I love you, O Lord, my strength….check out this post written by the next volunteer to Kesennuma, Kate Lynn Hieb. She writes about her reaction to the fires that ravaged Kesennuma a year ago.

A year later, this is the Kesennuma we see:

We love the people that we’ve met here – there are belly laughs and beautiful relationships forming here out of the ashes in Kesennuma. Sometimes, it’s hard for me to picture our new friends having such uncertainty and terror in their lives.

And sometimes the fires, the quake, the water, and death is suddenly the focus.

Sometimes, looking around at the thorough cleanup, I honestly can barely imagine that the Tsunami came seven times.

But in all my conversations here, the lessons learned by Kesennuma all seem to point towards God.

The people that stayed in their cars or went back for possessions died.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. – Matthew 6:21

The fear of looting made it necessary for neighbors to watch out for each other.

Love your neighbor as yourself. – Matthew 22:39

The sudden disaster had no warning – lives were changed in an instant.

Moreover, no one knows when their hour will come. As fish are caught in a cruel net, or birds are taken in a snare, so people are trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them. – Ecclesiastes 9:12

The sudden nature of the disaster provides a sense of urgency – because the Bible has told of a far more final day of disaster and renewal.

But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. – Matthew 24

People have turned to the Lord in Kesennuma – we can’t even imagine the plans he has to raise them up again, “to give them hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

]]> http://blogs.wels.net/relief/2012/05/29/i-love-you-o-lord-my-strength/feed/ 0 http://blogs.wels.net/relief/2012/05/29/i-love-you-o-lord-my-strength/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/welsRelief/~3/ROIR1HrNAI8/ http://blogs.wels.net/relief/2012/05/29/wooooaaahh-i-am-the-way-the-truth-and-the-life/#comments Tue, 29 May 2012 20:39:10 +0000 Beth Zambo http://blogs.wels.net/relief/?p=970 Anna Sherod in Kessenuma, Japan – May 25, 2012

Sarah and I both love camp songs. It was pretty natural for us to make a little song booklet and share it with the neighbors (10 of them!) who came to our “American Barbecue” tonight. We warmed up by singing some secular songs (“Oh the more we get together the happier we’ll be!”) and then I begged their pardon to include “some Christian songs that we’ve sung since childhood.”

The last song went like this:

Blind man sat by the road and he cried (clap x2)

Blind man sat by the road and he cried (clap x2)

Blind man sat by the road and he cried (clap x2)

He cried Woooaaah!

Show me the way!

Show me the way!

Show me the way!

The way to go home.

Jesus sits by the road and he cries,

Jesus sits by the road and he cries,

Jesus sits by the road and he cries,

Wooooaaaaahh!

I am the Way!

I am the Truth!

I am the Life!

The Way to go Home!

Setsuko-san wants to sing it again on Sunday. I’m pretty sure it’ll still be stuck in my head then. It was such a great opportunity to present John 14:6 tonight. We’ve never had that many guests in the center all at once before – so much energy and laughter! One of the neighbors had never visited the center before. Another brought her kawaii one year old baby for her first birthday!

It was wonderful because we were able to talk and get to know them better for over 2 hours. Some of them grabbed bookmarkes printed with bible passages as they left. Mrs. Sato (different Mrs. Sato) showed me hers, printed with 1 Peter 5:7. She said that it made her feel reassured. At the end of the night, they wanted to close out with the Jesus song again! Please pray that these little seeds will grow!

Wooooaaahh!!! Hallelujah! HE IS THE WAY!!!

がんばて (Ganbate) is one of the many Japanese words that is hard to translate into English. It means something along the lines of “Give it your all!, Keep it up!, Hang in there!, Good luck!” Iʼve seen the phrase posted on buildings, taxis and other places in Kesennuma all over in the 2 days Iʼve been here. Ruth thinks Iʼm crazy for taking pictures of this encouragement, but I donʼt care. I love the tenacious spirit of the Japanese people (and the fact that I can read what it says).

My time in Japan has been eventful so far. I got to ride a shinkansen (bullet train) for the very first time. Iʼve wanted to ride a shinkansen ever since I found out there were different kinds of trains – like most kids raised in Japan, this was probably at around age two or three… You canʼt imagine how excited I was.

Here in Kessenuma, I’ve become an international driver, braving the streets in a giant van.

Besides traveling, Iʼve also met many of the students who come to the center for classes and some of the other contacts the volunteers before me have made. (Iʼm terrible at remembering names, so this part of my time in Japan will be a whole adventure in itself.)

Last night, Ruth, Anna and I went to a juku (a school to prepare students for entrance examinations) across the street to talk to 4 students about life in America and Korea. God has been giving us many unique opportunities to meet new people in Japan.

