333 – God Supplies Headache Relief, Dental Work, and a Job

January 5, 1989 Bridgemont in San Francisco

For Christmas we drove down the coast to Connie’s and Jerry’s house in Paso Robles! It was a great family reunion.

Two days ago, I had a headache all day. The next morning I still had the headache. As I was walking and praying, I confessed the sin of fear and the next time I thought about it, both the fear and the headache were gone and did not return. That same day Dan was discouraged and depressed. He confessed. Gone.

Both Karen and Jan have told us to call collect. Jan said to call on Wednesdays each week so she can share our needs with the men’s and women’s prayer groups.

These friends’ availability provides great encouragement.

The San Francisco Foursquare Church is a blessing. One couple had us over to brunch on New Year’s Day. We have Japan in common with three people: a young lady named Helen is Japanese American, and Frank and Orinda have been short-term missionaries to Japan and want to go back. Thank You, Lord, for people with a heart for Japan.

AND: God comes to church there consistently!

After two weeks of following up on leads in the newspaper and making calls and sending resumes, Dan looked in the yellow pages under architectural design, made a call, and was asked to come in this morning. Last night after church Dan felt today would be a breakthrough day. We asked the prayer groups to pray. The job is $10 an hour (Dan had hoped for $15). He will be drafting house plans. Another person was hired for the teaching position at the school. Dan was relieved. Instead, we moved to a smaller apartment and Dan became the night watchman. His assignment was check all of the interior and exterior doors, the pool, the back hallways, to be sure everything was locked and that no one was trespassing.

Timmy’s bad tooth took us to emergency room at Mt. Zion on a holiday! They informed us there was no charge because we had consulted with the dentist over the phone. We paid $10.95 for penicillin. When we went back the next day for a consultation and drilling, there was no charge. PTL Timmy will need a crown, which an intern will do for $400.

Praises: we got very practical Christmas gifts: a sauce pan, sweaters, remote control cars for the boys, and some other toys! Plus we still have lots of vitamins and some cleaning products our friends in Colorado gave us.

Our challenges:

* very limited kitchen ware and no oven

*my hairdryer blows only cold air and the apartment is very cold

*I lost one of Granny Mary’s earrings and one of Jan’s earrings from Hong Kong

*no phone

*we are trying to sell the motor home (originally purchased by our friends for us for $8,700). Dan is asking $3900. We plan to get a car with the money.

*my needs for a hair and clothes

*money for Tim’s crown

We expect to have a good report soon about God’s supply.

329 – Tongues for Six Hours

November 19,1988 West Wendover, Nevada

A town on the border of two states! West Wendover, Nevada, is contiguous with Wendover, Utah. The population is a few thousand. We spent the night. We were on the last leg of our journey home to Reno.

Before us we had a decision to make.

Dan’s father had a friend that needed someone to house sit for him in Reno.

Dan’s friend John had a project and wanted Dan to work for him, in Reno.

We had the opportunity for free living quarters and a waiting job. The temptation to settle down, be in our home church once again, and for Dan to have an immediate income was enticing. We were tired of traveling and weary of living with all of the uncertainty that was involved with a faith walk. BUT………

BUT we felt intensely interested in going to San Francisco to work with Japanese people. Dan could teach them English [which he had done in Japan several years before], and we would begin building relationships with Japanese people. We had the strong goal of going to Japan.

The Lord brought to Dan’s mind that one of his instructors at Elim said that when in a decision-making quandary, praying in tongues would bring the knowledge of God’s will.

So we determined to pray in the Spirit from West Wendover to Reno, a 6-7 hour drive.

We did.

It cleared the air and we felt much stronger about proceeding to San Francisco. We would leave the familiar and the comfortable and follow the leading of the Spirit.

We parked the motor home at Dan’s brother’s house and we were reunited with his Dad and his wife, Tutu, Auntie Yvonne and Gramma Fern, who all had homes nearby.

The next day, we went to church, Life Center, and we were reunited with our faithful friends. It was a special time for us all.

The church was sponsoring a missionary conference, so we decided to stay in town in order to attend it.

J&J invited us to come and stay at their house—INSIDE!! How could we refuse? We stayed with them for eight days, then went back to Aug’s for several days. We had lots of invitations for dinner.

December 1 Reno

Dinner with friends, Auntie Bev and Chuck. Chuck told us the story he had recently heard of Lillian Trasher. She went to Egypt in the early 1900’s, by faith, not knowing any of the details. A dying woman gave Lillian her baby and that was the beginning of an orphanage, which continues to this day.

December 7

At the Missionary Conference, we heard that in Sri Lanka, a Foursquare missionary has adopted 40 unwanted children. God told him, “You will be the father of many, and they will become the pillars of the church.”

December 11

During pre-service prayer at church I had been asking the Lord for a prophetic word of direction. Dan Brophy brought it.

James 1:27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

These stories of orphans and adopted children stir me and keep the baby vision burning in my heart.

60- Lord, Are We Compromising or Obeying?

