Changes
00/12/01

As I noted at the beginning of my sermons in Japanese, one year and eight months have passed since I left Japan and during that time, I have spoken almost no Japanese. At my age, I sometimes have trouble finding the proper word to express my thoughts--even in English, so my Japanese is probably more difficult to understand now than it was before. By a somewhat shocking experience, it was deeply impressed on my mind that I was in a foreign country as I drove the car away from the garage of our friends who had lent it to us for the weekend. I drove down the street to a stop sign and crossed that street when I noticed a car coming toward me on the same side of the street. It was then that I realized that I must drive on the left side of the road in Japan, where the right side is the wrong side and the left side is the right side. From the day of our arrival to the end of the week, the weather was fine, but on Monday morning, it began to rain. It was on that day that I had planned to play tennis with some friends, but due to the rain, my plans changed. In the afternoon, while my wife went to the international school where she had taught for 22 years, I went to the train station downtown to check on the details of using the Japan Rail Pass we had purchased in the United States before leaving. I was surprised to see how much the station area had changed since our departure and the erection of a new, large department store. Change is a fact of life and progress is necessarily accompanied by change. (208)

Traveling in Japan
00/12/03

During the years we lived in Japan, my wife and I were usually busy both at home and in our work. Even though we may have desired to do so, we had neither the time nor money to make extended trips to distant places simply for our enjoyment. While thinking about our present visit, however, when I would be speaking at churches and other groups as well as visiting with our son and family in the Nagoya area, we decided to do some traveling before joining in the Christmas and New Years festivities. Thus, before leaving the United States, we purchased an Exchange Order for a Japan Rail Pass, which is available only outside Japan. With such a pass, one is able to freely board any train of the Japan Railways Group throughout the country. Passes are available for periods of 7, 14 or 21 days to travelers from foreign countries who are visiting Japan on a "temporary visitor" status. Japanese citizens and other "permanent residents" of Japan are not able to obtain them. Although we had been given "permanent resident" status during our years of service there, we did not obtain a re-entry permit when we left last year, so we were able to gain the "temporary visitor" status which made us eligible to obtain such a pass. Since we had no commitments during the last week of November, we decided to use that week to travel to the southern island of Kyushu. We received our 7-day Rail Pass at Nagoya Station and planned our trip while looking at train schedules and travel guides. As we continue our journey through life, we regularly consult the reliable guide we find in the Bible and urge others to do the same. (210)

Angel Tree
00/12/05

The word "angel" is rooted in a Greek word meaning "messenger". In the Bible, the Greek word is usually used to denote a spiritual being, a messenger of God. Sometimes, the angel is immediately recognized as a heavenly creature. At other times, angels appear in human form. And the word is used for human messengers also. In modern English, a kind, considerate, helpful person may be called an "angel". In this sense, there are many angels at work in the world today. Some of them seek to be of help to prisoners who are serving sentences in a prison. Prison Fellowship is an organized movement to provide help to prisoners. Every year as the Christmas season approaches, Prison Fellowship sponsors a program, called "Angel Tree", to provide Christmas presents to the children of men and women who are unable to celebrate with their families because they are in prison. Prisoners who wish to participate in the program provide the names and ages of their children along with the name, address and telephone number of the person responsible for them. Volunteers then contact that person and ask what kind of gift would be appropriate for each child. I contacted those on my list before leaving for Japan. The gift suggestions are then written on a tag that is hung on a Christmas tree in a church or meeting place where people are invited to take off a tag and purchase the suggested gift which is then delivered to the child by other volunteers. On the tag, along with the name of the child are the words: "This gift is sent to you to celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. Luke 2:8-14" (194)

Visitations
00/12/07

The main purpose of our travels in Japan was to visit places we had not been to before, including the island of Kyushu and the Japan Sea side of Honshu, but we also wanted to see some people. I had been given a couple of recently published books by a resident of our retirement community, a former medical missionary to India, on how to perform "Gentle Surgery" (the book's title) with a minimum of tissue damage and blood loss. He thought it would be especially helpful to a couple of organizations in Japan that focus on the medical and welfare needs of other Asian countries, so I made presentations to those organizations in the Nagoya area and in Kobe. Also, we wanted to stop and see the son of our neighbor at Penney Retirement Community, a well-known artist in Japan whom we had met at PRC. He lives in an old, traditional Japanese house near Lake Biwa in the city of Otsu and we enjoyed meeting him, his wife and youngest daughter again. We also wanted to meet and talk with the university professor who has played an important part in making my messages available to a wider group of readers. When the "Daily Word" messages were put on the Internet by NTT, he regularly put them on the English Forum of the Nifty-Serve computer network and now has established a new webpage to enable people to view previous "Timely Words" messages. We enjoyed our time with him at his home in Shiga Prefecture and hereby inform interested readers of the address to view previous messages: http://www.biwa.ne.jp/~syobo/ . (211)