After our mini-presentation, I got the chance to meet the “King of the Kassesuyataimura.” (Anna talked about him in the post “A night out in Kessennuma.”) Although we were eating at the restaurant across the walkway from his, he came into the Korean restaurant to have a drink and watch the Japan-Korea volleyball game. (Korea won in 4 matches.) He is quite the character. We found out he used to play volleyball professionally. Anna and I are already scheming on how we can convince him to teach us how to cook Japanese food.

It never ceases to amaze me how God prepares his children to do his work. I had always hoped to come back to Japan to do mission work, but I never would have thought I could use other random skills I’ve picked up, like basic knitting, to meet people and possibly have a chance to show what a “Christian” is.

Being back in Japan is a strange feeling, but a good strange. I can tell that the next month is going to be a challenge for me in many different ways, but I know I can match the tenacity of the Japanese people by relying on my Heavenly Father.

Sometimes, you go fishing, and it’s just nice to be in nature but there’s not a lot of excitement. The fish aren’t biting, so you chalk it up to a relaxing or frustrating experience (depending on your mood) and just move on.

TODAY IS NOT ONE OF THOSE DAYS.

So this morning, I opened the center by myself, which is unusual. We have an event coming up this afternoon, so my thoughts were preoccupied with that and breakfast. Mostly breakfast. However, the phone was ringing off the hook – students canceling class, students scheduling class, “do we want to do a presentation on American culture for a juku?”… one of the callers asked if I had a minute to chat in English. “Of course,” I said, but we have class/events solid from 2-9 tonight so would he mind coming in the morning? He lives an hour away, but he said he’d be on his way.

This is where it gets a little crazy.

He seemed really distracted and unable to focus on his English book, so I switched to Japanese and gave him a break.He told me that he had not enjoyed the hike yesterday. I was kind of shocked. He explained that he was harboring the anger of a past grievance toward another member of the Kessenuma Toastmasters group and in light of Jesus command to “Love your Enemies,” he was frustrated that he could not get rid of that anger.

He blustered some other things about being an old fisherman that got angry easily, about not having any interest in the deeper, intricate answers to live that Christ brings, about how glad he was that he’d met such nice Christian girls because his main interest was speaking in English.

“You know, I might just become Christian to speak English,” he quipped.

He played it off as he tried to find out where all the LECC churches were located, asking if it would help him study for the English Exam to go to a National (native Japanese) Pastor’s Church. “Does Pastor Nideiera speak English?”

I showed him the list of the Lutheran Churches in Japan that I know about, and told him, “We do watch the Tokyo Aganai Service here, on the computer on Sunday mornings…it’s in Japanese”

Then he said he’d come,

“Just to observe,” and said, ”I’m getting really weighed down by Buddhism, the only time people are Buddhist is when they die…I might really become a Christian.”

He looked really happy, but like he needed a break from thinking. By this point Ruth had gotten back to the center so she’d gotten to see the tail end of all this.

“Do you want to keep going with your English?“

“I’ll see you Sunday for Church.”

…Sometimes, you go fishing, and God just throws fish at you.

We’ve spent all morning celebrating.

Today I went to the Kessenuma chapter of Toastmasters, and then we all went on a hike together to a nearby mountain.

We talked about “the god of this mountain” vs. “The God of all the mountains.”

Then a fellow hiker who has asked questions about Christianity before mentioned some of the terrible things that he’d seen “Christians” do in the name of Christianity and it was difficult to respond [especially in Japanese].

The questions seemed to go on forever.

I got to thinking about how hard it was to “explain away” the negativity and seeming contradictions, and all I could come up with was this:

Basically, Christianity is hard to explain because that’s the way the devil wants it to be. He has worked so hard on this very thing.

In a perfect world, the Christians would be known by their love and exemplary behavior; recognized by their unity in the faith and their bold confession of the truth.

They would be easily identifiable, especially in groups, by their joy. Instead, sin has fractured us, destroyed some, tainted all – and it all becomes very hard to explain.

When I say that “I still sin daily,” they look at me and ask…

“Ok, then what’s the point of being a Christian?”

And then, when I say that “trusting in Jesus’ sacrifice, my sin is taken away as far as the East is from the West and I am a child of God, living my life in thanks,” they say,

“Well, that seems rather easy and convenient.”

DESPITE THIS, there are people here, non-Christians, wanting to come to full-on Bible study two times a week. That’s the power of God’s Word. There’s no other explanation. Christians themselves are not drawing these people to the church. GOD IS.

Meanwhile, I’m digging deeper myself (Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. – 1st Peter) with some lectures on Justification by Dr. Siegbert Becker and with the excellent book “Prepared to Answer” which I (thankfully?) forgot to give back to Pastor Wordell at the Cafe.