Home for Christmas

Look who's coming home for Christmas!

Talk about excited! Our son Benjamin arrives tonight from Guam and our daughter Stephanie and her family will be here tomorrow from China. That means, of course, our ten-month-old grandson, too. I ought to be cleaning the house to get ready, though I realize things will be completely disorganized moments after everyone arrives. At least there would be some satisfaction in knowing that everything was in its right place at the start. But I’m just too thrilled to clean. I’d rather dance. Our family is going to be home for Christmas!

But not everyone. As excited as I am, I cannot forget our four daughters in India, as well as our daughter in Myanmar. These children ranging in age from eight to the mid-thirties are not blood family, but they are family anyhow. Let me explain.

When our son was born in 1979, we quickly fell into a common trap for many first-time parents. Nothing was too good or too much for our son. After all, he was our beautiful gift from God and we wanted to treat him as the treasure he was. Suddenly he had almost more clothes than we did and so many toys, books, and paraphernalia that they threatened to push out the walls of the little four-room house in which we lived.

I don’t remember what triggered it, but I will forever be grateful that one day we came to our senses. As happy as we were to have Benjamin, was our little boy any more valuable in God’s sight than children the world over who were starving to death for want of the very basics of life? The answer was obvious: No. Further, we realized we had a responsibility for other children in the world, not just those of blood relation to us.

That was the day Dipali became our daughter. And when Stephanie was born nearly three years later, Surekha joined our family. Both she and Dipali lived in The Shelter, an orphanage for destitute girls in Cuttack, Orissa, India. As our daughters left The Shelter for marriage and the work place, we added two others in their places—Namita, now 16, and Halima, now 13. And when Stephanie gave birth to Little Ben in January 2008, we honored him by adding another girl to our family—this one eight-year-old Myint in Myanmar. We have supported all these children through Children of Promise, a worthy child sponsorship organization that currently provides for the physical, educational, and spiritual needs of more than 3,450 children in 22 countries around the world (http://www.echildrenofpromise.org/).

Considering the brutal and violent persecution of Christians in Orissa that has escalated since August, we are particularly concerned about our family there. Namita, Halima, and their 60 “sisters” are safe within the walls of The Shelter. In fact, the orphanage has become shelter for another 50 individuals—Christians who homes have been destroyed or are in danger for their lives should they return to their rural villages in Orissa, where heinous crimes are being committed against Christians. But what about Dipali and Surekha? Adults now and with families of their own, we have not had contact with them for some time. Nevertheless, daughters they became and daughters they remain.

We are rejoicing that we can celebrate Christmas with Benjamin, Stephanie, Donald, and Little Ben. But our hearts will also reach out to India and to Myanmar, site of a devastating cyclone in May 2008 that may have claimed as many as 100,000 lives. (A true accounting will never be known.) After all, we have family in those countries, and they won’t be home for Christmas.

A Hand and a Cup

After a week of productive writing, I feel dried up today for more of the same, even though my deadline is too close for comfort. On top of that, because of all the extra hours spent at my computer, I’ve not done much grocery shopping. This means there’s little to eat in the house right now besides raw ingredients like flour and sugar—but who wants to bake? There’s also dried seaweed that someone brought back to us from Korea. (Healthy, I know, but . . . .) Searching through our cabinets, I also discover numerous packages of somen noodles received during the last summer gift-giving season. But who wants noodles that are always served cold when they’re wrapped up in an afghan and keeping their feet warm in an electric slipper? Not I.

So here I am feeling antsy, unmotivated, and generally just blah. Surely this accounts for the fact that its 3:30 p.m. and I’m still in my pajamas! I should be embarrassed, and I am. But here I sit anyway. Maybe I’ll raid the magazine basket and look for some inspiration among the hundreds of unread pages there.

My eyes fall on the cover of one magazine whose banner announces, “Hunger Isn’t History.” I see a handled tin cup turned face down on the packed earth pavement. Next to it, a wrinkled, black hand, palm down, extends from underneath a tarp. Did she die and so no longer needs her cup? The words of a stark question printed underneath nearly blind my eyes with their intensity: “The world produces more food than ever. So why do nearly a billion people still not have enough to eat?”

Do I dare read further? Wasn’t I just complaining about the food we don’t have? But I take the risk and venture inside anyway. Statistics like, “. . . worldwide, 25,000 people die each year of hunger-related illnesses” jump off the pages at me. I read it again and realize my mistake. That’s each day, not each year. At this rate, Bernie’s entire hometown would disappear—starve to death—in only sixteen hours.