Church Meetings/Meeting Friends
00/12/09

Articles had appeared in two different Japanese newspapers regarding the special meetings at which I was scheduled to preach in the cities of Takahama and Kariya at churches planted during our ministry many years ago so there were many old friends and acquaintances in attendance. My wife and I thoroughly enjoyed meeting them--both at the meetings and the fellowship periods that followed, even though it was difficult to immediately recall the names of some of them. A newspaper reporter who attended the first meeting in Takahama wrote an article about that meeting. One lady in attendance had made a special trip from Tokyo, over 360 kilometers away. She continues to serve as a parole counselor to whom girls on parole must report periodically. She had been a regular listener to the "Daily Word" telephone messages and was deeply impressed by them. As a result of the encouragement she received through those messages and personal correspondence, she had been baptized and continues to attend a church near her home. At the meeting in Kariya, a lady from Yokohama was present. She had been a secretary at the Nagoya International School during its first few years with whom we had kept in contact over the following 37 years. We also enjoyed visiting the international school with which we have been involved from its beginning, where my wife taught for 22 years, where our granddaughters continue to attend and our son now serves on the Board of Directors. (212)

Visit to Hiroshima
00/12/12

On the Monday following the special meetings at the Takahama and Kariya churches, my wife and I left on a 7-day trip on Japan Railways. Of course, I carried my laptop computer with us so I could continue to compose and send "Timely Words" messages during this trip to places of interest that we had not been able to visit before. The first such place was Hiroshima, the first city to suffer an atomic bomb attack at the end of the Pacific War in 1945. Following our arrival at Hiroshima Station, we were surprised to find that streetcars were still in use in that city. We boarded one to go to our lodging place where we left our luggage and walked to the Peace Memorial Park, where we saw the twisted and charred A-Bomb Dome, the Memorial Cenotaph, the Peace Flame, which continues to burn until all atomic weapons are banished, and the Statue for the A-Bomb Children. In the Peace Memorial Museum, we viewed countless reminders of the atomic bombing and the suffering it caused and continues to cause. The next morning we walked up to the top of Hiroshima Castle. I was surprised to find that the fish symbols on the roof resembled those on the roof of Nagoya Castle, one of which was represented on the tie clasp I was wearing. After viewing the tragic scenes resulting from the dropping of that first atomic bomb, I wondered if there were museums at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii or Nanjing in China to remind visitors of the unhappy incidents related to Japanese military forces that occurred there. (213)

Lost and Found
00/12/15

Among those who attended the meeting at the Kariya Church was a man now living in Tokyo who began attending English Bible Classes I taught in that church during his high school days 37 years ago. His interest in English continued and he became a translator. His work includes translating for a well-known company that makes electric goods and for a television station in Tokyo. He has also written poems in English and, some years ago, I wrote the Introduction to a book of English poems he had published. After the Sunday morning worship service, he presented me with two recently published booklets, one in English, one in Japanese, that included some of his poems, in which he had written kind words of appreciation on the introductory pages. I took the booklets with me to read during our trip. After looking through my attache case in our lodging place in Hiroshima, I realized I had left them in the pouch on the back of the seat ahead of mine when I changed cars on the train. Later, when I called the railway's Lost and Found Department, I was greatly relieved to be informed that they had been retrieved and that I could pick them up at Nagasaki Station where we were going the next day. I recalled stories Jesus told in the 15th chapter of the Gospel of Luke of the joy felt by people when what was lost was found. The first thing I did upon our arrival at Nagasaki Station was to go to the Lost and Found Office there and receive these booklets. And I gave thanks for the honesty and efficiency of people in Japan. (214)

