Thursday, July 25th

Dear Friends, Brothers & Sisters – We have landed at Narita, sent our baggage on to Chino, and are finally all settled into our hotel rooms.  It is 10:15PM Thursday here – 6:15AM Thursday in California.  I’ve been up nearly 24 hours now and am fading fast.  Please excuse typing, grammar, and thinking errors.  Thank you to everyone who came out to LAX to see us off.  It is always a great blessing to be with everyone there and to leave with your love and prayers.  The plane ride was great…except for the two wailing babies…and the lady behind me who forgot to use her indoor voice when talking to the person next to her…throughout the entire trip.  But the plane ride was very, very good for me.  The food was good and the attendants brought us plenty of snacks and drinks.  The past few days I was busy preparing for the trip, buying some last minute things that I needed.  So me head and heart have not been focused on what we go to Japan to do.  After dinner, I decided to watch a movie – Les Miserables.  For those of you who know the story or have seen the movie, you’ll have a better idea of what I will be talking about.  The main character, Jean Valjean (I believe), has been serving a 20 year sentence for stealing bread to feed his starving nephew.  The soldier overseeing his stay in prison has tortured and tormented him brutally.  Valjean escapes from his probation and is a man on the run.  A priest takes him in, and shows great compassion in feeding and housing him when no one else will.  Valjean slips away during the night,  after stealing silverware and such, but is caught by the police who return him to the priest.  The priest shows compassion once again by saying Valjean had permission to take the stolen items – preventing Valjean from probably spending the rest of his life in prison.  Because of the mercy and forgiveness of the priest, Valjean turns his life around and his raging anger is replaced with a desire to help his fellow man – to show the same mercy and kindness shown to him.  But in the midst of this new life, the jailer reappears, sees Valjean and attempts to arrest him again.  At one point, Valjean has the opportunity to kill his jailer, but refuses, and lets him go unharmed – unconditionally.  It is not hard to compare the forgiveness shown by the priest as the same forgiveness we receive as Christians from God.  As I continued watching the movie, the comparisons of the priest to God, and of Valjean to every Christian touched my heart more and more.  It’s a good thing I was watching the movie in the dark – so no one could see how much it moved me.  But what struck me most was the reality that this is why we go to Chino year after year – to share that great compassion shown to us by God.  His love has been life altering to everyone who has received it.  This forgiveness that we receive allows us to remain in the presence of God forever – and less than 1% of the people in Japan have received Him into their hearts.  I took a break from watching the monitor after the movie – to reflect upon what I had just seen.  When I tried to watch another movie, there was no sound coming through the headphones.  I played around with the dials to see if I’d pushed something accidentally to turn off the sound, but could not get the sound to return.  I sat there wondering what to do for a while, when it finally hit me – I need to continue sitting there in silence – away from all the visual and audio stimulation and distractions I usually have that cause me to kill and waste so much of my time.  I then spent time reflecting upon the movie, time to ponder and meditate, and most importantly – time to pray.  Instead of trying to cover up the crying and screaming of little babies, and the loud conversations behind me, I was able to spend a very blessed time in silence – blocking out all the noise around me unconsciously. 

                  All of this has been to say that “God is good!”  He knows what I need when I don’t have a clue – and gives it to me in great abundance.  I need to get ready for bed, and also to let Daniel get some sleep, too.  All this, and we haven’t even gotten to Chino, yet. 

                                                                                          God bless you all

P.S. – It’s now Friday morning and we’re sitting in a Starbucks at the Narita Airport.  I’m able to download this message to the blog, because of the free wi-fi here.  We’ll be taking a train into Tokyo shortly, where we’ll buy bento (boxed meal) to eat on the train when we transfer to another express train into Chino.  We’re going to have a short team meeting now – I’ll be back, later.