Some Treats God Has Given

As an MK, I've seen the salvation of men for whom wives prayed 20 years; the return to church as adults those who had contact with it as children; and the most wonderful provision of all: my new Mom, one of the first believers in our church. My first mother went to be with the Lord in '81. I hear she recommended the new Mrs. Oshiro to my Dad before she went--she'd babysat us so we'd grown up loving her--no stranger to the family!

A missionary family, I read once, has to develop such a strong bond that there's a closeness even when far apart. I think that's one aspect of being an MK I'd never trade. Distance in proximity doesn't matter so much when there's a closeness in relationship. My sisters & I still keep in touch through email--I think we're the biggest encouragements we have for each other--& have shared things with each other about which we'd confide in to no one else.

Growing Up with Termites, Mice, Geckos

I forgot to mention termites were one of our playthings in our first home--the ones my Dad hoped wouldn't bring the house down on our heads (Nov. 7 post), the way they were eating up the woodwork. I vaguely remember--these are preschool days--we'd catch the termites and pluck off their wings.

There had to be mice in the house, because I remember Daddy put mousetraps around the house--not the kind that slammed shut and killed the mice instantly, but cages whose doors dropped shut when a mouse went inside and pulled on the bait. The caged rats were then drowned in barrels of water in the backyard. I always thought they were rather cute, really, with their clear, round eyes. Maybe Mommy kept us from witnessing the rodent executions, because the sight of mice never evokes any feelings of repulsion, fear, or even guilt (from having done away with so many).

One other creature others would think me batty for thinking they were cute: geckos! They were free to crawl up and down our house walls--I'm talking about the inside of the house, not the outside--and eat all the mosquitos their hearts desired. Anything that helps lessen the mosquito population is MY FRIEND--so geckos were my friends! The greenish outdoors lizards, I always felt, were more pointy, ugly things; but the gray-brown indoors geckos, to me, seemed more round, soft,..even cute.

Never Put It in Writing

The hardest lessons learned, though, were not through housework or schoolwork. "I think you've learned a good lesson," were words I heard from my mother when struggling with unpleasant heartwork.

My sisters seemed to go through their rebellious stages at the same time and sometimes asked me to make requests for them. Once, in response to one of my sisters' difficulties, I'd written a letter of intercession and gotten myself in scalding hot water with Daddy.

I was only trying to help, I thought, and I'm the one who got in trouble.... Confused and hurt, I sought refuge under my bed and cried until my face was puffy. Mother came into the room, sat down on the bed, and told me to come out. I came out, buried my face in her lap, and sobbed.

"I think you've learned a very important lesson, " she said. And what she said after that I never forgot. "Never put in WRITING what you cannot afford to have misunderstood." It's one thing to think it, another to even speak it, but never, never put it down on paper, she said.

It made sense. And often, Mother's words simply made a difficult situation easier to swallow.



...Now, don't ask me what I'm doing blogging, putting a lot of things in print!

It REALLY Hurts More

Daddy played his part in disciplining his children, too; it wasn't all left to Mommy. Although parents always say, "This hurts me more than it hurts you,"I could never believe it. Especially when Daddy spanked! It HURT!

My sister and I were bickering one day (proof of our siblingry--ha!) and Daddy told us to stop it. We did. Until he was out of the room. Then we claimed our sibling rights again. Until Daddy came back and told us I told you to cut it out. When he left, of course we started up again. This time, when Daddy returned, he was holding our dreaded enemy, THE PADDLE.

"Now I told you to stop fighting, but if you really want to hurt each other, you can," he said. I didn't like the tone of his voice.

"Okay, you lean over that bed," he said to my sister--he handed me the paddle--"and you give your sister a spanking."

What? She was crying and begging me not to hurt her. I didn't mean to hurt her, not really! But Daddy was insistent. Paddle her, he said. So I tapped her...softly. No, harder. No, harder. Each time he said it, I was crying out, "I don't want to! I don't want to!" And with tears streaming down my face, I gave her a real spanking. It felt awful to see my sister screaming and crying, and then....

"All right. Change places."

No! She'll KILL me, I thought, after I'd hit her so hard!

What I didn't realize while kicking and screaming was that she was still crying too, with each command to hit me harder.

The cause of our argument? Who knows? But after that spanking, if Mommy or Daddy said, "This hurts me more than it hurts you," we understood!

Funny we kids never realized it was the grown-ups who took out the trash; many times we tried to throw away the Formidable Foe and wondered how the paddle found its way back up on the wall again. (This has been a lesson to me: we never hated Mommy or Daddy who administered the spankings; it was the paddle we feared!)

Ney's Letter

THE UNIVERSITY OF THE RYUKYUS
Naha Okinawa, Ryukyu Islands
May 9, 1963

Dear Friend,

Not long ago, I visited with Kimiko and Roy Oshiro. Roy had invited me to give my testimony at the church under his supervision. He also invited my wife and I to Sunday evening dinner before church. As we arrived, I clearly remember backing my car in between the close-crowded buildings of this Oriental city. Then as we went into the house, Roy joked.

"Which side do you want, the men's or the women's. The men go this way through this door. The women go that way through that door."

I looked at him in puzzlement. My wife didn't relish the idea of leaving her escort in a strange city.

Roy laughed. "This used to be an old bath house. Let's take the left door."

As we stooped through the door, Roy commented, "This is where the church meets."

"No benches? Only tatami mats?" I asked gazing at the straw mats.

"Yes," he said, "If we put benches in the room, it wouldn't be big enough to hold all the people."

