Dear Children and Grandchildren,

I have enjoyed the Word of God more than I ever have since I am no longer preaching 3 or 4 times a week and am not pressed for time. Some times I find things I'd like to share with all of you, or some of you individually. With your mother's encouragement I'd like to start a "Bible Blog" and share some of my thoughts with you. Last night I told Joanna that I opened a can of "Pork and Beans" for supper, (your mother is in Arizona helping Becky while Adam recuperates from a serious operation) but I found no pork so I renamed it "Beans and Beans". With a hearty laugh she wondered if I had "looked under every bean?' I trust what I send you will have some "pork" but if you find it to be only "beans" just push the delete button.

Ps.119:168 "I have kept Thy precepts and Thy testimonies: for all my ways are before Thee," As you were growing up one of the things I was careful to emphasize in our daily devotions was that the time would come when you would no longer be under the eye of Mom and Dad but you would never be out of sight of God's eye. What an encouragement we find here to keep God's Word. "all my ways are before Thee,"

"Experience makes many a paradox plain, and this is one. Before God we may be clear of open fault and yet at the same time mourn over a thousand heart-wanderings which need his restoring hand."--C.H. Spurgeon

"I may hide Thee from my eye, but not myself from Thine eye."--Wm. Gurnall

Friday, July 14, 2017

Herring Palace

Dear Children,

Many have said that we should chronicle our answers to prayer, God’s amazing blessings, and some of the unusual and interesting things that have happened in our lives during our 59 years of marriage. Recently I took my diary which I have kept from 1960 until today and began to go over the many unusual ways the Lord has cared for us over these years. When I came to 1968 this morning I thought, “ I'll never get this done since I'll turn 84 this month,” and then I thought that at least I could share this portion with you. It is a rendition of just the highlights of the events surrounding how the Lord provided and answered our prayer for a home from which to serve Him and provided us with a Nishin Goten (Herring Palace) in Reuke, Hokkaido.  I trust that it will give you a taste of our 17 years in Japan. We still thrill when we review God’s marvelous grace in our lives. To God be the glory!

Herring Palace
In mid-April 1968 we decided to quit language school in Sapporo and seek the Lord for the next step. For about five years I had a concern for reaching the people on the northwest Japan Sea Coast of Hokkaido, mainly due to the fact of it being entirely unevangelized. We felt the Lord would have us go there and continue language study while utilizing what we were able to use along with the ever-present opportunity to teach the English Bible.

What does a missionary do when the time comes to move into an area completely unevangelized? Usually if a missionary is under a mission board he will have the mission leaders advise him or even have more experienced men go ahead and help him settle in the new territory. We had no mission board (we prefer it that way) so it was up to us when and how to make our move.

On  Friday morning June 14, 1968 at 8 a.m., I with my wife, Marlene, and our five children ages 9, 7, 6, 5, and 3 headed west toward the Japan Sea Coast of Hokkaido. We stopped on the way,  bowed our heads, and asked the Lord to lead us. Three hours later we reached Rumoi, a seacoast fishing city of 45,000. First we went to the Shiakusho (city hall) and inquired about renting a house. The officials there told us there was nothing like that available and that we should return to Sapporo. We had hoped there would be some kind of a real estate broker there. We began walking through the city, not knowing what to do next. I said to Marlene, "Let's just walk and look for a miracle." People stared at us, kids crowded around, and people ran out of their shops to see the gaijin (foreigner).  Kids were shouting, "Gaijin," and saying things like, "Look how big he is," so I said, "Haven't you ever seen an American before?" They answered, "Yes, on TV, but not for real!"

We came to an ice cream parlor and I wanted to go in, but Marlene said it would be too expensive. I said, “Now if someone asks us if we want to rent a house you will be sorry you didn't want to come in." We bought each a cone, and while we were sitting at a table eating our 11-cent cones, about 10 minutes later a man looked in the window and spotting us  came in and asked me what my business was here in town. I told him that we were looking for a house to rent. He said that he knew of many and asked us if we'd like him to take us to see some. "Just a coincidence," some might say, but to us it was as much of a miracle as turning the water into wine! This short little man wearing a tam and sunglasses, turned out to be a newspaper reporter for Rumoi Times.  He asked us if we would go to his newspaper office where he could take pictures and write a story about us. Of course we went.

For two days Saito San showed us different places that were available. They were all too small for our family of seven. Finally, on Sunday we returned home to Sapporo but confident that the Lord would continue this work. On Monday we received a call from Saito San, and he said he had found a house we'd like. We returned on Wednesday, and although we turned down the house Saito San thought we would like, he kindly helped us to keep looking until we found the perfect place.
We had asked the Lord for a place with lots of room for the kids inside and outside to play and a place where we could have a cow, chickens, and a garden.  Our language teachers had told us that we would never find such a place. Saito San took us to Reuke, ten minutes out of Rumoi, to a huge house right on the seashore with a road between the house and the beach.

The owner of this very large house had been a herring fisherman. The house had been built 70 years before and had housed his family on one side and 70 of his fishing crew on the other side. It was called a Nishin Goten (Herring Palace) built without a nail; all the wood was cut and inserted in grooves. About 10 years before this the herring for which he had fished in front of his home had disappeared and forced him to change fisheries. He moved his family to be closer to the harbor from which he began fishing for squid. Thus their home place remained without occupants these many years.

We were advised to go to the head of education of the Rumoi area to get an introduction from him to the landlord of the house so that he would more readily rent to us reasonably. We did so, and this man very graciously called the owner, Seki San, and arranged an appointment for us at 1:30. You can imagine the surprise when this fisherman heard that a large American family wanted to rent his home.

When Seki San, showed us the house, we saw that one of the rooms was dark and eerie with a large Buddha encircled with pictures of the dead parents, relatives, and the Emperor. We told them we couldn't live in a house with a room like that. Also there was a kamidama (Shinto god-shelf) built right into the house. There was an offering of fresh strawberries in front of it that day. They balked when I told them that would all have to go, but the $80 a month I offered them won the day and they moved everything to an outside storage building.

That house proved to be a tremendous blessing from the Lord as we raised our children there for 11 years. The first morning living there when I looked out the window and watched a ship sail by, I was overwhelmed with what the Lord had done for us.

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