When Pain Brings Comfort

Not every pregnancy ends with a beautiful baby.

For those who mourn, there is Ayumi.

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4, NIV).

It was her second pregnancy. Although the first one had been difficult, even dangerous, Atsumi Nijuken delivered a healthy baby girl. She and her proud husband named their daughter Tomoka. Three years later, they were again looking forward to having a baby.

But something went wrong. One day, seven months into the pregnancy, Nijuken-san noticed that the baby wasn’t moving. Upon examination, the doctor announced dreaded news. Nothing could be done except to induce labor. Ten days later, she delivered a second daughter—once again, perfectly formed, but dead. During four days in the hospital, the grief she experienced was a taste of hell, and the sight of pregnant women and babies aroused unbelievable feelings of envy, anger, and hatred within her.

It was also a frightening time. “What is happening to me? How can I possibly think such horrible things?” Nijuken-san anguished, knowing she didn’t really didn’t want to hate anybody. She only wanted to return to life as it had been before her baby died.

“Why did my baby have to die?” The question tormented her as much as her emotions. It was a question that had no answer—until later when her inner turmoil led her to a church and eventually to Christ.

“It was through the baby’s death that I was born again. Of course, the death of my baby was very hard. I didn’t want her to die. But through that difficult experience, both prayer and God became real to me,” Nijuken-san testifies.

Today she knows another reason for the pain God allowed—pain that also included a third pregnancy that ended in miscarriage before her prayers were honored and she gave birth to a healthy baby boy. Recently, God has given her a new vision: comforting other mothers who experience miscarriages, stillbirths, or the deaths of their very young infants. Her plan is to make doll clothes-size baby gowns in which to dress these little ones for their funerals—something basically unheard of in Japan, where the tiny bodies are only disposed. Nijuken-san also wants to provide a venue through which grieving mothers can share their anguish and questions. It is her desire to “comfort those in trouble” and “mourn with those who mourn” (Romans 12:15) through forming a group called Ayumi (in English, a walk or stroll). She describes the name as indicative of walking with the hurting in their time of need.

After months of being unable to get a hearing for her plans from hospitals and clinics all over Kobe, Nijuken-san is scheduled to meet the head of a well-known obstetrics hospital on September 7. Please pray that the director may listen with open ears and grant favor to Nijuken-san’s proposal. Pray that Ayumi will be launched soon.

How to Climb a Mountain (or Be a Missionary)

O Our climbing group, ready to ascend the mountain

(Bernie, on left; Cheryl, in red jacket, in the middle)

According to a Japanese saying, everyone should climb Mt. Fuji once, but only a fool ascends a second time.

On July 30, as I struggled to conquer Japan’s signature mountain a sixth time, I was fairly sure that indeed I was a fool. During the last hour to the summit, lightning struck repeatedly and so near by that I felt the earth tremble. By the time Bernie and I got to the top of the 12,388-foot mountain, we were completely soaked to the skin by rain and sleet that turned to snow while our group attempted unsuccessfully to stop shivering and dry out before beginning our descent. Eleven hours after we stumbled back into the fifth station, where we’d begun our adventure at 4:30 that morning, my legs wobbled, my strength was depleted, and I was sure this was my final Mt. Fuji climb. (Bernie says he’s still game—just not this year.)

Amazingly, despite the difficult conditions, I reached the apex two hours faster than my earlier Mt. Fuji ascent three years before. Surely fear of the storm from which we could not hide pushed us ahead without resting. We weren’t fast, but we persevered and keep going, step by step. Five and a half hours later, we successfully reached the top.

Perseverance. This is what Isaiah was talking about when he wrote, “Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint” (Isaiah 40:30-31).

Five days after Mt. Fuji, I sat in a women’s meeting where a Japanese missionary shared about the formidable challenge of reaching Tibetan Buddhists for Christ. There are reportedly about 1,000 evangelical and 2,000 Catholic Christians among the world’s 5 million Tibetans, a people group that is one of the least reached and most resistant to the message of Christ anywhere. Her story was both exciting and challenging.

After eight years of ministry to Tibetans, her husband has baptized three young men, one of whom is now attending Bible school. The most recent convert is using his artistic talent for Christ, but sadly, the second one has returned to his Tibetan Buddhist roots. In addition to discipling these young men, the missionary couple has developed relationships with a handful of other Tibetans. Theirs is a ministry of seed-planting for a harvest they pray and believe will come one day.

Listening to my Japanese colleague, I contemplated both the importance of persevering and my own recent Mt. Fuji experience. Just as I slogged along slowly—sometimes even painfully—until finally reaching the summit, this missionary couple is persevering against all odds in ministry to Tibetans, one step at a time. Usually their work is neither glamorous nor exciting, for if one is looking for quick ministry results, their particular mission field is not the place to go. But it is where God has called them.