I thereupon pointed out that one of my young Okinawan friends didn't like sitting on tatami mats. He pointed out that at school Okinawans sit in chairs, on buses they sit on chairs, and in many Okinawan homes chairs are now used.

"We have no alternative," Roy said. "There's not enough room. In fact, when visitors come, we have to sleep them out here in the church."

By the end of that discussion, we were through the church and into the cramped living quarters. At Roy's invitation we pulled up chairs to the table. I noticed that two of the chairs were Army quartermaster issue and two were obviously local. After the flurry of introducing and seating three vivacious little children, Roy started the usual (or unusual) dining table conversation.

"We sleep over there," Roy said, pointing across my shoulder.

"No beds?" I queried.

"No room," Roy answered. "There's not enough room for five beds in there."

I surveyed the approximately 9 by 12 room, and couldn't help but agree.

"Besides, if we had beds in there, we wouldn't have room for the children to play on wet days," Kimiko added. "Every evening, I have to pull out the mattresses out and make up beds. Sometimes it's very hard when I come home tired in the evening after a day of evangelizing in the country."

Just about that time, I caught sight of welts and scars one of their children's arms.

Noticing my curiosity, Roy said, "Some of them are insect bites from a year ago, some quite recent. She's very sensitive to them."

"The tatami mats are infested with fleas," Kimiko added. "It's impossible to get them out."

"Can't you do anything about them?"

"We put insecticide on the children every night, but it wears off towards morning. Western type beds are the only answer."

"How does this building hold up in typhoons?" I asked.

"So far so good," Roy answered, "but the termites have got into it. See that window; it opens only six inches. The building is sagging. The window over there doesn't open at all. We're going to have to move out before the termites make the building fall on top of us."

When one of the children interrupted for dinner for that inevitable trip to the bathroom, I asked if they had a flush toilet.

"No," was the answer, "just a local benjo."

Later on, when coffee making time came around, Kimiko walked over to the single faucet, turned it on, but not a drop of water came out.

"Oh, oh, no water," she said.

"I guess I'll have to go out and turn the other catchment tank on," Roy added.

I thought to myself how unnecessary this was. The American government has installed an integrated water system for Okinawa but these Americans cannot hook into it because of a shortage of funds. Then I thought of the Scriptures, "And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it..." (I Cor. 12:26) And I suffered all through the night. Here were some wonderful Christian people, obviously doing a good job, but they were doing it under unnecessarily difficult conditions because Christians such as myself were not fulfilling our obligation to them. That's why I've written this letter now.

In Christ Jesus,

James W. Ney
English Consultant

With us, it was the other way around

I heard stories about boys or girls who wanted to run away from home, but with us it was the other way around. It was a privilege to live at home--not a right--and we feared being told we'd have to leave, which was what would happen if we didn't abide by the rules.

One time, I'd angered Mommy who told me I'd have to leave. She actually went to the closet and pulled out an old suitcase, telling me to get packed. I was scared stiff. I wrote a letter of apology and slipped it into her room, saying I'd even give up a week of television if she'd let me stay at home. After we'd had a good talk and the situation was ironed out, Mommy took the suitcase back. I learned then it was full of old blankets which she hadn't bothered to unpack; she hadn't really intended on sending me away. But I already mentioned her natural acting ability...how was I to know she was bluffing?

I'd also heard of children not wanting to go to school, but we dreaded NOT going. Usually, being absent from school meant we'd been held back for a "family conference" in the morning, and we'd be sent from noon with a note of explanation. Answering friends' questions as to our tardiness was embarrassing. It wasn't fun to explain how our dad felt it necessary to inform us on how we were killing our mother, etc,.... And since we were generally healthy, staying at home usually meant we'd have to help with housework; schoolwork was far more appealing!

Beware

The consequences of sin must be taught too. One morning's family devotions had been on the verse, "Be sure your sin will find you out." (Numbers 32:23b)

Because of the following incident, I learned the verse as "BEWARE your sins will find you out"! Just after devotions I had stolen a few pennies and hidden them under my pillow...no one would think to look there, I thought. Mommy happened to come into the room, happened to plop down on my bed, and happened to lift the pillow and place it on her lap (she'd never done that before!)

"What's this money?"

"It's...uh...it's...." My sin had found me out!

The money was stolen, Mommy learned. And thievery could not be tolerated. Mommy turned and walked out of the room...toward the telephone!

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm calling the police. We can't have robbers in this house." She replied, cooly.

No! No! She can't do that!

My older sister grabbed Mommy around the waist from the back and tried to back her away from the phone. "Oh Mommy, she won't do it again, I promise! She won't ever steal again! Please don't call the police!" But Mommy was unrelenting. It seemed my sister was being dragged to the phone herself. Soon my other sister grabbed her sister around the waist and commenced pulling. And I formed the last link of the chain, tugging at my sister in front of me. All three of us were crying and begging Mommy not to make the call. "I'll never steal again!"

If Mommy were laughing on the inside at that comical scene, I'll never know. She looked dead serious as she picked up the receiver.

"You promise you'll never do it again?"

"I promise!"

Mommy put down the receiver. Click. Whew!

And I never had the urge to steal again. Once when my younger sister was counting her money, a quarter rolled off the counter. It would've been the easiest thing for me to take that quarter and pocket it; she'd just been counting her money and would never notice it gone. But....

"Beware your sin will find you out," came an echo in my mind.

"Here, you lost a quarter." I found myself picking up the coin and placing it next to her neatly formed pile." It just fell off the table."

Because of Mommy's act, I'd lost appetite for--rather, gained a fear for--sin. Drama classes are not prerequisites for motherhood, but if they were, I think Mommy would've been a Natural!