Sowing...
Fresh thoughts on sowing and patiently investing in lost people. Also, we meet Norio,
in whom John had a significant impact on during the past two summers.
Norio attended John's 'Farwell Party' here in Tokyo, an informal gathering where the summer team and students came together to share our favorite memories of John. We handed around his football that he had used to
teach the Japanese guys how to throw, and each one shared how John had impacted them. Norio gave a speech in
which he shared the hope of heaven that Christians have in facing death.
07/25/2006
It's been 2 weeks since my last update,
so this one may be a bit long for some of you. Please forgive me in
advance if the length makes it a bit hard to read.
Harvesting in
Nagano
In my last update I told you that my teammate, Jeremiah, and
I were going to visit a Japanese friend of ours who became a Christian last
year. One of the first things we did was buy some mushrooms for his mother
at a mushroom "factory." When we got there we took off our shoes and put
on some slippers and walked into a large refrigerator and noticed hundreds of
white jars lined up on shelves that almost looked like they were filled with
mayonaise. But these jars were not filled with condiments of any
kind. Coming out of the tops of these jars were actually mushrooms.
Bizarre. It almost looked like a scene from a science fiction movie that
involved some type of cloning. On another day we saw how shiitake (be
careful how you pronounce that) mushrooms were grown. These were grown
outside, but out of small holes in the side of logs. Although both of
these mushrooms taste good, it nevertheless amazes me that someone even decided
to venture into eating fungi in the first place. Whoever it was must've
been really desperate or challenged by a dare. Had to have been guys cuz
women seem much too prudent to eat fungal growth.
Rain fell during
most of our stay, but we did have some time to pick some vegetables from his
family's fields. It didn't take long, nor did it take much effort to pick
enough for a day's meal. In fact, you don't even have to be a farmer to
harvest, if the produce is ready to be picked. By now some of you may be
anticipating my spiritual analogy. Well, I was thinking about how, in many
ways, harvesting is much easier than sowing. There's also a lot more
enjoyment and gratification because you immediately come home with some tangible
evidence of your work. But how many months did it take for someone to till
the soil and plant the seeds and water it and fend off the birds and other pests
before I got to go and, in a matter of seconds, pick something ready to
eat? I became a Christian sometime between my jr. high and high school
years and for quite some time afterwards believed that evangelism and conversion
were one and the same. But the bulk of evangelism is the stuff that goes
unseen, the tilling, the sowing, the watering, the protection from
predators. And these things may go on for months, years, even decades
before someone is ready to be "picked." It's not glamorous work, but
essential for any harvest to happen. For Japan I would say that the unsown
fields are plentiful, but the laborers are few. In time, we hope that the
harvest, too, will be plentiful. In that time we hope that the workers
will not be few. Let me encourage any of you who may be closer to the
sowing end of evangelism and not the harvesting end to patiently wait for the
harvest, but be always ready for it. His seed will grow in time. But
you must pray and wait, and wait and pray. And trust. And trust some
more.
Norio is an idealistic fellow like myself. He told me
that he was discouraged about how his company is so concerned about self
preservation and not about the welfare of the poor and how he struggles to be
there. He wants so much to be able to share about his newfound life, but
feels like there aren't many opportunities, especially as a new employee.
He asked for my opinion on the matter. I told him that he had two
choices. One, he could leave his company and find some relief. But
if he did there would be no one at his company who could share about the
LORD. The other would be to stay and be His sole representative
there. I shared 1 Thess 4:11,12 which says:
Make it your
ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your
hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of
outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.
And
from John 6:44 about the need to wait for the LORD to draw people to
Himself:
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws
him, and I will raise him up at the last day.
I told him that it
might require a lot of time before he gained enough respect from his coworkers
to be able to share his opinion on things (sharing your own opinion is not a
high cultural value in Japan). This was his response via email the next
day:
thanks for your visit to my hometown. i really enjoyed time
with talking to you.
it was good to hear what you said; to work
hard and get respect from others. i could make a new motivation to work
for god.
see you at oshima
camp.
norio
That was encouraging. Since it took
him over 20 years to become a Christian himself, please pray that he would be
patient and earn the respect of his coworkers and love them, even if it takes
him 20 years or more. He's planning on coming to our final retreat with
the students and sharing his testimony. It will be great for them to hear
one of their own older club members share about Jesus and not about
Christianity, a distinction he is so quick to make. Please pray for that
time.
I've decided to hold off on the other part of this update
because of its length. It's something that's gonna require a lot more
thought and careful wording because of how it affected me
emotionally.
Until then, thanks again for your attention and
prayers.
John