When God calls you to something, it’s up to Him to provide what you need to do it.
My supervisor and I went on a scouting trip to Ofunato, the city we felt called to, to begin our search for a home. We would make the 8-hour drive in the old minivan that the mission had purchased for us, giving me a great opportunity to practice driving in Japan: it was a long drive that took place mostly on a rural expressway, and I’d have a seasoned driver sitting next to me, offering helpful hints on Japanese traffic laws and driving etiquette.
First, I had to navigate my way to his house, by myself, using the navigator app on my phone. This was, perhaps, the most difficult part of the drive, as the drive featured tight roads (shared with cyclists and pedestrians) and sharp turns through residential areas in densely-packed Tokyo. After that, we made our way to the expressway and continued the 500-kilometer drive to Morioka, the capital of Iwate Prefecture.
We stayed overnight at a church where the lead pastor was also the leader of a network that coordinated disaster relief and recovery efforts throughout the prefecture. After attending Sunday morning services there, we had to leave immediately in order to get to the 3:00 P.M. church service at their sister church in Ofunato, which, at the time, had just one active member; the former pastor of this church had resigned months earlier.
A church with one member and no pastor. What to do in a situation like this?
A rotation of pastors from different cities in the region would come to preach there every week; this is why services began at 3:00 P.M., to give the pastors time to preach at their home churches in the morning and make the drive to Ofunato afterwards. On the day we visited, a pastor and his wife made a one-and-a-half hour drive, along with a member of their congregation, to preach and worship with the sole member of the church in Ofunato.
This moved me, seeing the lengths that people would go through for the sake of one person. It reminded me of Saving Private Ryan and brought to mind Jesus’ teaching on leaving ninety-nine sheep to go after one lost sheep.
There was no live worship band. No video screens flashing lyrics. No fog machine.
Instead, hymn books were passed out, and we sang along to prerecorded music wafting from a hymn player made in Korea. The seven of us– the pastor, his wife, his guest, the sole member of the Ofunato church, a local missionary, my supervisor, and me– sang praises to our God in a sanctuary that was roughly the size of a three-car garage. We had storage spaces bigger than that at our home church in California.
The visiting pastor stepped up to the pulpit and began his message, which my supervisor translated for me. At one point in the sermon, the pastor said that whether we do the work of ministry or not, we are still God’s children and He will still love us, as it’s all about grace, not works.
After months and months of God stressing a message of grace to me, my very first church service in Ofunato happened to be about grace. And, the volunteer base we stayed at that night was called Grace House.
It was as if God really wanted to make sure I got the memo.
The seven of us had a time to connect over tea and cookies after the service. I learned that the church, which had been flooded over six feet during the tsunami, began opening its doors to the community for events such as arts-and-crafts types of classes, musical performances, and a Sunday-school type of program for children who lived in kasetsu, or temporary housing units. This program started at the request of a social worker who asked if anything could be done for kasetsu-bound children who were often left to their own devices while both parents went out and worked to earn enough money to buy or build another home.
Someone commented that with no pastor and just one member remaining, the church has become more like a community center than a traditional church.
Maybe that’s what God had in mind all along?
Our second day in Ofunato was spent looking for housing. First, my supervisor and I met with a city official who is one of the high-profile Christians in the city. He offered the possibility that our family could live in one of the kasetsu, but as Soo and I prayed about this, along with many of our supporters, we felt that it might not be the best option: the kasetsu in question had just six units and was home to disabled residents who already had a hard time getting along with each other. Adding a family who spoke little Japanese and had two energetic young boys might have been more of a bother to them, and that was the last thing we wanted.
We then stopped by the offices of some realtors, who were very friendly and helpful (at least on the outside– they didn’t chase us out like they did to another American missionary I had met in Ofunato), but had no rentals to offer. They told us that not only was there a return of residents who had fled Ofunato after the disaster, but also an influx of construction workers due to the rebuilding effort, making rental properties scarce.
We stopped by the office of the businessman I met in 2011, but he wasn’t in, and his staff said that they had already talked to some of our mission teammates and would call if they heard of any leads. They also mentioned that they were already having problems finding houses for their own hired construction workers. It was a little disappointing and discouraging, especially in light of the way my friend and I first met this businessman two years ago, but I trusted that all of this was in God’s hands.
Towards the end of the day, we visited the Catholic-run kindergarten in Ofunato for information on possibly enrolling our kids there. Even though our eldest son had already completed kindergarten in California, he was still a kindergartener in Japan because the school year there goes from April to March. Plus, because Japanese kindergarten includes preschool and is a total of three years long, this meant that my youngest son would be able to enroll there along with his big brother. This would give them an opportunity to make the transition together and learn Japanese.
The kindergarten staff was extremely friendly and helpful. They told me, through my supervisor/translator, that my boys were welcome to enroll there.
“So when do you plan to start?” asked the vice-principal.
We replied that it would depend on when we’d find housing in Ofunato, mentioning the challenges we faced finding a rental. We asked her to let us know if she knew of any leads.
Visiting the kindergarten and meeting the staff (along with the resident priest, who happened to be a missionary from Indonesia) turned out to be one of the highlights of this trip. We were otherwise disappointed that we hadn’t found any housing.
As we prepared to head back to Tokyo, I prayed, “God, if you’re really calling us to Ofunato, we’re going to need you to provide a place for us to live.”
The word grace popped up in my mind.
“You mean Grace House, the volunteer base?” I asked myself.
The word rang in my soul once again:
Grace.
Five days later, as Soo, the boys, and I were settling into yet another apartment that we stayed at during our temporary stay in Tokyo (the third place in two weeks), I received an email from Ofunato.
It was a message from the vice-principal of the kindergarten. Her friend was building a new apartment in Ofunato, and if we were interested in renting one of the units, we could.
!
God has this way of rendering me speechless, over and over again.
After being told for nearly two years that we’d have trouble finding rental housing in Ofunato, God provided an apartment for us, and not just any apartment, but a brand-new one.
It wouldn’t be completed until October of 2013. That left us with four months to spend in Tokyo, which we decided to dedicate to language study and preparation for the dreaded Japanese driving test…
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We are waiting on His grace, too. When everything looks wrong, I keep hearing Him say, ” You’re not going any. “