Cash Clan Japan

We have lived in Japan for almost 8 years now, come August. Keith and I both know that we know that we know that it was GOD who called us to Japan, and made a way for us to get there, and it can only be GOD to keep us there. We have come to love this nation so much that we call it home. Coming to America is like a vacation for us. Japan is home for us. But any Christian who lives there will tell you: Japan is a spiritual desert. There is only one church for every 14,000 people, and the average church size is only 40 people. Most churches operate on strict, authoritarian models. And it is not easy to find a healthy church to serve in as a foreigner in Japan. It is called a “missionary graveyard” with good reason; many missionaries come to Japan with high hopes and great expectations, never to see a single conversion to Christ in even several years of service, and so they get discouraged and they leave. It is a HARD place to spend your life on the Gospel. So many Americans, even those who are missions-minded, don’t even consider Japan, perhaps because it is industrialized and socio-economically sound, for the most part. But Japan is the rich young ruler. And he needed Jesus too. But he knew it, and Japan doesn’t know it, mostly because they haven’t even heard what He has done for them. Japan is the single largest unreached people group on the planet. Yet Keith and I never even thought about going to Japan. It wasn’t even on our radar. We were envisioning somewhere in rural Asia, living in dirt huts. Because that’s what most of us Americans think of when we think of what it means to be a missionary, right? Well, we’ve been there for 8 years now, and I can’t speak for my husband, but the desert has sucked me dry. I’ve known it for a while now actually, that I was spiritually burned out, running on empty, whatever you want to call it. It is entirely my fault really because I have become so wrapped up in the “Do! Do! Do!” mentality that not only seems to run in my genes and personality, but also is a huge pillar of Japanese culture. For 8 years, I’ve been a yes-girl. “Sure, I can do that! Sure, I can run that ministry! Sure, I can speak/sing at that event!” But somewhere along the way, I forgot about the most important thing. I became Martha, Martha, Martha, and I have neglected to sit at my Savior’s feet for far too long, and it has suddenly and painfully caught up with me.

Many of you know that we are in a very difficult situation right now. Keith and I are thousands of miles away from each other, and can hardly communicate because of the time difference. I am still reeling from the earthquakes that we experienced last month, and even more so reeling from the onslaught of attackers that have publicly taken issue(s) with our decisions/methods of evacuating Japan and from all the misinformation floating around, which I can really do nothing about. I am going through some things I have never experienced before: depression, anxiety, panic attacks, etc. etc… I have the kids enrolled in school because I need to at least learn how to deal with all my issues before we return to Japan, and I have doctor appointment and/or therapy of some kind almost every day that my kids are all in school.

So here I am, feeling like I’m about to be buried in that missionary graveyard any day now, and YET God has still been unreasonably good to me. He still has lavished his love upon me in a million different ways. He still has shown me grace upon grace upon grace, and has favored me. He has led me to exactly the right kind of therapy, exactly the right doctors, has given me an amazing support system in my mother and brother and sister-in-law and friends here, and has just shown me again and again that this is just a season. This is not forever. Again, I shall be glad in Him, and shall soon be able to say authentically, “Let the nations be glad!” Over the last few weeks, the cry of my heart has been, “Restore unto me the joy of my salvation, Lord please!”

The song on repeat on my playlist right now is from a CD from The Village Church. The song is called “To the Cross I Cling” and the chorus reminds me, “All things in me call for my rejection; All things in You pleads my acceptance.” Please listen to it down there at the bottom! It’s an amazing, affirming song.

One of the key things that is helping me immensely right now is called “Intensive Prayer Therapy.” And it IS intense!! The counselors (a married couple, former long-term missionaries in Thailand, and experienced in working with people with severe PTSD, i.e. women who have seen their pastor-husbands martyred before their eyes), rather than letting me blather on a nd on about my pain and then offering suggestions, they lead me through an intense two-hour process each week, in which I am learning to reconnect with my Heavenly Father and allow Him to be my true Counselor. They are guiding me in praying to the Father, to ask Him the hard questions about all that is happening and why I am feeling the way I am feeling, and asking Him to show me again who I am in Him. And truly He has been near to me in my broken-heartedness and contrition. He has spoken His Word to me, He has given me word-pictures and brought up things I haven’t thought of in years, all bringing healing to my soul, slowly but surely.

At the end of “Voyage of the Dawn Treader,” Aslan tells Lucy that this was her last time in Narnia, that she is no longer a child, but that He is in her world too, to look for Him by His other Name. I had a revelation that I too had been to Narnia (metaphorically, of course). God allowed me to ride His back through magical forests, clinging tight to his luscious mane. I had some seriously amazing, other-worldly adventures when I was a child in Him. In reading and in watching C.S. Lewis’ masterpiece of children’s literature, I have been so moved to realize that He chose me to enter into that magical world for a season in my life. For years, I’ve felt guilty that I couldn’t figure out how to get back there. But the truth is that now I’m a grown up, and I have been instructed to put away childish things. I have been called to relearn how to connect with him in a powerful, intimate way now that I’m all grown up.