Reading further, I learn of 35 nations around the world that are most affected by this severe food scarcity. Twenty-one of these are in Africa, a long ways from Japan—except for the fact that our small group members represent, among other countries, Kenya and Zimbabwe, two locations specifically mentioned. I learn that in Nairobi more than one million people are routinely hungry, while over five million of Zimbabwe’s 12 million people are expected to be starving next year.

I guess this gloomy blog characterizes my strange mood today. While I’m not sure how to lift my spirits, I appreciate that I cannot succumb to popular thinking which says, “The problem is too big for me to do anything that would matter.” Sometimes these people cluck their tongues, shake their heads about the world situation, and then bite into their Big Macs. But isn’t something—anything—better than doing nothing at all? Although I have never known hunger, do I bear no responsibility at all for the millions all around for whom hunger is their only reality of life. Surely this is what Jesus meant when he said, “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked” (Luke 12:48, NIV).

If you’re reading this blog, I suspect that you are also one of the fortunate, really blessed people in the world, even if you have to budget carefully and occasionally—even often—have to choose not to buy something you’d really like. Just that you have access to a computer says much. So I want to challenge you today to make a positive difference in another person’s life. You may not be able to save the world from hunger, but you can do something.

Without advocating any one over another, here are some organizations that will assist you in knowing how to help the world’s starving millions: Bread for the World (bread.org), Feed the Children (feedthechildren.org), Food for the Hungry (fh.org), Food for the Poor (foodforthe poor.org), Salvation Army (salvationarmyusa.org), World Relief (wr.org), and World Vision (worldvision.org).

It was Mother Teresa who said about making an impact on the world, “Do the thing in front of you.” The woman’s hand is in front of me. I will not turn away.

New Eyes

The glasses I had to start wearing this year

because not all eyes are new ones!

I’m barely able to keep from falling down on the floor in an exhausted heap because of jet lag from the fourteen-hour time difference between Tokyo and the Eastern Time zone of the United States. Of course, it doesn’t help that I flew all night last night to get here at 6:15 A.M. from Thailand, where I attended a conference en route to Japan after our three-month home assignment. And then there was the more than two-hour train ride from the airport to actually get home! No wonder I’m utterly fatigued.

In any case, when I do manage to keep my eyes open for even the shortest time, I realize I’m seeing Tokyo with new eyes. How else can you explain:

The air in this huge megalopolis that is home to 10 percent of Japan’s people is known to be highly polluted from people and industry. Yet it seems fresh and wonderful to me today. I’m drinking it in like a dying woman grasping for breath;

The crowded train seemed comfortable. Granted, I had a seat on all three of the trains I had to ride in order to get in from the airport, and that helped greatly. But I’ve always complained about Tokyo’s crowded trains and there wasn’t any lack of people today, either. However, I found myself strangely comforted by the familiar words swirling around me. I felt relaxed and happy in the anonymity of being lost in the crowd without having to answer questions or express my opinions on anything. In fact, I put my head against the side of the train car and slept like a baby—until my head fell over! But I survived both the body-jarring jolt and the embarrassment; and,

I loved my visit to the vegetable stand to restock the refrigerator. The proprietor is a woman who has been, on the better days, a grump. But today I greeted her as if she were an old friend I’d been eager to meet. Amazingly, she smiled and welcomed me back to Tokyo.

Two days later, I pick up this blog once again. My exhaustion has abated somewhat after two very good nights of sleep. (That’s the best part of coming home—sleeping in my own bed again.) In thinking about my feelings as I resume my life in Japan, I realize that everything is the same, but all is different. I am seeing my neighborhood and my life here with new eyes. My prayer is that these new eyes do not dim or become clouded by the inevitable challenges of life I will begin facing all too soon when my normal schedule resumes. And they will come. Difficulties and challenges just go with the territory of being a Christian missionary in Japan. Despite this certainty, I’m determined that my eyesight remains fresh, alive, and alert to all God is doing and wants to do in my midst now that I’ve returned. I want to join him eagerly and expectantly as I continue to see with these new eyes.

More Americana

The kind of roads I enjoy when I'm not in a hurry.

I’ve traveled in some forty countries of the world, so I think I’m safe in saying that America’s interstate highway system is one of the best in the world—if not the best. Nevertheless, as Bernie and I have crisscrossed the United States while visiting supporting churches on this home assignment, we have chosen to get off the expressways as often as possible. One doesn’t drive state and county roads for speed, but for taste-testing America to discover who she really is. Since we’ve lived in Japan for nearly thirty years, we enjoy these treks on lesser highways. They are opportunities to reconnect with the heart of our homeland. The discoveries we make are sometimes amusing.