How well we understand the call to faithfulness in an unresponsive mission field. Despite Christianity’s introduction to Japan in 1549 by Francis Xavier, a Jesuit priest, and Protestant roots reaching back about 150 years, roughly only one percent of Japanese are Christians today. Nevertheless, we continue to pray and believe that one day Japan will be a Christian nation.

In the meantime, we are determined to persevere. We and our missionary coworkers in difficult lands will “walk and not faint.” We WILL reach the top of the mountain because God, who is faithful, strengthens, enables, and is our constant hope.

On Random Questions

This random picture has nothing to do with today's blog entry,

but it does show Bernie and me on the slopes of Mt. Fuji recently.

It’s an amazing conundrum. When I have the most pressing deadlines, my mind is everywhere but on what I need to be thinking about most. Thus, involved as I am in two big writing projects, yet not having achieved the progress I should have by now, I’m struggling to control my mind from asking the most random questions. For example:

*How can Japan be having a “dry rainy season,” according to weather forecasters, when it’s rained nearly every day (it seems) during the month of July? Usually in the summer, our plants wilt from heat and a lack of water. This month, they’ve drowned.

*According to the newspaper, Japan’s Construction and Transport Ministry has decided to conduct a survey over the next year to judge how well railway companies are handling rush hours. With some trains running at 200% capacity, does anyone need to spend time and money on such a survey? Isn’t the answer obvious?

*And besides, is the Construction and Transport Ministry going to do anything to change the situation when they admit that trains are dangerously overcrowded in Tokyo? Hmm.

*Why did our favorite toy store in Jiyugaoka sell out and become a dog boutique? We used to take our now-adult kids there years ago. I feel like organizing a protest march. If there’s anything Jiyugaoka doesn’t need, it’s another dog boutique. We don’t have even one game and toy store now, but doggie stores are everywhere—and growing in numbers.

*Japanese are great recyclers. We have a whole closet devoted to this mandated practice: burnables, non-burnables, aluminum cans, steel cans, milk cartons, newspapers, glass, and plastic pop bottles. So why do stores over-package with such delight? Recycling would be much easier if there wasn’t so much to handle. (The salad I enjoy buying at a nearby store comes in its disposable salad bowl that is wrapped in a plastic bag, then in a paper bag, and finally is put in another plastic bag with handles for easy carrying.)

*Why does a McDonald’s hamburger taste better in Japan than in the United States, even though they are supposedly the same? Could it be because the service is so much better in Japan? And there’s no tipping expected anywhere in this country, either.

*It’s quite hot here today, but this is to be expected in summer. So why do Americans always want to live in the season it’s not? Why do they turn their air conditioners so cold that one must put on a sweater or jacket indoors in the summer? Likewise, why do they run their furnaces so hot in winter that people wear short sleeves to keep from sweating? One American once told me it was his right to sleep “naturally” and that he didn’t like the heavy weight of blankets—that’s why his furnace was set at 80 degrees. I wonder if he’s as self-centered as he seemed. Probably.

*How can I feel so much love for the sonogram picture that hangs above my desk?

*How will I ever make these deadlines if I don’t get back to work?

On a Most Beautiful Sound

"My frame was not hidden from you

when I was made in the secret place" (Ps. 139:15).

It wasn’t always this way. I can remember sleeping pretty much across America on our nearly annual family cross-country trips from Indiana to visit grandparents in Oregon. It was a good way to pass the three days in the car, especially across flat Nebraska with its endless miles of corn and wheat fields. I could sleep anywhere, anytime, and for as long as I wanted. But that was forever ago. Today I need my own pillow and, even more importantly, an eye mask and ear plugs. Some time ago, although I’m not sure when, I realized the horrible truth—I’ve become a “delicate” sleeper.

If it were only that, but it’s even worse. Noises now bother me in the daytime, too. There are days when the songs of the children in the kindergarten downstairs are sweet—like those spring mornings when they sing, “Saita, saita, turipu no hana ga naranda, naranda, aka, shiro, kiiro.” (This favorite song of all Japanese children translates as, “Bloomed, bloomed, the tulips have bloomed. All lined up, all lined up, red, white, and yellow.”) But more often than not, there’s a screamer in the bunch. His voice cuts through the sweetness like a fingernail being raked across a chalkboard. I love kids—and Japanese children are some of the cutest in the world—but this one needs to be muzzled, especially when I’m facing a writing deadline.

There’s also an orchestra that practices downstairs every Saturday afternoon. Actually, I think it’s only a string quintet, but even one instrumentalist would irritate me because the session tends to begin just about the time I want to take a nap. Even my earplugs can’t drown them out, although once, on a visit to India, I slept through the clamor of a family of monkeys that performed acrobatics on the verandah outside my hotel room. (On the other hand, my roommate was traumatized by those three hours.)

