THEY'RE BLOOMING AGAIN!

Recently, the associate pastor of a church I fellowshipped with in Tokyo came down to speak in several churches in Okinawa, and I took an online peek at one of his meetings. I recognized the Pastors as some young staff members of the mission school I first attended!

On my younger sister's prodding, I'd recently been gathering writing I'd done in Japanese about my own childhood, including many memories at Okinawa Christian School. I didn't write anything about the time OCS was still in only quonset huts in Camp Kue--after all, I was only in kindergarten then--but my sister's teacher, Mrs. Cherry, saw Joyce's potential and had her start reading in kindergarten so that she needed only the 1st semester of 1st grade, the 2nd semester of 2nd grade. This love of reading helped her, I think, do well in Okinawa's Spelling Bee years later. I found something scrapbooked (the old church name and address can be displayed because the place had been torn down since.)

Whew. After several hours' writing, I decided to take a break, and on the way back from the kitchen, I noticed the flowers. It had been something the church folks sent home with Joyce to cheer me up for Mother's Day--a pot of orchids--and Kinya had made sure the plant got water and sun because he knew I would let it die. Even after his heartfelt efforts, all the flowers fell off, I saw sadly, and I'd stopped looking in the direction of the plant...until that moment. THERE WERE THREE FLOWERS BLOOMING AGAIN!

It had been just one year. But I was ecstatic. The memory about OCS and the Spelling Bee had been over 50 years. But they gave me a really warm feeling I can't explain either. No wonder scripture says one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as a day. God doesn't measure things in the same way either, does He?

POTATOES

There is no way anybody could've known. Since our family moved down to Okinawa in Sept. '24, I've had this craving for a simple "potato salad" found at the nearby store with tiny dices of carrot, some onion, some chunks of potato and a lot of mayonnaise-y mash. Nothing else. I keep a large container of it in the fridge to be served in smaller portions practically every day.

So I've actually been eating potato pretty regularly. But one day, I realized there had been an oversight in the shopping--I'D LET THE POTATO SALAD RUN OUT! No biggy, right? Just get it tomorrow. That's the facial expression I wore, but I was thinking, "But I want it TODAY!"

There was a ring at the door. Pastor Ishikawa brought chiffon cakes from a local bakery for my sister Joyce and for our family. Then he handed us a small shopping bag of produce, saying he'd been given two bags, and the Lord told him to take one of them to the Saitos.

What could be in the bag? Potatoes! When I saw what was inside, I had to e-mail Yoshitaka Ishikawa right away and tell him what had happened.

So we could eat potato that very day--yes!

Sometimes, a pastor's job is to prepare a sermon, at other times to study the Bible, or do hospital or prison visits. But many have learned they need to be sensitive to the Voice of God about even a bag of potatoes. Am I thanking God and being joyfully obedient with what He has given me, that He dare trust me with more?

"He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much; and he that is unjust in that which is the least is unjust also in much." (Luke 16:10)

FORGET THE CAMERA

I forgot to bring my camera again! But one result was instead of photographing wildlife after going to the doctor's, Kinya and took the short way back home through the city...which meant stopping to pick up a few things at the stores. We could just put them in the push-cart I now used, I thought, but Kinya decided to use his backpack instead.

One of the stores we stopped in, I told him, was owned by the person who provided our church land. Years back, as a single young man, riding home on a bus after an ongoing stressful work situation, he happened to look out the window and see church lights. He got off at the next stop; attended the meeting (they happened to be holding special evangelistic services); and got saved. (He's the one in the blue.) It was after that that he got married and became owner of a nearby department store, then had a hand in our small group of believers purchasing a plot of land for the new church location.

Recently, I've been reading through quite a bit of things I've written in Japanese about what the Lord's done for me, and I've been trying to put them into digital format too. But I do know I can get carried away doing this reading and writing in the wrong posture and do all sorts of bad things to my already weak back; I need to be careful. BUT one of the things Kinya told me I could pick up at this department store mentioned above...was a lumbar support! I'll put this simply: all the things I've tried in the past really haven't worked. But this one is doing the trick!

In fact, I told my sister Janice it presses just the right spot in the right way and feels so good, it's kind of like a massage chair. The other day, after feeling a little sore after finishing cleaning up the kitchen, I remember wanting to come into the bedroom, not to flop onto the bed and rest, but to sit on that thing and have it press on my back! No, they're not paying me to advertise!