On Singing and Praising

Bernie and a new friend in South India

Our marching orders
“Sing to the Lord, praise his name; proclaim his salvation day after day. Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all peoples” (Psalm 96:2-3).

Our marching orders are clear: praise, proclaim, and declare. How are you doing at it?

We’re grateful for the opportunity we had to be the speakers at the annual convention of the Church of God in South India, April 30-May 4. Thank you for your prayers! God answered them marvelously. The above verses from Psalms were the theme of the five-day convention during which time we spoke 12 times rather than only the 3 times we’d been assigned! Not only did God use us to minister to the nearly 400 people who crowded into the grounds of the Asian Bible College, where the convention was held, but he also ministered to us through the love people expressed to God (in very lively worship) and to us. It was also thrilling to celebrate the baptisms of 16 individuals and the completion of Bible studies of 13 students, including 3 women, and very moving to join in a feet washing and communion service. Please pray for Brother George and the Church of God in South India as it continues the vital work of evangelizing in a difficult location where the strength of both Islam and communism seems to be growing daily.

Other reasons to sing
We have many other reasons to sing as we write this newsletter. For one thing, Cheryl completed the main writing of the missions history book project on which she has been working with her father for nearly two years—and she finished two days ahead of the May 31 deadline! We are praising God for his faithfulness. Thank you also for your prayers on which we depend.

An even bigger reason we’re singing is that it appears that Tarumi Church has found its pastor! June 1 marked five years since we left Kobe to move to Tokyo. It has been a very long and difficult time of waiting for the congregation. Please pray for Mr. and Mrs. Sakata, as the congregation moves towards calling them. A lifelong businessman, Mr. Sakata retired at age 65, entered seminary, and graduated this spring. We are observing complete unity of spirit about a potential pastor for the first time in these five years. This speaks volumes to us! At the same time, Tarumi Church seems a little nervous about making this move. Pray that they be able to walk confidently into the future that God is opening to them.

Other prayer concerns
Pray also for the following:

1) Tamagawa Seigakuin Bible Camp, July 21-23, that the Holy Spirit will cause revival to break out there. (We had hints of it last year.) Already 60 students are signed up for this completely voluntary camp experience. We’re expecting great things!

2) Preparations for the 100th anniversary celebration of the Church of God in Japan at the National Summer Conference, August 1-3. How much we also need revival in the Church of God and a new vision for what God wants to do in the next century;

3) Tokyo English Life Line (TELL). Cheryl was elected in April to serve as the clergy representative on the board of this NPO. Originally started by missionaries in Tokyo, TELL is Japan’s only English language crisis telephone counseling line. (The organization also encompasses a face-to-face counseling center.) Pray for her work on this board; and,

4) The successful completion of Into All the World, the 130-year history of Church of God missions. Although Cheryl has finished most of the writing, the next four months will include further discussions on content, appendices, index, proofs, and more before the book is published in the spring of 2009.

We're grateful to God and to you. In fact, we're singing and praising!

Too Many Bests

Bernie, Cheryl, and South India church leaders

This isn’t to solicit your cards or presents (although, if that would make you happy, be my guest), but my birthday is coming up later this month. This has got me thinking, even in the midst of a major writing assignment whose deadline is bearing down upon me like a runaway train. Rather than continuing this charade—that I’m making good progress on my book today—I’ve decided to put that aside and write from my heart for a while.

Four years ago, at the end of our first agonizing year of living in Tokyo, we were celebrating my 49th birthday at a Chinese restaurant with friends. One of them queried, “What was the best thing about this past year?” I replied quickly and without even thinking, “Nothing.” And I meant it, too. All I could think about what how hard it had been to move to Tokyo after 21 years in Kobe. I had come to understand all too clearly why native Tokyoites had the reputation of being cold and unfriendly while folks in the Kansai were known for quick smiles and openheartedness. Frankly, I wasn’t happy at all about living here, and that melancholy infected everything—even my birthday party—like germs spewed out in an uncontrolled sneeze.

But my friend wouldn’t accept that answer. She called me on my miserable response and pitiful attitude and didn’t let me off the hook until I’d come up with at least one way God had blessed me during that year. Interesting thing was, once I got out of my rut and started looking at the positives, each good thing I recounted gave birth to another and another and yet another, until I was surprised to realize that, despite the very real difficulties I’d faced, it had indeed been a good year overall.

So here I am approaching another birthday. While it’s no longer painful to live in Tokyo (most of the time), I’ve discovered it’s still a very good practice to think back and contemplate the ways I am blessed. Here are three things at the top of my gratitude list this year:

1) I became a grandmother. Got a minute? I’d love to show you some pictures. I can’t get over the wonder of new life—always special, but in this case, we weren’t sure Stephanie could ever have a baby. So welcoming this perfectly formed little boy into our family was all the more breathtaking and miraculous.

2) I also got to participate in Little Ben’s birth. I rubbed Stephanie’s back so much during her long labor that I nearly wore a hole in her robe. I couldn’t take her pain away, but I walked with my baby girl as she gave birth to her baby. Although I consider myself something of a wordsmith, I am dumbstruck to describe this beautiful gift given to me.

