Letter to Ellen

17 April 2011

Dear Phyllis,

The other day I wrote some good friends who had been here in Chiang Mai about the possibility buying their motor bike. Disaster had struck them like few cases I have ever seen. They had to leave Thailand on moments notice. Ellen wrote me that she was grieving and couldn’t sleep. In the middle of the night she turned on the computer and found an e-mail from me that ministered to her heart. I wrote her back the following letter:

Dear Ellen,

Your words ministered to me. As I read your e-mail, tears trickled down my cheeks. I can’t imagine a more unimportant, less used, child (I hate to use the word servant) of God than me. I intensely feel the Lord has placed me on a shelf, and the dust has covered me so thick it is difficult to tell what the original color was. The fact that my letter came at an appropriate time and was used of the Lord to help you reduces me to tears.

Yes, I have had a couple disappointments in life. When my wife was unfaithful and gave her body to another man, my world shattered. But that was the beginning. What happened then for the next two years was more than heart wrenching. And the ultimate resolution was worse than the worse-case scenario I could have imagined. When I was in Japan and saw those pitiful tsunami victims I was envious. They had lost everything. But so did I. Of the material goods that we enjoyed in this world, I couldn’t have been hit harder than if I had been wiped out with a tsunami. We had everything. We couldn’t have been more comfortable. I had thousands of dollars of tools, hundreds of books, a car and two trucks, a water bed, an American kitchen, etc – everything! I wound up with one Bible, three shirts, and one pair of shoes.

But that was minor compared to losing my family. Years before then, a brother in Ikoma had lost his young wife to cancer. I couldn’t imagine anything more horrible than that. I later wrote him a letter saying I was envious. His wife was saved and honored the Lord in her departure. It was clean. He later remarried and has a wonderful new family. I would have been comforted if my wife had died. Leaving me was the worst possible disgrace to Christ. Today she is a living testimony as a Christ-dishonoring divorced woman, and I am stuck in living death.

As a family, we are the worse possible disgrace to the Name of the Lord. I did everything humanly possible to save my family, but in most corners my wife has been vindicated and I have been held responsible for the failure. After everything totally collapsed, some of my best friend would not speak to me or invite me for coffee. For 10 months my second son was barred from going to the Christian school where he had always attended, and a letter was sent to me to please not allow him to come to the school ground to play with the other children. That made me feel real good.  As far as I know both of my sons are far from the Lord today. It has been years since I have heard for anyone. I would have been comforted if my family had been lost in the tsunami. It would be more honoring to Jesus than the putrefying situation that exists today. Oh how I wish I had been a tsunami victim and had not been such a disgrace to Christ, and stuck in the horrible situation I am in today. They can rebuild, but I can’t.

At the time everything went to zero, I couldn’t believe what was happening. Things like that don’t happen to Christians. And I had done my best to serve the Lord as a missionary. I told my wife, “We are engaged in a holy war. It is your god against my God. Your god is the god of divorce and destruction. My God is the God of salvation. We will see who wins.” Her god won. It seemed the Lord had traded sides. She got everything she prayed for and I got nothing.

That was 21 years ago. Today I sincerely thank God for everything He has done for me. His way was right. I consider myself a privileged man.

Recently I have been reading the Letters of Samuel Rutherford. Oh, they are pure gold. It is as if the were written on sheets of velvet, printed in letters of pure gold. Oh, how the minister to me. He was a man whose heart burned with the flame of God as few men have ever experienced. He was having a highly successful ministry in 1636 in Anwoth, Scotland, when silenced by the High Commission Court of his Episcopacy, and banished in exile to Arberdeen. The other pastors in Arberdeen were instructed to close their pulpits to him. He could not imagine anything more cruel. But then he wrote, “I am the prisoner of Christ. My adversaries have sent me to the banqueting house of my wonderful Lord Prince Jesus for love-feasts. This is His House of Wine where we are having feasts every day. I have found the white side of the Cross of Christ to be covered with gold. Anyone who ever fitted that crabbed Tree to their back would find it such a burden as wings to a bird or sails to a ship”. He was right. I have found it as he described.

