ベサニー・キリスト教会

English service at the Bethany Christ Church

On Sunday the 10th of May from 4:00pm, we will be hosting our English service. It is an informal get together, praising and worshipping the Lord with our brothers, sisters, and friends. The service is conducted in English, with Japanese interpretation, so anyone can enjoy. Please come and join us. We also enjoy chatting over coffee and cookies after the service. See you there!

ベサニーキリスト教会　英語集会
5月10日（日）の午後4時から英語集会を行います。兄弟・姉妹・友達と共に、リラックスした雰囲気で賛美と礼拝をおこないます。集会は英語で行いますが、もちろん日本語の通訳も付きますので、どなたが参加して頂いても大丈夫。
是非ご参加ください。集会後のコーヒータイムでおしゃべりするのも楽しみの一つです。お待ちしています。

「メンズ・サパー」のご案内

ベサニーキリスト教会のメンズミーティング（男性クリスチャンの会）が、5月23日（土）、午後6時より「メンズ・サパー」を開催いたします。食事会のテーマは「イタリアン」。男性達が心をこめて美味しいパスタをご準備します。また食事の後には、クリスチャンビジネス経営者としての信仰について、大東章男氏の証しをお聞き頂きます。
参加費は大人700円、小学生300円です。ぜひお誘い合わせの上ご参加ください。

Even a five year old can climb rock!!!

Last week I met the youngest rock climber that I have met so far-he was only five years old!. He was climbing with his mother and his grandfather-all rock climbers. It looked like he had more gear than I had!!! At any rate, here he was climbing a 50 meter slab of granite and seeming to enjoy it.

His mother told me that he had already climbed it once and this would be his second time up the route. I climbed parallel to him and took some pictures. Everything seemed to be going just fine. However, about four fifths of the way up the route, there was a change. He became frightened and scared. I suspect he suddenly realized that being at the top of a 50 meter rock slab was not the safest place in the world. The first time, no doubt, he concentrated on the holds and nothing else and had a great time. The second time, he let his mind wander and fear set in.

I was immediately reminded of Peter when he was walking on the water. As long as he kept his eyes on Jesus and concentrated on how much power Jesus had, he was fine. The King James Bible tells us that "when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid".And he started to sink.

Well, Peter was ok-Jesus saved him. And the little boy was ok-his grandfather and his mother made sure he was safe.

But it really made me think. We need to concentrate on the RIGHT things-otherwise we will sink.We need to keep our eyes and our minds focused in the right direction.

Peter went on to become a great disciple. Jesus made sure of that. And I am sure my young climbing friend will go on to become a great climber in the future. His mom and his grandfather I am sure will see to that.

But we all go through life learning lessons-at five years old-or at fifty years old-it makes no difference.

Hopefully, I will keep on learning both as a climber and as a Christian.

Enjoying real "Kura" life in the early 50s

When I first came to Japan when I was two and a half years old we lived in a house that was formerly owned by an "Ohmi Shounin". Ohmi is the old name for the Shiga area of Japan while Shounin means "merchant". Many famous merchants came from the area. One of the more well known would be the Takashimaya Department Store chain which was started by a merchant from Takashima in Shiga Prefecture.

After the war, many of these beautiful traditional houses were up for sale and my father's mission bought one for their mission headquarters. A traditional Japanese house has many special features-it has a "hanare" (which means separate) which is a small house on the grounds connected to the main house with a corredor or two. This house is for the eldest son to life in with his wife and family. They can be "of" the family and "not of" the family at the same time in this way.It also has of course a "kura" or two ot three or ten depending on much treasure there is to store. At first, treasure was mostly rice so a ""kura" is rat free. It tends to be cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Other parts of the house would be a traditional Japanese garden and wall around the whole thing and a large official gate. The floors would all be "tatami" (straw mats) and the walls would be mostly paper sliding panels. This means that a 4 mat room can be turned into an 8 mat room or a 16 mat room or even a 24 mat room simply by sliding some paper panels around. As a result no one ever knew how many rooms we really had. I think I used to tell people we had 38!

