hot, during the days. And finally the horrible humidity of summer has passed. Only things are haywire this month. I could write a book called Cloudy and Rainy with no Chance of Clearing.

Which is why I was happy to discover some notes I wrote back in May after taking a walk through our neighborhood. For some reason, I’d been struck by the abundance of colors I was seeing that day as I stretched my legs after too many hours at the computer. I’d jotted the following notes in my date book: a red mailbox; purple hydrangeas; a green signal at the corner; red geraniums in window boxes; fresh spring green trees; the burnt red brick sidewalk leading to the brown boardwalk around the park; a clear stream reflecting the bright blue sky; an iridescent dragonfly flitting between lavender water irises; a father and son playing catch together, their orange and green baseball caps announcing their favorite baseball teams; pink roses; a triangular red stop sign; purple, pink, and white pansies at our door; and more.

I’d not stopped with noticing colors, but had scrawled six more words on the scrap of paper I’d found somewhere: the myth of the gray city. What in the world was I thinking? I wondered as I reread the paper today. There’s no myth about this gray city. Tokyo is a concrete jungle, and on rainy days like today the gray seems grayer yet. (It’s been like this for a couple of weeks now. The laundry basket is overflowing and clothes of all descriptions are hanging out around the house to dry, even though this is practically impossible in this humidity that gives me a headache and makes the air as heavy as my backpack when I return from grocery shopping.)

Looking more carefully at what I’d written, I saw one additional notation: “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith . . .” (Hebrews 12:2).

Suddenly I remembered the lesson I’d contemplated that beautiful spring day. It is not a question of gray versus the brilliant colors of the rainbow. Color is all around me, even in the gray city. The question is, where will I fix my attention? It’s a choice I make every day, and it affects all of life, not just my thoughts about the weather.