3) Bernie and I visited South India together in April-May (just one of the reasons I’ve been unable to keep up with this blog). For the past five years, our work has taken us in different directions more often than it has brought us together. I can’t even begin to count the number of times in India that I thought, “At long last, Bernie and I are serving together again. I am so blessed.”

In just a few days I’ll be 53 years old. If my friend asks me, I know that once again I won’t be able to answer her question. But the reason is different this year. In this case, there have been just too many bests to choose only one.

Two Letters

Encouraging his Papaw with an award-winning smile

Somehow I sensed it—bad news. I’d heard nothing to make me suspect this, but perhaps it was because we don’t normally get a letter from her except at Christmas. But here it was April. Whatever the reason, I opened the letter and was surprised to read her first sentence of congratulations on the birth of our grandson. She has 14 great-grandchildren of her own, so she knows how precious these little ones are. I relaxed and smiled, savoring the warmth of her good wishes while I envisioned our little grandbaby who recently discovered how to wrap us around his finger with an award-winning smile.

But there was bad news after all. She didn’t share it until the third paragraph—and not until after she had praised God for his never-failing goodness. But I’d been disarmed and the news took me by surprise. “I have heard that the greatest grief parents can bear is to bury their own child,” she penned in somewhat shaky handwriting, telling about the unexpected death of her daughter. “I will agree. It still is hard to believe I’ll never again lift the phone and hear, ‘Hi, Mom.’”

If I could have, I’d have thrown my arms around her neck and hugged her tightly, though I know my embrace could not replace her daughter’s loving touch. Nor could it take away her pain. But, with her in the United States and us in Japan, it wasn’t possible anyway. No matter how wonderful modern technology is that allows us to see our grandson daily by web cam and hear him coo, laugh, and even cry, I still can’t pick him up. Although we reach out to touch his face on the monitor, we can’t feel it, nor can he sense us. It was the same with her. So I simply sat, holding her letter in my hand, wondering what I could do.

Amazingly, despite her pain, she knew what to do. Her letter continued, chronicling the birth of a new pair of great-grandchildren—twins, a boy and a girl—with another due in May. “We are thankful God has allowed us these extra years to enjoy our families,” she wrote, also sharing about their sixtieth wedding anniversary. “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the Lord.”

What to do when the pain is greatest? Praise the Lord.

I read Psalm 148 in my devotions this morning. It contains 14 verses of who and what should praise the Lord—everything in all creation, including sun, moon, stars, heavens, water, all creatures, lightening, hail, snow, clouds, and winds, mountains and hills, fruit trees, animals, kings, princes, all rulers, young men and maidens, old men and children, all should praise the Lord. In my journal, I’d quipped that the only specific listing not there is for old women to praise God. But my friend in Colorado knows better.

So does another older friend. She buried her youngest child in March, having already outlived two other adult children and her husband. Only a few years ago, already in her 90s, she also survived a tornado that completely destroyed her home. Most recently, area-wide flooding left some neighbors without electricity for a week. “Ours was out only twenty-two hours,” she wrote in another letter I am treasuring. “I’m thanking God for his goodness to us all. I learned years ago that the sun will shine after the darkest cloud. So I thank God daily for his love and mercy.”

Two letters. They have reminded me that the call to praise God in Psalm 148 is for all seasons, all circumstances, and all people. May the song in my heart be amplified as I learn from two women who live joyfully and victoriously, despite the tears that wet their cheeks.

A Broken Record

Beautiful Japan--anywhere but the trains

After this morning’s commute, I just have to write about the Tokyo trains (again, I know). They and dogs that are treated like children—or even better than—are my two major pet peeves about life in Japan’s capital city. Nevertheless, at the risk of sounding like a broken record . . . .

The train from Jiyugaoka to Shibuya was definitely the most packed one I’ve ever ridden, and I’ve endured some amazingly crowded trains up to now, when I honestly wasn’t sure I could get on. But I was at the front of the line this morning, and there was no way I could have changed my mind about riding because of the surge that came from behind me.

When my glasses cleared from the steam engendered by all the people breathing in such a small space inside that first car, I discovered I’d been pushed right up to the back of a man in a gray pinstriped suit. I was so close to him that there couldn’t possibly have been anything or anyone between us. Only there was. I don’t know how she survived suffocation.

My umbrella was hanging on my arm. (Adding insult to injury, it rained all day today.) I couldn’t see it, but I knew it was there because I could feel it, like a ball and chain, anchoring me to the floor. Every time the train lurched, the wooden crook dug deeper into my flesh, like an iron vice determined to break through my arm. Finally, at the only station where there was any significant movement of people either in or out of the train, I was able to pull it up and hold it above my head like a lightening rod. My arm survived, but is sore to the touch this evening.