Rutherford wrote from his exile, “May my silence speak louder than my tongue.” Indeed it was so. His silence has spoken a message to me that would have been impossible to elucidate from the highest pulpit. To any who may feel they are of little worth to the Kingdom of God and have been relegated to the shelf, my word to them is “welcome”. Here we have blessed fellowship with Rutherford. Here we can sit beside him at the table and have a wonderful feasts with our Lord Jesus. It is here He serves His table (Lk. 12:37). It is here we find Jesus girding Himself with an apron serving His servants. It is here we find blessed fellowship that is unknown outside His House of Wine. Oh the feasts I have enjoyed lately! I have found in the Inverted Kingdom, low is high, poor is rich, mourn is joy, and death is life. I have found since I have lost everything Jesus has given me riches that I never knew existed before. There are treasures to be found here that don’t exist in high success. For many who have ascended to the top of the ladder of success they have come up with their hands empty. I have found at the bottom a treasure chest of jewels.

It certainly isn’t true that every highly successful servant of God is empty handed. Men of the stature of John Piper, Charles Spurgeon, and John Wesley certainly didn’t have empty hands. The Christian life is a race. The name of the game is not to see how slow you can run. The one who wins is the one who runs the fastest. It is not true that the last man to cross the finish line is the winner. But the Lord rewards us not by the speed we run but by the intensity of our heart for Christ. There is a place where last is first. At the West Point graduation, there are special awards for the top men in a class. But when the bottom man goes up front to receive his diploma, it is then that all the Cadets cheer the loudest and throw their hats in the air. Why? Because they all know that this poor turkey had to struggle the hardest. He was the cliff hanger. He was the one who was in agony the most for four years and finally made it to the finish line.

I believe Watchman Nee was the greatest Christian of the 20^th century. Certainly, nothing ever came out of China to exceed the value of his writings. I believe the foundation he laid with his group, Little Flock, is the basis for the unprecedented revival of the house church movement in China today. I believe in heaven he will stand at the highest platform up front. But the last 18 years of his life were spent in silence in prison. He never came out. But it was after he was reduced to the silence of prison that the voice of his writings became a huge crescendo world wide. It was after the Apostle Paul was silenced in prison that he wrote some of the greatest legacy of the New Testament. The voice of Rutherford’s silence has spoken louder to me than his tongue in any pulpit.

Dear Ellen, I grieve with you in what happened to you all in Chiang Mai.  It is more than bewildering. Chara Ministry was one of the finest ministries on Thailand. Why that would get closed down in such a horrible manner, and you all had to leave the country, is totally beyond human reason. It looks like a major victory for the devil. But so did the murder of Christ and the silence of Paul. The Chinese must wonder why one of the greatest preachers in China was silenced to prison and never came out. I have no word of explanation for your sorrows. All I know is that life does come out of death. 

When I died 21 years ago I saw nothing redemptive in it at all. But God has done so much for me in my prison of silence that never would have been possible on the platform of success. I am a lonely man here in Chiang Mai. But the treasure Jesus has been opening to me every morning is beyond what I can express with words. Morning by morning the Lord Himself sits with me on my balcony looking down the street. This totally blows my mind! Why He should look at me – much less sit with me – is a mystery beyond expression. I don’t know anyone more covered with dust or more unused than me. But He bought me with His Blood.  I am His.

I grieve with you in your exile from Thailand. The Lord has given you a most unusual cross to bear. But may you find with Rutherford that the white side of that cross is gilded with gold and to bear it is such a burden as wings to a bird or sails to a ship. Only Jesus can do this for us.

Your journeys brother,

                                       bill

Christian Vessel

10 April 2011

 Dear Phyllis,

I’m home. I walked in the door of my house in Chiang Mai at 3:30 Thursday afternoon. It was 28 hours before then that I had driven a borrowed truck back to Japan Mission. Neil took me to a bus stop where I caught an airport bus out to the Kansai airport. I took a plane out of Osaka at 6:00 that evening, had an hour and a half layover/transfer in Hong Kong at 10:00, and landed in Bangkok at midnight. From there I took a taxi to the north bus terminal for a bus back to Chiang Mai. I was able to find a platform to get a little sleep (?) from 1:00 until 4:00 AM when the ticket window opened to get a ticket for a 5:00 o’clock bus. After lying on those hard boards for three hours, that bus seat felt like a bed in a 5 star hotel. I got back to Chiang Mai by 3:00 that afternoon, and took a tuk tuk (three wheel taxi) back home. It was good to be home again after my unusual venture. But I have struggled with a very heavy heart. It was with great expectation that I had set out three weeks previously, but things turned out vastly different than what I expected. I am embarrassed to write about what happened.