Nagasaki
00/12/16

Japan consists of many islands, four of which are major ones. Our activities while living in Japan, were limited to the main island of Honshu, so on our present trip, we visited the southern island of Kyushu. The port city of Nagasaki, meaning "long promontory", holds an important place in Japanese history. It was through this port that foreign influences entered Japan: first, cultural elements from Korea and China, later, technology from Europe. Nagasaki was also the site of early Christian expansion followed by severe persecution and the dropping of the second atomic bomb, so there is much for tourists to see in this city. Arriving in the afternoon, we placed our luggage in a coin locker in the station and walked to the site where, in 1597, 20 Japanese and 6 Europeans were crucified for refusing to renounce their belief in Christianity. Next to the monument erected in honor of these martyrs, who have been designated saints, is a museum which documents the history of Christianity in Japan. We also visited the Atomic Bomb Museum which depicts the devastation caused by the bomb and the nearby Peace Park with its meaningful statue. In the dark, we took a taxi to our lodging place, stopping en route at the station to pick up our luggage. The following morning, we walked around the man-made island of Dejima, the only place Europeans were allowed to enter during the 250 years of Japan's isolation, and took a streetcar to another Catholic Church dedicated to the 26 martyrs and Glover Gardens, where Western-style houses were built in the late 19th century. Around noon, we boarded a train for Kagoshima.(215)

Advent
00/12/19

The word "advent" is rooted in a Latin word meaning "arrival". It may be used as a common noun to signify the arrival of someone or something. During cold winter days, many people living in the Temperate Zone look forward with great anticipation to the advent of spring and a newly-married couple may joyfully anticipate the advent of their first child. When the word is capitalized, it denotes the coming of Christ and the first season of the church year. Advent is the season that precedes Christmas. There are four Sundays in Advent, which begins on the Sunday nearest November 30th, St. Andrew's Day. This season has been observed since the 6th century as a time of solemn preparation for celebrating Christ's birth. As my wife and I are now in Japan, where we will celebrate Christmas with our son and his family and our daughter who will join us from Thailand, we have been impressed once again with the pre-Christmas customs in this non-Christian land. In the United States, it is common to see Christmas decorations in stores and other public places after Thanksgiving Day, the 4th Thursday of November. This year, that American holiday coincided with the Japanese holiday, called Labor Thanksgiving Day, which is November 23rd. But even before that time, we heard Christmas carols and other songs related to the Christian Christmas season in department stores and other public places, which reminded us of the Japanese fondness for all kinds of celebrations. But we hope that some people here will consider the words and meaning of the carols they hear and be impressed by the spirit of the season. (218)

Christmas
00/12/22

Christmas is certainly one of the most widely celebrated holidays throughout the world. In the West, the birth of Jesus, the Christ, has been celebrated on December 25th since 336 A.D., but not only is the month and the day of his birth uncertain, we are not even sure of the year he was born. According to the 2nd chapter of the Gospel of Luke, Jesus was born during the reign of the Roman Emperor, Caesar Augustus (27 B.C.- 14 A.D.). According to the 2nd chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, he was born during the reign of Herod, King of Judea (37 B.C.-4 B.C..) who died in 4 B.C. Thus, the later calculation that Jesus was born in the 1st year of the Christian Era is mistaken. He was probably born around 6 B.C. One of the reasons December 25th was chosen to celebrate his birth was to counter the pagan worship of the sun in the Roman Empire on that day near the winter solstice when days become longer. Even today, many popular customs associated with Christmas can be traced back to pagan origins. For Christians, Christmas is a time to thank God for the gift of our Savior, the Word of God who "became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:1-14). Although at the present time, Christmas is the most popular Christian celebration, in the Christian tradition, it is superseded by Good Friday, Easter and Pentecost, which commemorate the death and resurrection of Jesus and the Descent of the Holy Spirit. It is when the deep meaning of these events are understood that the true joy of Christmas may be experienced. (219)

