CALLED BACK
Hey internet friends,
I was recently offered a position at a certain Christian school in Japan. I prayed about it for a long time. I talked to a lot of people about this as well. I’m sure the position would be very challenging. During the past two years when I have been trying to raise the funds to go overseas to West Africa to do missionary work, I have been made more aware than ever of my own weak points and where I need to grow as a leader and Christ follower. Also, my grandmother, Margaret Eaton, is right now in hospice and I am really concerned for her health. I considered saying no.
However, I also thought about the children of Japan. During the three years that I spent teaching English in a certain rural city in Mie Prefecture that I love very dearly, I taught literally thousands of children, some adults, and experienced nearly every sort of teaching environment you can imagine. I remain very compassionate towards the problems that young people face there. Some of them are shared by their counterparts here in America, some are not.
Well, I would like to do what I can to help them. I decided that despite my fears I shall accept this completely unexpected opportunity the Lord has brought into my life. I will do my best to walk the path which leads through this open door before me to return to Japan to serve the young people of the school and the wider community there at large as well as I can and as long as I can with all of the skills and talents that have been given to me by the Lord.
I made this decision sometime after church on Sunday afternoon. On that day I did not tell anyone of my decision. To my surprise, on that very same day I received an email from a teacher in that teeny-tiny rural Japanese town that feels like a second hometown to me. He saw a very spectacular rainbow on that same day and he really wanted to share this photo with me over email. Truly, all of this was more than mere coincidence. I felt like the Lord was giving me a pat on the shoulder and saying, “At least you made the first step.”
I am not sure if the school will really actually accept me for the position or anything like that. However, at least this decision is one very important way to move forward. I feel like the Lord has called me back to Japan for a while. How long? I don’t know. I love Japan and even though it is really odd for an African-American girl like me to be saying this, I’m sure that in the future as well no matter what happens Japan will be a part of my destiny.
RICK THE ROCKER
At the thrift store where I work right now, I have a wonderful opportunity to touch the lives of many people- our customers and also the volunteers. It’s definitely ministry. It’s also true that yesterday was one of the most frustrating days that I have ever spent working there. EEK~!!!
I’m so thankful that the Lord in his wisdom recognized that I needed to have a day off. Today I am off work, and so I am able to reflect a little about the positive benefits of working there.
Many of the customers at the store are either recovering alcoholics, drug addicts, borderline homeless, or have some sort of cognitive disability. There are a few people who also regularly visit our store in search of deals, however. Brother Rick is one of our neighbors who has a disability. He has a big, booming voice, likes rock and roll, wears suspenders and has a belly like Santa Claus.
When I first came to the store, Brother Rick seemed to me to be lonely. He could easily come and speak to me for an hour or more, just chatting. Well, we are short of volunteers right now, so after a few visits from him I decided to put him to work. I recognized that he seemed to have some sort of disability and didn’t know how much he could really do, so I had him first just help me clean up a table by just picking up pins and placing them in a plastic bowl.
I watched him closely. He seemed to do a good job with that, so I then asked him to hang donated clothes on hangers so they could be priced. Then he graduated to arranging books. The children’s book section looked like a whirlwind had thrown everything off the shelf one day, so I asked him to put the children’s books on the shelf and he made that whole section of the store look as perfect as a magazine picture.
Not thinking anything of it all, I mentioned all of this to one of the longtime volunteers. She couldn’t believe it. “Rick has been coming to this store for years, and we have NEVER asked him to volunteer! He talks so much, it’s annoying. Usually we listen until we get fed up, and then we tell him he needs to go home after about an hour of that or so. Can’t get any work done when he’s here.”
“Really?” I said. “One of my brothers is special needs, and I guess I didn’t think anything of asking him to help. I know my brother can do volunteer work or a job, he just needs someone to be patient with him, somebody who knows how much he can do and who won’t ask for him to do more than he can. I just assumed everything would be the same with Rick. So far… everything that I’ve asked him to do, he’s done well. I’m really glad that he was willing to help. We’re short of help and we really needed it, anyways.”
To my surprise, Brother Rick’s caseworker came by one day to shake my hand. “Thank you so much for letting him do some volunteer work around here. It helps him to get out of the house. He needs the exercise. And it really gives him a sense of purpose and lets him feel that he is doing something that matters.”
“Well, whenever he stops by, we always appreciate it,” I said with a smile.
Recently I also gave Brother Rick some of my poems to give as kind of a present to his caseworker. “Aw, what do you want to do that for?” he said. “Well, sometimes it’s nice to give a present to somebody who is doing something nice for you. I’m sure sometimes her job isn’t easy.” He looked at me very intensely, and then nodded. I hope that he will try to understand her when she tries to give him advice and listen to her more.
Brother Rick has brought his sick mother to the store two times now, insisting that she had to meet me. He keeps stopping by on a day when I am not at the store though. I told him we’ll have to plan on a day when I can meet her because I want to meet her, too. He also made me promise that after I leave the store and start working somewhere else I will call him up sometimes because he will miss me.
Well, who could have predicted beforehand that just by asking for him to do volunteer work that I could make such an impact in his life? Certainly not I.