I have never been in a position where more was expected of me. Literally thousands of people were praying for me world wide. Neil Verwey had activated his prayer list of over 2,000 people world wide – “We are sending our front man to Sendai to establish a beachhead”. I got e-mails from both sides of the planet saying, “Bill, we are praying for you”. When I got there, I found things radically different that what was expected.

The Lord knows it was not out of lack of willingness to go, or desire to be used. I had just got my shop completed – which was the fulfillment of an 8 year dream. I was like a pig in hog heaven just starting to work in it when Neil called asking me to abandon everything for a very uncertain, long-term, mission. I bought a three months ticket, and thought I might be in Sendai for six months. I paid over $500 extra to get on the quickest plane out of Thailand, to get to Japan a few hours before a cheaper flight. I drove virtually non-stop for 20 hours to get to Sendai with an overloaded truck of supplies. And then ran into a blank.

I could not have been more central. I thought the Bible school would be one of the major bases for relief work and spent 11 days there. From there I spent three more days with the Samaritan Purse warehouse in Sendai, where Franklin Graham’s organization had sent out 90 tons of relief supplies. I became friends with, Ken Isaac, Samaritan Purse top man, who put my number on his cell phone. I expected to be a major worker for them. That warehouse was certainly the epicenter for the relief work in Sendai. I was the first one to arrive at the Bible school and the last one to leave the warehouse, and I came back to Ikoma with nothing to report.

There was an overwhelming sense of rejection. At this time of a historic disaster, it was if the Lord had said, “I am sorry, but I can’t use you”.

The biblical term for a Christian is “a vessel”. I am not sure what a vessel is, but if it is container that is to be filled with something to be used, the only image I have of myself is a rusty bucket.  In 2 Tim. 2:20 the Bible tells us that in every great house there are many vessels. Some are beautiful gold drinking vessels and some are the slop bucket in the kitchen. I would love to be one of the gold cups sitting on the King's table, but the Lord has been pleased to put me under the sink. I have been pouting liked a child who got invited to join the work crew to build the house of God. But instead of getting a hammer and nails all I could do was carry a few boards to the workers.

It was with great excitement that I rushed forward expecting to be a key player in a historic event in Japan, but instead I came home three weeks later wondering why I had traveled so many thousand kilometers to accomplish so little. For years I have felt like and old rusty, dust covered, bucket sitting on a shelf in the woodshed of heaven. But the Lord has shown me that that is a privileged position. Even if I am only a dust covered bucket, occasionally I do get used to water a few flowers in the King’s garden. I am the King’s bucket, and I do sit in the woodshed of heaven. That is infinitely better than being the most honored member in the devil’s house. It is a tremendous honor even if I am only used to water a few flowers.

If the only position the Lord gives me is to sit in the last row in the bleacher section of heaven, I want to fill that bleacher section with the loudest praise for the worthy Lamb of God. Should not my voice be heard above the others for the wonderful things He has done for me?

On a totally different subject, Friday night I had another first time experience. I was over to see Paul and Marisa. That is a phenomenon like I have never seen in my life. I have mentioned them to you before. Paul was as hopeless a dead-head as I have ever met. When Scott invited him to come to the Bibles study at his house, I thought, “What a waste of time!”.  I had as much expectation to see something come out of that, as if I had given a tract to a mannequin, and expected a mannequin to raise his hands and shout hallelujah. I mean to tell you there was NOBODY home.