Nevertheless, everything was different on Wednesday. “Now we’re going to hear the heart beat,” Dr. Sakamoto announced. And there it was: thu-thump, thu-thump, thu-thump. Any words I might have said were immediately caught in my throat and my eyes filled with tears that trickled down my cheeks. Bernie, to my right, had the same reaction as we stared, transfixed, at the sonogram monitor that introduced us to our first grandbaby, scheduled to be born in Tokyo around January 31, 2008.

Three days later, I continue to be awed by the miracle of life growing inside our daughter. Remembering the high possibility that Stephanie would not be able to conceive, I can only praise God along with King David, who declared, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be” (Psalm 139:13-16).

Thu-thump, thu-thump, thu-thump. It was a baby, alive and well, at twelve weeks and three days after conception. It was a most beautiful sound.

On Teaching the Children

Riding bicycles with our "grandsons"

The commandment
“…watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them” (Deuteronomy 4:9, NIV).

Since March, it has been our joy to be honorary grandparents for three African boys: Tana, 8; Kuku, 4; and Anesuishe, 4 months old, whose name means Immanuel in the Shona language of their native Zimbabwe. “Our grandsons” are the sons of Gibson and Moline Chamboko, whose work brought them to Tokyo shortly after we moved here in 2004. (We got to know them through an English-language small group we attend weekly on Thursdays.)

Here’s how the “adoption” happened—our true confessions, if you please. One evening after supper, we realized that we desperately needed to make some lifestyle changes. After work, work, and more work (even mission work), we were tired, physically out of shape, bored, and surely boring, too. Visiting the Chambokos at Anesuishe’s birth gave us the idea of becoming adoptive grandparents—although we’re called uncle and aunt. We’ve enjoyed riding bicycles, throwing rocks in the river, kicking a soccer ball, playing on playground equipment, baking together, and more. Between loving and playing with these active boys and our joining a health club in May, we’re seeing positive results from these lifestyle changes. And, as Gibson once reminded us, we’re also partnering with them in raising their sons to love and obey God.

Kid’s Place
We’re also impacting the lives of other children through Cheryl’s work with Kid’s Place, a missions education program for preschoolers through elementary age children. Here’s an edited version of our blog report last week:

“No sirens were wailing, but it was an emergency anyway. With the infection spreading, Julian’s only hope was an operation. Preparing the toilet paper bandages and her plastic knife scalpel, the doctor prayed and the operation began on the young patient, one of 200 children who joined the Kid’s Place 2007 World Tour on the Anderson University campus during North American Convention, June 22-27, 2007, in Anderson, Indiana.

On the whirlwind three-day adventure, elementary kids wrote in hieroglyphics and joined in an archaeological dig in Egypt, learned origami paper folding and ate rice with chopsticks in Japan, experienced the challenges of living below the poverty line in the United States, met “real live” missionaries from Africa, fashioned kangaroo-like pouches for prayers and threw boomerangs in Australia, and prayed for persecuted Christians in Egypt, among other activities. At the same time, preschoolers traveled to India in Little Kid’s Place, meeting in Park Place Church of God, adjacent to the university campus.

While opening kids’ eyes to the mission field around the world, Kid’s Place is committed to challenging them to answering God’s call today in preparation for the time he may tap them to become pastors and missionaries in the future. Please pray with us for the nurturing of the next generation of missionaries, pastors, and church leaders.

By the way, Julian survived the imaginary operation in a medical clinic in Haiti, another destination on the World Tour. As a result, kids saw how missionaries share God’s love through preaching, teaching, and even medicine.

Looking ahead, Kid’s Place will travel to China for the Olympics in 2008. (Curriculum available by spring, 2008.) Additionally, curricula of past programs written and/or edited by Cheryl are available at minimal cost through CHOG Ministries (call 800-848-2464 and ask for Vivian Atkins, or e-mail Vatkins@chog.org). Easily adaptable for VBS, children’s church, or other kids programming, these curricula include studies of the 10/40 Window; Japan; Costa Rica; the southern cone of South America; Australia/New Zealand; the Micronesian, Caribbean/Atlantic, and Hawaiian islands; and more. A historical look at the Church of God also helped kids celebrate the 100th convention in 2006 through drama and interviews with church pioneers from bygone days.”

Tarumi Church, Kobe
Since March, we have visited Tarumi Church for a weekend (or more) each month. While we are happy to serve in this way, this added schedule is straining both physically and emotionally. (There is much discouragement as the congregation approaches the start of five years of seeking a Japanese pastor. Last month, a leading layperson also left the church rather unhappily, and this has resulted in division within the congregation.)

Please pray for us as we spend three weeks in Kobe from August 10, that we may both encourage and help with healing that needs to take place there.