Then there was my backpack. I always wear it on my front when I get on a crowded train in order to preserve a small sheath of privacy for myself. Although the train was moving and I was swaying with it, my feet were locked into a permanent encasing between what seemed like hundreds of other feet, so I had no way to right myself. I felt like the Yogi Bear punching bag my brother had when we were young—those life size inflatable figures that are weighted at the bottom so that they move back and forth as they are pummeled, but always from the same place on the floor. Which is to say, I found myself swaying several people to the right or left, depending upon the train’s movement, but my feet never moved a quarter of an inch. Somehow, my backpack got left three people away from me on one of the lurches. Nevertheless, it was still strapped to my arms. Figure that one out!

Good thing I was using this morning’s commute to memorize Psalm 73:26: “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” Indeed, I was experiencing what the psalmist was talking about, although he never rode a train in Tokyo (or anywhere else, for that matter).

I haven’t solved the problem of overcrowded trains since I can’t avoid them as long as I live in Japan. Nor has my question been answered—which is, how is it that a train can always take on more passengers, no matter how packed it already is? But I feel better having written this blog today. And, I must say, the Toyoko Line employees were kind enough to apologize profusely for arriving 12 minutes late into Shibuya Station. The only problem was that, as the doors slowly inched open, it was too crowded to get off!

P.S. I learned later that a fire had been discovered near the electric relay station of the Chuo Line. That entire system was shut down for seven hours, funneling everyone to other train lines in a ripple effect. It helps knowing the reason riding my morning train had been nearly as dangerous a proposition as jumping off a cliff and hoping for the best. But what about next time?

From the Heights

Bernie congratulates graduates on March 4.

Rejoicing in the Lord
“Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to go on the heights” (Habakkuk 3:17-19).

These verses are among our favorites in the Bible, but they are especially meaningful to right now as we write to you from the heights. Let us share the reasons we are rejoicing.

2008 international testimonies book
“Yet I Will Rejoice” is the title of the 13th international testimonies book that Cheryl has compiled and edited. Currently in the production stage, it will be published by Warner Press in June. Needless to say, this year’s title comes from the Habakkuk passage above. Of all the writing Cheryl does, these annual testimony books are her favorite. Not only do they encourage her in gathering and editing the stories (and occasionally writing her own), but it is a thrill to know that their publication uplifts so many other people, too. It is our prayer that the Lord will use this book to its intended purpose and that the Church of God will be energized to greater faithfulness in its international mission as a result of this book. (Naturally, we hope you purchase copies for yourself and others who need the encouragement this book will bring to them.)

Tamagawa Seigakuin
Verse 19 above is the inspiration for the current Tamagawa Seigakuin school theme: Walk the High Places. As such, the entire three verses are the text of Bernie’s entrance ceremony message on April 4, when nearly 170 new seventh graders will begin their Tama Sei experience. Not only will the girls hear this message of Christian hope and encouragement, but so also will many of their family members. (Typically, 700-1,000 people attend this ceremony, considered to be one of the most important in a girl’s Tama Sei career.) Think about this awesome opportunity for Christian witness! It is even more astounding when one remembers that the average Christian church in Japan only has about 30 people. What an amazing opportunity God has given Tama Sei. Please continue to pray for the school. Pray also for Bernie in his main responsibility of helping to keep the school focused uppermost on its Christian mission.

Not only are we in a high place as we think about the incoming new class of students at Tama Sei, but we are also rejoicing in thinking about the girls who just graduated from high school on March 4. This was an especially significant milestone day in the 58-year history of the school: the 10,000th girl was graduated (and nearly 200 more after her). We cannot help but be excited when we think of all the seeds that have been planted over the years. We continue to trust God that he will indeed bring a magnificent harvest.

Spring staff meeting
Thank you for your prayers for our annual missionary staff meeting, March 25-27. Despite the fact that Rod and Donna Stafford were unable to join us at the last minute due to a family crisis, we enjoyed a lot of laughter, shared tears, prayed together and for one another, and were indeed refreshed by the opportunity to get out of the big cities, where most of us live, and into the snow-covered mountains about three hours by car from Tokyo. Some of our staff are facing quite difficult experiences (or are in the midst of them), so please pray for all of us: Zonia Mitchell (serving in Saga); Millie Michael (Kobe-Osaka); Mike and Makiko Boyle, Alina Croall, Mike Wagner, and Cheryl and Bernie Barton (all in the Tokyo area). Please also remember Jason and Abby Kuiper, new teachers at Tama Sei from April, in their adjustment to life and ministry in Japan.

Please also remember Rachelle Bargerstock and Abby Spear, two SAM staff who have just left Japan after four years and one year, respectively. Pray for their transition back to the United States—more daunting than most people who’ve never experienced it can believe—as well as for them to understand the doors God is now opening for them.

Other prayer concerns
Two other prayer concerns are weighing heavily on us (and are the reason we will not have a May newsletter). Please pray for us as we travel to India to serve as speakers for the annual convention of the Church of God in South India (April 26-May 6). Pray that God will guide our preparations and use us to his glory at the convention. Also pray for Cheryl and her father, Donald Johnson, as they continue working on the Church of God missions history book project. The main deadline is May 31, but the race is on to see whether or not they can actually meet it. (The book will be published in 2009 as part of the 100th anniversary celebration of the organized Church of God international missions effort.) Certainly we are depending upon your prayers that we will be able to have praise reports on both of these matters in the June letter.