The people sitting around the table in Paul’s house Friday night were the oddest selection you could imagine. Paul was a longtime looser who had been a correction officer in Sing Sing prison. He was as hard as the convicts he dealt with. Marisa was a messed up woman who had had a terrible marriage and had attempted suicide. She was born in Cambodia, and was six years old when Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge had taken over the country in 1975. Her mother was Lao but had been raised in Cambodia. Marisa’s two brothers were killed by the Khmer Rouge, but she and her parents were able to escape to Thailand.  Her mother was an amazing survivor of Pol Pot’s killing fields. Marisa’s daughter was a torn up child that was the product of a former bad marriage. All four came from a widely differing, disastrous, background. But Jesus had suddenly invaded that home.

In Luke 24 we read about the experience of the Emaus disciples. They were downcast walking home when “Jesus Himself” suddenly – unsolicited – joined them. Once in the home, He was in charge (Lk. 24:30). There is no explanation for the sudden invasion Paul and his family have experienced with their new House Guest. As near as I can piece together, sometime shortly before Christmas, Marisa was talking to Scott’s wife, Kae. She came home exploding with joy to hear that Buddhism was of the devil and Jesus was the way to life. I have never seen or heard of anything like it. Suddenly she was possessed with an intense passion for the Bible and a craving to know God. Someone gave her a book on how to know the Bible. She threw it out and said, “I don’t want to know about the Bible – I WANT THE BIBLE!”

I have never seen such an instantaneous takeover of an entire home by the Blessed House Guest. They started have family devotions every night at 8:00 o’clock. I was there Friday night and they asked me to lead the devotions. I had no idea what to say. Marisa has a poor grasp of English, and Paul’s Thai is nonexistent. Translation would be impossible. I told Marisa, “I want you to read Romans 8 in Thai slowly and explain it as you go along.” What happened for the next hour was unbelievable! My Thai is next to zero but in the Spirit I felt I could generally know what she was saying. She sat there like a seminary professor reading the Word and making sense out of each verse. What was happening was supernatural. It was like watching a person who had been a cripple all their life suddenly be a graceful dancer. I would ask her from time to time, “Do you know what that verse means?” She would reply, “Yes, of course, it is perfectly clear.” Paul and I were reading our English Bibles. I asked Paul, “Do you understand this?” He had a sly grin on his face and would respond, “Yeah.” That was a miracle! A month before then there was no way I could have explained John 3:16 to him in a way that he could understand. As Marisa sat there eloquently expounding each verse to her mother and daughter, I kept shouting, “Amen!” “Hallelujah!”, “Praise the Lord!” When we got to the end of verse 39, Marisa was almost breathless with joy as she read, “Nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our lord”. I asked her, “How many times have you read this?” She replied, “This is the first time. I have never read Romans before.” You talk about a miracle – now there is one that you haven’t seen before!

Marisa is a beautician and shares her wonderful Jesus with everyone who comes in. Already there is one customer who has been touched and wants a Bible.

 

Paul told me the other night they sat down to have family devotions and suddenly the room was filled with the most exquisite fragrance. He said to Marisa, “Are you wearing some new perfume?” But it wasn’t perfume. It was something indescribable that no one had ever smelled before. Everyone in the room could smell it. They searched the entire house for the source, but there was no source. It was just in that room.

They reluctantly shared this weird testimony with me. I said, “Yes, I know. I have had that experience once in my life.” I told them to look at Song of Sol. 4:6. Paul looked up and said, “Yes, that is exactly what it smelled like.”

What has happened in that house can only be described as a spiritual invasion. As a sovereign act of His grace, Jesus has chosen to live in that house, and it has transformed everything inside the walls. Marisa’s mother was a hardened Buddhist, but now says, for the first time in her life, she is truly happy. And the dead-head Paul, who was the most unlikely candidate for salvation I have ever seen, is joyously bewildered to have Jesus live in his heart.

I told Paul what a blessing they were to me. He responded, “No, it is the other way around.” And mistakenly said, “We owe it all to you.” That is not true. The only thing I have done is just go over there to witness this astounding miracle. Maybe the Lord might use me to pour a little water on some of His flowers. And it sure is fun.

                                                                                                    bill

Problem with World Missions

7 April 2011,

Dear Phyllis,

I am sorry that I must say gomen nasai twice in one week. I told you that I could write a book of all the things that burn in my heart. Maybe that is what is happening. This letter will not be very edifying, but it is a subject, that I believe, graphically depicts one of the major problems that we face in world missions today.