In my prayer time today, He gave me a very specific instruction: The next step toward recovery for me is to tell my stories from Narnia. When I tell those stories, I light up, inside and out, and the joy of my salvation returns to me. Right now I am in the pit, and the only way to regain my joy and faith in this is to remember what He has done in my life. I don’t know what will come of this! I have no agenda of which stories to tell and when. But the Bible tells us over and over again to remember the things He has done. Exodus 16:32 says, “This is what the LORD has commanded: ‘Let an omer of it be kept throughout your generations, so that they may see the bread with which I fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you out of the land of Egypt.’”

So all that to announce that for the next several blogs, which I aim to write daily, as part of my worship to Him, I am going to tell my stories from Narnia. Will you go on this little journey with me? Will you rejoice with me in what He has done, and pray for me that He will indeed restore unto me the joy of my salvation? When I get back to Japan, I’ve GOT to be girded with the joy of the Lord as my strength, or I’m gonna get eaten alive. I need your prayers! I love you, dear family and friends.

I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to write this–it’s just been a lot to process. When I finally said something, I wanted it to be something substantial.

As you all know, we have had quite a week. At 2:45pm last Friday, I was 15 minutes from meeting a few missionary friends to travel to a women’s retreat, and Keith was about to take the kids to piano lessons. We were all upstairs, all together, when the shaking began. At first, it felt like an ordinary little earthquake–we get them all the time–but then it kept going. And then it got stronger and stronger, and the pictures on the walls started threatening to fall down, and the enormous antique Chinese cabinet was wavering forward as if it might thrust itself to the ground. We stayed as calm as could be expected, telling the kids to stand in the door frames by us. And we really didn’t know if that’s what we should do, keep everyone on the second floor like that. (It’s not.) But this thing just kept going and going. The quake lasted for about 2 and a half minutes, and it was strong. And it was scary. I have NEVER been scared during an earthquake. I’m not easily scared, I don’t think. But 8 year-old Claire started crying about a minute in and began to get hysterical, and sadly my initial maternal instincts started to melt into my own panic as I wondered if our house was about to come crumbling down on top of us. I actually had a moment where I thought, “Well, this is it, Lord.” And I started praying and peace returned just as quickly as it had fleeted.

Then it was over. The boys were laughing and saying how cool it was, and I was trying to crack jokes to help Claire (which worked). And we tried to go about our regular business. But something just felt off. The ladies started to arrive who were coming with me to the retreat, and they were also very shaken up. But our fourth lady, a pastor’s wife from Tokyo, we quickly realized must have been on the train when it happened. And sure enough, I got a Facebook post from her that she was stuck on a powered-down train who-knows-where and had no idea when she would be able to get off. We drove to the nearest train station, hoping the trains would start back up and she’d arrive eventually, but she never did. Two hours later, we got another message from her that she’d had to take an emergency exit off the train, walk down the tracks and climb the ladder from the tracks to the platform. And she was at a station which was only about a half mile away. But it took us nearly an hour to get there because of traffic. All the while, we’re still having little earthquakes, aftershocks, every few minutes, which was very unsettling. And I’m just wishing I had stayed home, but first, my friend needed rescuing. So we got her, and then I think we were all just in such shock that we didn’t even know how to discuss what to do next. I think probably I wasn’t the only one who was yearning just to go home to my family and curl up on the couch in my husband’s arms. But I couldn’t say it for some reason. I don’t know if it was my shock or just I was in survival mode or what, but I just kept going. And so did the rest of them. So we drove nearly 3 hours to the place where the retreat was to be held, arriving terribly late, and ate dinner at Chili’s, a strangely ordinary thing to do on such a day. It wasn’t until we checked into our hotel room after dinner that we turned on the news and saw the extent of devastation in Sendai. Now 3 of us are missionaries–our life’s work is here in Japan, our hearts are forever-binded to the hearts of our Japanese friends. But we were just in such shock–all we could do was watch the television and check our Facebook over and over again. I am ashamed to say that we four godly women failed to pray together that night. We should have, and I’m embarrassed that we (or at least I) just let the tsunami sweep right over us as well. We just went on with the retreat and it was well and fine as far as retreats go, but my heart was about to beat out of my chest I wanted to get out of there so bad.

But then I went home and I have prayed much since then, believe me.

My precious 8 year-old asked me so earnestly, “Mom, WHY would God let this happen? NOTHING good can come out of this!” Fortunately, I had been struggling with the same question (don’t we all?), and was greatly comforted by the words of John Piper HERE. I tenderly shared with Claire how God can use even the most horrific of circumstances to make the most beautiful things happen. I shared with her experiences from my own life where God used unspeakable pain to open my eyes and help me really see Him, and to cause me to sing His praises forevermore, which is simply the greatest joy of my life. Without all that pain and suffering, I am absolutely convinced that I never would have recognized the abysmal desperation in my soul for Him and Him alone.