Aug 31, 1981 The following is paraphrased from my journal entry:

I was asking myself if we were compromising by so easily letting the vision about going to Japan die. Japan had seemed so inviting to Dan because our whole family would be involved in ministry and because there were no language school requirements. A great perk was that by spending time in Japan we had already met the people we would be working with if we moved there to be missionaries. Besides, we had undeniable proof that Jesus had encouraged our trip, had financed it, and blessed it!

We heard a message taken from 1 Samuel 11 that spoke of Saul going back to plowing and his old way of living after his encounter with the prophet Samuel. I thought of Dan going back to his old profession of carpentry and our old way of living in America after our encounter with God regarding His leading us to Japan. The pastor’s point in his message was that God is interested in teaching us to rely on His Spirit.

So although we had laid our missionary ideals down, I was wondering if we should have INSTEAD proceeded to Japan and relied on the Holy Spirit for everything we needed in the way of spiritual power, wisdom and discernment.

We both were talking to God about it. I was praying the verses I had prayed before we went to Japan:

Let Thy work appear to Thy servants, and Thy majesty to their children, and let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us; and do confirm for us the work of our hands; yes, confirm the work of our hands. Ps 90:16-17

Japanese art: Japanese nativity, early 19th century. I LOVE THIS!!

51- Reunion!

Of course our trip to Japan would not have been complete if it had not included a reunion with Yoshimi san. He had married and had one son, Hironori, the same age as Timmy –and his wife, Mihoko, was pregnant with their second child! We were all amazed at the similarities in our lives. His mother lived with them in the generational family home on the island of Shikoku.

We had taken a train from Tokyo to Osaka, a ferry to Shikoku. There were delays and we found ourselves arriving very late. A hot meal was waiting for us, and we ate it sitting on the floor with our legs under a traditional low table covered with a heavy a quilt and a heater underneath. The wooden house was unheated, drafty, and chilly, even though it was springtime. We welcomed the warmth. Timmy had slept on the journey and was wide awake and ready to become acquainted with our hosts and sample the interesting foods.

We were loaned appropriate Japanese shoes as well as a light vest for me and a Japanese jacket for Dan. Timmy was given a traditional baby jacket (as well as one for our new baby, due in one month).

Holding each other's firstborn sons. — Holding each other’s firstborn sons.

We felt very welcomed as we toured the fish hatchery and admired the trees that Yoshimi was carefully growing that would be used in the religious shrines.

Traditional Japanese homes have three Shinto shrines: one by the entrance of the home for the children, one for the water source–at the well or the spigot, and one in the kitchen. They also have a Buddhist shrine where they honor and worship their ancestors. They believe that if they take care of their ancestors their ancestors will take care of them. Yoshimi confessed: spiritually we are very confused people.

50- Japan Was Our Home for Six Weeks

Our apartment in Tokyo was perfect and I was drop-dead surprised and joyously overwhelmed by the open-hearted caring we received from the missionaries.

All of the Japanese children wore school uniforms

We felt safe and comfortable on the four-acre campus of CAJ. When Dan was at meetings, I was content being at home with Timmy or giving him stroller rides around the campus, as we admired the cherry blossoms and observed the Japanese school children across the street.

Timmy's first steps! — Timmy’s first steps!

Timmy turned one-year old and one of the missionaries made him a cake with a candle perched on top. He also learned to walk!–but Dan still transported him around town and country in the baby carrier.

Timmy's transportation — Timmy’s transportation

To meet the 7 missionary couples of the E-Free church, we traveled by car, by regular trains, and for one long journey we took the Shinkansen, the famous bullet train. And then we always returned to the familiarity and privacy of our cozy home base.

Each missionary gave us their personal insights into missionary life as we traversed the countryside to meet them, eat at their tables, and stay overnight in their guest rooms. Many of my anxieties were alleviated: Eileen knew she would not be able to go without conveniences of hot water, washing machine, heat, telephone, car, and was happy to be in Japan rather than in a crude hut cooking over an open fire (which her husband would have preferred!). She said they had moved 13 times in 11 years of marriage (which I would later be able to identify with). Monica talked about being a new Christian, who sometimes got mad at God when things didn’t go her way. She showed me how to make a delicious Japanese soup so I could replicate it in our apartment. They had come to Japan when her daughter was one year old. John believed MK’s (missionary kids) have better self-esteem than most children because they are highly regarded by the people their parents are serving. Joyce emphasized that the mission schools are often better schools because of smaller classes and that CAJ was a deluxe school with lots of extras. I was very impressed that the missionary children all traveled by train, unescorted by an adult, to school each day. One 7 year old girl, Missy, happily made two train changes to get to school, and that was not uncommon. This knowledge became a guiding principle for me–that our children needed to be raised for independence and self-confidence so that they would be ready for the experiences of the mission field. This was a God thing, as I would have tended to coddle and even indulge our sons, and instead they were all prepared for independent living by their late teens. (I also note that Dan was raised to be independent and capable and hard-working, so this early realization helped us be of the same mind in raising our sons.)

SPOILER: We pursued the missionary experience for ten years, wove our every decision around our vision for going to Japan, prepared ourselves by living a missionary lifestyle–which meant no frills, praying rather than running to the doctor, praying and sending support to people on the mission field. And then God had us lay it down. He did not explain the WHY. We knew that Father knew best, but it was a very difficult experience for us, especially for me. That’s another story for another time.