Christmas Customs
00/12/23

A few days after our arrival in Japan, a telephone call was received at the home of our son from a teacher at a Roman Catholic school in Nagoya. Having read a newspaper article about our visit to Japan over the holidays, he called to ask if I could again give talks about Christmas and Christmas customs in my childhood in the United States to the middle school and high school students of that school as I had done some years ago. Of course, I was happy to do so. I told them of the tall Christmas tree which was set up in the living room of our home that reached to the ceiling which we all helped decorate. Under the tree, gifts were placed. It was the custom for all of us six children and our parents to give gifts to each other, so there were many prettily wrapped presents under the Christmas tree. On Christmas Eve, we heard a sleigh bell ring outdoors and were visited by Santa Claus with his long, white beard in a bright red suit and hat with a bag of gifts on his back. One gift was given to all the "good" children. I never realized that our father was never present when Santa Claus arrived, until one year (I do not remember how old I was at the time) I noticed that the gold ring with his initials on it that my father always wore was on the finger of Santa Claus and I realized who that Santa Claus really was. On Christmas morning, after reading a Bible passage about the birth of Jesus, the gifts under the tree were distributed to those whose names were on them and, joyfully, opened. Later, we enjoyed the Christmas dinner our mother had prepared, giving thanks to God for the gift of his Son and for all his blessings. (220)

Nagoya Activities
00/12/26

Most of our two-month visit to Japan during the holiday season was spent in the Nagoya area, where we had lived and worked for over 45 years. Beside the meetings in churches, we enjoyed meeting and eating with friends in their homes or at restaurants. We attended concerts and sports events at the Nagoya International School, which we had helped establish, where I had served on the Board and where my wife had taught in the Preschool Department. We were happy to see our 15-year-old granddaughter make a goal during the girl's soccer game with another school and one day, my wife startled pupils and teachers when she visited some classrooms in her clown costume and face and spent a few minutes talking with them. One evening, we attended an extraordinary concert in the Nagoya Dome at which the Nagoya Symphony Orchestra played and well-known soloists sang along with a choir of over 2000 singers ranging in age from preschool children to senior citizens; our 13-year-old granddaughter was one of the four singers from NIS. I was happy to speak at the inter-religious dialogue group that I began 20 years ago and which has continued to meet following my retirement and we enjoyed our meeting with former "Daily Word" fans one Sunday afternoon. One of those fans was kind enough to come and offer suggestions and instruction about upgrading this homepage to make it more attractive and useful, which have been followed to make it like it is. I would be happy to read your reaction to the changes made. (225)

Yearend in Japan
00/12/28

Traditionally, Japanese people are very conscious of seasonal changes. Farmers, in particular, are concerned about the seasons as they plant, transplant, irrigate and harvest the rice which is so important in the life and culture of this land. Although the rural population has been decreasing in recent years as young people leave farming communities for the more convenient life of cities, people continue to be sensitive to seasonal variations. In modern Japan, months of the year are indicated by a number, but each month also has a traditional name that often is related to the season. The name for this 12th and final month of the year literally means "Teacher Run", but it is not only teachers who are especially busy during December. In traditional Japanese thought, all outstanding bills needed to be paid by the end of the year so one could begin the new year with a clean slate. Gifts are presented to those to whom one feels especially indebted. Special New Year's cards are prepared and addressed. One's living quarters as well as one's place of work or study must be thoroughly cleaned in order to begin the New Year in a pure and proper manner. Preparations for the special New Year's activities need to be made. In the past, special food was prepared for meals in the coming days for all stores were closed at the beginning of the new year. As the year draws to an end, temple bells peal 108 times to remind people of the 108 worldly desires that tempt them. For the thoughtful person, the end of the year should be a time of giving thanks to God and to all who have made our lives happier during the year. (223)

Japanese New Year Customs
00/12/31

In traditional Japanese thought, the New Year period is the happiest, most enjoyable time of year. In the past, on New Year's Day another year was added to one's age. Even today, some older people, when asked their age, make a distinction between their actual age and their age according to the older, traditional method of counting. Following the busy time of the yearend, no work was done during the first few days of the New Year. Special New Year's food which had been prepared earlier, including special rice cakes called "mochi" and particular herbs, was enjoyed. It was customary for people to dress in kimonos and visit the neighborhood shrine. Girls wearing kimonos might play a game of battledore and shuttlecock while boys might fly kites. A special card game was played related to famous poems. The entire poem was written on one group of cards and the ending of the poem on the other group. When the beginning of the poem was read, the player who first found the card with the ending on it won the card so those who remembered famous poems had an advantage. New Year's holiday activity also included making visits to respected superiors to whom one felt obligated and to request their continued help in the New Year. Nowadays, times have changed. Fewer and fewer colorful kimonos are seen, but shrines continue to be crowded with countless worshippers, many of whom are seeking particular benefits in the coming year and others who are simply following tradition. When we participate in religious rituals, we should consider both their meaning and our own motivation. Why are we performing them? (224)