Along with the historic Righter 9 earthquake, and the subsequent tsunami, Japan also was plagued with the most serious nuclear disaster she has ever faced. Indeed the entire world seemed more fixated on the Fukushima nuclear plant than they were on the tsunami damage. If things got totally out of control, and they had a worst case scenario nuclear melt-down, that could affect the entire planet. The news media loves sensationalism. Unfortunately that is where we get most of our information. In most cases, if you read to the bottom of sensational headlines – “Tokyo water contaminated with nuclear radiation” – you might read, “trace elements of very slight radiation has been found in some of Tokyo’s drinking water; that has been deemed unsafe for infants”. But the reaction to this is what has been tragic.

For some inexplicable reason, western nations have become neurotic over “Safety First” for many years. In the pervert American judicial system, the name-of-the-game for years has been frivolous law suits to make a fortune over ridicules things. Tens of thousands of dollars over MacDonald’s coffee being too hot. If you buy anything in America, there is always a thick instruction manual with the warning, “Please read first”. For a sheet of sand paper you might read, “Please always wear protective clothing and protective eye covering as improper use of this sand paper might cause serious bodily injure or death.” (I know that is extreme but it illustrates the point,) This neurosis has affected everything in western thinking.

I was utterly stunned, and mortified, at the disgraceful behavior of the US military and government in response to the Fukushima radiation problem. Immediately after the tsunami disaster, the US sent the world’s finest aircraft carrier, the USS Ronald Reagan, to Sendai to help out. That was the finest ship in the world to give assistance and deal with nuclear radiation; but when there was the slightest trace of radiation outside the plant at Fukushima, that carrier weighed anchor and went out to sea to avoid any contamination. To my utter amazement, the US embassy evacuated the America staff and recommended that all Americans leave Tokyo, Sendai, or any place in that area. And, bless their heart, the US Navy sent two of their major war ships out of Yokosuka so they could “better protect Japan” (I have no idea what that means.)

This whole-sale panic over the slightest suggestion of danger was astounding. A good friend of mine just happened to be going home for a few weeks and had to get a re-entry visa from Immigration. He got to the Immigration Office at noon and was given #1,200. There were than many in front of him. He got his re-entry visa at midnight.

I am delighted that so many Americans found it prudent to flee from Japan, but it is tragic that they got re-entry visas. It is to be hoped that they never come back again. If the unsaved community feels that way of facing danger, I can excuse them. Although their disgraceful behavior makes me ashamed that I am an American.

But the attitude of a significant proportion of the missionary community has also demonstrated that they too are cut out of the same piece of cowardly fabric. I read the letter of a missionary leaving Sendai. I have heard that most Scandinavian missionaries have been sent home. Roald Lidal told me that all Norwegian missions have pulled their missionaries out of Japan. Two German missionaries associate with NLL have gone home. What in the world is going on?!!!

Where I was in Sendai, we were three times nearer to Fukushima than Tokyo. And Sendai is right in the path of any radiation that might leak out of there. The wind does not blow towards Tokyo but does go straight towards Sendai. While thousands of gaijins (foreigners) were fleeing from Tokyo – like they were the bulls-eye for an even more destructive tsunami – the ordinary Japanese in Sendai were going about their daily lives with little more concern than if a heavy snow storm might be headed their way. People watched their TV news with interest, but Fukushima was not a major topic of conversation among the people in Sendai. What they thought of the American’s departure must have been bewildering. I saw on Fox News how their reporters, on the scene in Tokyo, were amazed at the quietness of the average Japanese citizen. And I was even more amazed that they were so surprised. The Japanese are fine. The Americans are sick.

I say that this is a graphic illustration of a major problem in world missions today. These people have irrefutably demonstrated to us what type of material they are made of. The missionaries today are a totally different breed than they ones who laid their lives on the line to go to the ends of the world to carry the Gospel to dangerous areas 150 years ago.