I think we all should do a little more to help one of our neighbors… whoever they are, wherever we may find them.
BOB THE HERO
Last Saturday was another crazy day around the thrift store. It started out actually with some poor soul being beaten up outside the store around 10 AM. The high school-aged group of young punks left the older gentleman laying in the middle of the road. He was passed out.
A car with a man and a woman stopped by the man in the middle of the road. The woman got out and looked at the older man laying in the street. Then they drove off.
Thankfully, Bob was walking by when this happened. I hear he considers himself kind of like a policeman and he always tries to watch what’s going on in the street to make sure everyone is OK. I’m so grateful that God made him this way. He could very well have saved this older gentleman’s life.
Bob ran into the street. When he noticed the older gentleman was passed out, he got a lady he met on the street to call an ambulance. While he was doing that, the group of young thugs began to return… probably to try and rob the poor older guy.
Bob shouted at them. He scared them enough that they ran off, and didn’t come back.
The ambulance came and took the older gentleman to the hospital.
I talked to Bob a little while after this happened, when I opened the store around an hour later.
You know what? I think Bob is a superhero. He just doesn’t have a cape and magic or mutant powers. You might not think he looks like a superhero on TV either, because he actually looks a lot more like an ordinary person like you and me.
It is true as the proverb from our ancient ancestors says…”Whoever saves the life of one person saves the world entire.” I wish I could reward Bob for his good deed but I really don’t think I have anything whatsoever that I can do for him myself. We need more people like Bob in this world. Let’s pray that God will reward Bob and also other people who are like him- He always does.
Thank you very much Bob.
WE THREE POEMS
At my writing group recently, I printed out a list of most of the poems I wrote in 2010. I guess a few of the more popular ones I’m going to try to get published by this bilingual haiku magazine in Japan. Ooh, I’m nervous y’all. Seems like almost all my efforts to get published before have ended in failure so far. What makes me think I could be a writer, anyways? Might this day really be different than any of the ones that came before? I don’t know. Maybe I was born this way- crazy!
I selected three poems of the ones that I’ve written this year to share with you. They are all on the theme ‘Helping Others.’ I have plenty of pretty nature imagery poems that I could share and like but I hope these poems in particular can help you when you face some tough things in your life.
to be an artist
make your life a masterpiece
touch one soul each day
This is the third poem of three that I wrote partly about ArtPrize, the world’s most lucrative art contest which held here in Michigan. I also wrote it for a friend too, though. I have a friend, Mr. S who was attending art school, but had to drop out for financial reasons. He was considering giving up his dream of becoming an artist entirely, actually. Perhaps still is. I really felt bad for him and wanted to do something to encourage him. So kind of as a pre-birthday present I wrote this poem for him.
Actually, he didn’t like it. He said it wasn’t a poem at all,” just a weird mix of preaching and lecturing.” All right, maybe that is entirely true. And on top of that, maybe it’s not very good at all either. But for some reason I like it. During ArtPrize there is so much emphasis on voting and money prizes for art that I wish there was more of an emphasis on how art can impact someone’s life and also the wider community. So this is my little contribution to that issue, I suppose. My voice is small, totally not cute, and easily ignored, but I hope somebody somewhere somewhen will listen to it.
broken heart syndrome
reconstructive surgery
begins with prayer
I wrote this one the day after I explained to a lot of people that I know in the English Department of Calvin College that oh, I totally failed to raise the financial support necessary to go to West Africa to do mission work there. Yes, the past two years of my life has really been toughness beyond words. Still, great is the faithfulness of God my father… our father. I emerge from these two years of much pain with more passion and understanding of the need of prayer.
With God’s help, I prayed for like 600 people by name this morning. That’s nothing, easy peasy. You can do it too. If you pray for countries as well you can easily pray for over a million people too. Why not take an hour away from whatever else you had planned to do this weekend to get down on your knees to pray for somebody else?
poem in pocket
go somewhere new & get lost
go before snow falls
Sister Mary, one of the volunteers at the store, came to work with me one day wearing a shirt that inspired the second verse. She calls herself an ‘earth mother, poetry sister.’ Heh heh. Funny, there are many people I know that could fit that description…
I guess I should apologize for sharing this poem so late in the year, when it’s already snowing and you can’t really take the advice of the poem here, can you? Sorry! What happened is that this poem sat for a long time in my journal without any final verse. However, in the thrift store I recently noticed the title of a book by Charles Swindoll called “Come before Winter,” and I then got inspired. However, only this morning could I finally revise the poem enough where I felt satisfied with the result. Whew~ these poems are short but they do take a lot of work.
Right now we are in the season of Advent. This busy season before Christmas can truly be distracting us from the real reason for the season if we are focused on buying gifts and decorating our home and Christmas tree. Let’s all take a moment and JUST STOP~! It’s time to breathe and relax and close our eyes and remember that we are celebrating Jesus and all this other stuff is secondary. While you have your eyes closed, it would be the perfect time and you are in the right spirit to say a prayer- for yourself and how about for someone else as well?
Did you notice a theme here? Hee hee.
In sum, let’s all pray more. Merry Christmas~! My next two posts will be two heartwarming true stories, methinks…