And so that is my hope for the Japanese people: that one-by-one they will have similar epiphanies to the one He so graciously granted me at a ridiculously young age: that we are useless and empty and purposeless without Him. Here in Japan, they don’t know that! You have to understand, these are some of the most intelligent, affluent, kindhearted people you have ever met. They don’t FEEL their desperate need for God like a starving mother of 4 in Ethiopia might. And so they’re not crying out to Him. But the Word of God says that He is just waiting for them to cry out to pour His compassion upon them. Family, friends, whoever reads this–PRAY that God will make them desperate for HIM! Just a couple weeks ago, I was headed to Tokyo, and the train line I needed to be one was shut down because of a “human accident.” That’s their code for “someone jumped in front of a train.” I am so sick of hearing about the 100 suicides a day here in Japan, feeling so helpless to do anything. They’re hurting inside, but in this culture, they’re not allowed to feel, and they’re sure as heck not allowed to share how they feel. And so they don’t. And many of them can’t take it–they either just shut down emotionally or they jump in front of a train. And it’s TIME FOR US TO START PRAYING. Even more than they need for their devastated towns and villages to be rebuilt (and they do!), they need revelation of their need for the only Living God who can fill their souls! The Japanese people are considered to be the hardest people group in the whole world to minister the gospel to–missionaries call Japan “the missionary graveyard” because people don’t last here. It’s too hard to reach them, and people give up. You see, the Japanese people think/say they’re just fine, for the most part. But they’re not. Love them with me. Pray for them with me! Allow your heart to be moved by their apathy towards the Living God. He is just waiting for them to cry out to Him!

As you all know, for the safety of our children, I am trying to raise money to come back to the States for a little while, just until all this blows over. But Keith has to stay. And us not being here will free him up to do a lot of ministry, so please be in prayer for him that God will give him exactly the tasks that are right for him. He so wants to be of help to the Japanese people during this time, and our absence will actually make that easier for him.

I love you all, and I hope to see you very soon!

Choosing Joy,
Lisa

Merry Christmas, friends and family…

I am a busy lady, and I just literally don’t have a lot of time to sit around and read these days. But that nagging insatiable hunger for knowledge is still there, and I have to feed it several times a day. So I’ve had to get creative. Well, not THAT creative, I guess. I just looked around on iTunes. That’s not SO noteworthy, I suppose.

Except that I’ve been feeling the overwhelming need to share some of my favorite podcasts with you all. Maybe some of you might benefit from a few of these! Check them out! And PLEASE SHARE YOUR FAVORITES!!!

1) The Daily Audio Bible Podcast: I actually tried this podcast out a few years ago, but I couldn’t get over the guy’s movie-trailer voice. I’m gonna be honest here–I’ve been trying to get into the habit of reading my Bible DAILY for YEARS now and just kept falling back into the same old slumps. This podcast has been the trick for me. Every morning, when my alarm goes off, I reach over, grab my iPhone and stick my earbuds in and listen for 30 minutes to sections of the OT, NT, Psalms, & Proverbs. I wake up nice and easy and the first thing in my mind every single day is the Word of God. It’s working out great for this busy mom.

2) Karen & Kids Podcast: This is an awesome podcast that we listen to over breakfast every morning, a solid kids’ devotional with great music and very practical teaching. The kids really enjoy it. It’s 15 minutes long and at breakfast time, I’m just not awake enough still to be all deep and spiritual. It’s become a nice routine for us.

3) Classics for Kids Podcast: This is a short, interesting little podcast designed to introduce kids to classical music and its greatest contributors. We listen to these at lunchtime.

4) Librivox Podcasts: Librivox has published dozens of the classics as audiobooks, several of which are childrens’ literature. Several of our read-alouds happen to be available as Librivox recordings, so periodically, I get a break from reading aloud during our World History/Literature segment of homeschooling.

5) ThatMom: There are dozens of homeschooling podcasts out there, but this one is my favorite by far. She’s not all self-righteous and pious about homeschooling, but rather she’s humble and practical and funny. I have shed many a tear over her affirmations and encouragements to my heart.

Okay, so GO AHEAD!! What are YOUR favorite podcasts??

Twelve plus twelve is twenty-four
Just one plus five plus twenty more
The sum a hearty five score:
but just a blink with him I adore.

The secrets are ours
all whispered in ears
from One who loves in power
Who speaks to those who hear

A cord of just two, no matter how twisted,
the fate of that cord is unsure and unlisted
But a cord of three strands is not easily broken,
The Third Strand so very much more than a token.