At any rate, this bunch of foreigners moved in and set up shop. They had no treasures so the second floor of the "Kura" became the Sunde's apartment. The first floor was used for the closest thing that the missionaries had to treasure and that was their barrels and suitcases and boxes of stuff. Also, a ping-pong table.

Living in a "kura" was great all year but I liked it in the winter the most. Every missionary family was given one wood burning stove. That meant that in the evening everyone spent their time around their stove. The Sunde Family was no exception. Eveything took place near the stove. In the picture it looks like Mom is studying, Dad is pretendting to study and I am just having fun doing whatever it is I am doing. I used to color, look at picture books, play with various toys I had, and sometimes just daydream. I have only pleasant memories of those long Shiga nights around the stove. The air was warm, we were a family that loved each other and we were together here in a land not our own but a land that God had sent us to.

It was a good time to be alive. The world has changed-now things move faster-computers are everywhere-but some things aught not to change. A family in a room together spending time together as a family is something we need now more than ever.

「メンズ・サパー」のご案内

ベサニーキリスト教会のメンズミーティング（男性クリスチャンの会）が、5月23日（土）、午後6時より「メンズ・サパー」を開催いたします。食事会のテーマは「イタリアン」。男性達が心をこめて美味しいパスタをご準備します。また食事の後には、クリスチャンビジネス経営者としての信仰について、大東章男氏の証しをお聞き頂きます。
参加費は大人700円、小学生300円です。ぜひお誘い合わせの上ご参加ください。

First of all I want to thank all of you for praying for me. After a very long period of weakness I am again feeling strong and healthy.I used to spend all of my evenings in bed but now I am up and around and can even enjoy various evening programs and visit friends in the evening In fact, by about 3pm I used to be very tired and would often head to bed at that early hour. I also would often run a fever in the evenings-38.5C was not un-common. However, I now do not ever seem to have a fever and have the strength to do many things. Please pray that I will continue to be in this state and of course that the cancer will continue to be contained.

My blood reports are all about the same with no big changes one way or the other. My next CT scan is scheduled for June 23rd-please pray for good results.

By God's grace I am preaching and teaching here at Bethany and also getting lots of exercise by doing rock climbing.My doctor seems very happy about this and encourages me to go to the mountains as much as possible.

Again, I want to thank all of you for your faithful prayers-I am sure that I am alive today because people have been praying for me.

Snow on Mt. Fuji above 2000 meters on May 28, 2009

My wife and I try to take a trip every April as our wedding anniversary is then. However, this year my physical condition was very bad and we could not do it, In May my condition improved and so we decided to take our annual trip. We decided on Mtl Fuji-not to climb but to look at and to take pictures of. One of the best spots for that is the Lake Kawaguchi area and so we took a hotel there,

On thre way we were treated to a wonderful view of snow covered Mt. Fuji. However when we got to our hotel the clouds moved in and by 5pm it was raining. What to do?

The next day it was raining even worse and so we decided that if we could not see Mt. Fuji from afar we would try to see it up close. In the rain we drove to the 2305 meter point using our 4WD vehicle. By the time we got there, we had entered the snow zone-everything was white-the ground, the rocks, the trees, and of course the parking places, We found a snow free spot to park and spent some time at the gift shop and at one of the coffee shops there. The air was very very cold and the coffee was supposed to warm us up. Realizing that we needed an old fashioned stove we headed to a shop that had a good stove and warmed up. It was amzaing to us to experience snow at this time of the year!

After that we enjoyed a nice drive back to Lake Kawaguchi-it was beautiful green green forest all the way. We just enjoyed the beauty of God's creation as we drove.

Even though we did not get to see the views of Mt. Fuji that we were expectiing driving in the snow zone above 2000 meters more than made up for it-we had a wonerful trip overall.