Take our stop in Great Bend, Kansas. It was still early, so we decided to go exploring after supper at an Arby’s. Not knowing the area, however, we asked the teenager working behind the counter, “What’s there to do in Great Bend?” She looked at us with a blank expression on her face. “I dunno,” she finally responded without enthusiasm. Then her face brightened slightly as she added, “Well, there’s Wal-Mart.”

Ah yes, Wal-Mart! How much more “American” can you get with most products made in China and sold so cheaply that many people complain this corporation is killing small town U.S.A. Despite this, we did indeed drop in at the Wal-Mart in Great Bend. Not much else was open. It seemed that this was the hang-out for the town’s dyed and spiked-haired youth, most of whom sported multiple tattoos of varying designs. I felt like a sightseeing foreigner even though I was in my own country.

Then there was an even smaller Kansas town we visited. Palco boasted one traffic light and a dying downtown that, even in its heyday, couldn’t have had more than five or six stores. We ate in the Palco Café, the only place to go out to eat in this western Kansas town. Even then, you hope everyone doesn’t decide to show up at the same time since there are less than a handful of tables in the kitchen-sized restaurant.

Looking for the “Today’s Special” menu posted on the wall, I noticed an interesting notation: Milkshakes available Tuesday and Thursday. First of all, it was Saturday, so the ice cream lover in me was very disappointed. But I just had to know why milkshakes were offered only two days a week. The waitress answered matter-of-factly, smiling at my question. “Mary works on Tuedays and Thursdays,” she told me, “and she’s the only one who knows how to use the milkshake machine.” Now it was my turn to smile.

In fact, even today a smile lights my face whenever I think of Palco and small town America. I’ll have to escape there in my mind the next time I’m jam-packed on a commuter train in Tokyo.

Americana

Meeting Halloween in the Minneapolis airport

I can’t remember the last time we were in the United States in October and November. Perhaps that’s why we were unprepared to discover just how Halloween has taken this country by storm force. If the garish yard decorations we’ve seen while traveling this fall are any indication, America is in love with spooks, goblins, scarecrows, pumpkins, and cobwebs! I’d thought those were to be swept away quickly—before anyone could see them and figure out that housekeeping isn’t one of my favorite pastimes. Instead, I’ve seen them artistically draped over the counters of fast food restaurants, displayed at a post office, and decorating bushes in even nicely landscaped yards with the same kind of pride and enthusiasm as a young teenage girl going on her first date with the most popular guy in the class.

But I’m not the only one who’s surprised. The man next door commented, a wry smile lighting his face, “This is the first time I’ve swept away real cobwebs in order to put up fake ones!”

Interestingly, we happened to be flying on October 31. We were greeted at the airport by the helpful staff of Northwest Airlines, each one sporting a Halloween costume and/or interesting Halloween makeup. This was only the beginning of the Halloween “parade” we discovered as we moved further into the airport. It was a surprise to me that costumes hadn’t been banned in the interest of security—the reason one hears for every prohibition and many questionable laws in the United States today. After all, you never know what could be stowed under a tall, black witch’s cap.

By the very next day, however, Halloween was receding into the background. In a feverish atmosphere, people were snapping up the half-off Halloween merchandise as eagerly as if their lives depended upon it. You can be sure their homes and yards will be the talk of the neighborhood next year!

Two days later, Halloween had disappeared like a ghost. In its place, Christmas had magically appeared in stores everywhere—well, the Christmas of evergreen trees, lights, tinsel, decorations, wrapping paper, Santas (edible, display models, and stuffed toy replicas), and all other paraphernalia associated with the commercialism of Christmas. As if attempting to coax shoppers into the Christmas spirit, “Silent Night” was being played over the store’s PA system. When Bernie commented to a Wal-Mart employee that it seemed Christmas had arrived rather early, she shrugged her shoulders and said, “You’d better get used to it.”

I can’t help but wonder what will materialize in the stores on December 26. While I’ve not seen any merchandising plans for 2009, I have no doubt about the strategy that will be employed: tempt customers to spend more money they don’t really have for things they don’t really need in order to fill their oversized homes—homes owned by banks that had to be bailed out for extending credit to individuals whose own parents wouldn’t have vouched for their financial well being. Excuse me for being honest, but I can’t help but wonder what’s going on in America these days.