To start with, I fully believe the situation in Fukushima does not justify that degree of precaution. But if it did, what are the missionaries saying to their neighbors and friends when they flee, leaving the Japanese behind to suffer. It might be argued that it is prudent to get out of harms way where that is possible. But that also tells us about their identification with the people they came to help.

Let’s take a black and white, life and death, situation. Suppose this was the Titanic. The ship is sinking. But mission societies, prudently, had special life boats for their people. I can see tearful missionaries hugging their neighbors, saying they will pray for them, as they get in their special mission life boat leaving the unsaved friends behind for certain death. Would it not be more Christian to give their life jackets and seats on that boat to others than to think only about personal safety? It could be argued that Fukushima is different. Missions can’t get everyone in Sendai and Tokyo out of there. They can only evacuate their own missionaries. But I wonder if the ones left behind in Tokyo might not think the same thing of missionaries that get on plans to flee, as someone left behind on the Titanic.

For missionaries who found it the will of God for them to show their commitment to saving the lost by fleeing, I think it is commendable that they have gone home. The only comment that I have about them is, that I certainly hope they never come back to Japan again. I would be embarrassed to show my face again in the neighborhood if I exhibited such cowardice. And if this is the kind of metal they are made of, it is a shame that they ever came here the first time to disgrace the Name of Christ.

To give them a little slack, I am sure there are many very fine missionaries who have found their mission board policies as repugnant as they look to the Japanese. Hopefully, there are many who leave with the greatest regret; who would much rather stay behind than obey the instruction from home boards to come home.

The problem is, this is the mentality of world missions in western countries. First of all, they don’t want to get sued; so they take the cautious approach. Secondly, western thinking has become so clouded that many mission leaders would consider it highly irresponsible if they didn’t pull their missionaries out of a potentially dangerous situation. And if they listen to CNN, it looks really bad.

When I was in China the last time, a sister, who has a book store, gave me a chart of the missionaries who were killed in the Boxer Rebellion in 1902. I was stunned. I knew that a number of missionaries were martyred, but this chart has pages. The CIM might have pulled some of them out at that time if they had airplanes. But those missionaries who got stuck in central and west China knew before they left home what they were getting into. Hudson Taylor, and his successors, knew what they were doing when they sent missionaries into China, knowing that a number of them would not be coming back. That was a different day for world missions. The price to serve Christ was high. The money they used was genuine – not the monopoly money that is used to give a sacrifice today.

I fear we are just playing computer games in the name of world missions, and the stakes we lay on the table is play money. And I believe this astounding departure of missionaries has graphically demonstrated that point. Maybe that is why we are having such little success.

                                                     bill

Aftermath of Sendai

5 April 2011

Dear Phyllis,

Gomen nasai for writing another mid-week letter. It is just that so much has happened in the past three weeks that I could write a book of the things that are on my heart.

I sincerely apologize for last Sunday’s letter. I fear that was not very edifying. It was just that the contrast of where I was blessed with reconciliation, and then hours later run into a stiff resistance against it, was the dominant impression in my heart.

The central issue of the past three weeks is the historic Sendai earthquake/tsunami. That will stand as one of the major events in Japanese history.

That was a very unique event that was recorded by many professional and armature videos of that enormous tsunami advancing wiping out entire towns in a moment of time. We have all watched in disbelief as that terrifying wave advanced irresistibly taking out everything in its path. The Japan tsunami and the one in Thailand in 2004 were much different. The one in Puket was water. But this one was a paste of ground up matter.

It is impossible to describe what it was like to stand there in the midst that mass of destruction looking at what happened. It was like someone had taken a huge putty knife and scraped the surface of the earth. Then they took the towns and placed everything in a blender grinding it up into a paste. After that they took that paste and spread it back over the earth like icing on a cake. As far as you could see there was nothing but a waist deep pile of broken boards, cars, and whatever else constituted of what used to be a town. You couldn’t distinguish the difference between towns and rice fields. Everything was evenly distributed over all.

We have all seen videos of people on bicycles or cars in the path of that moving wave. There was no escape. Unlike the destruction of an earthquake, there was no rescue operation after that. There were only two categories – those killed and those who escaped. I could only think that this looked exactly like the coming judgment of God. In the days of Noah, and the days of Sodom, once the door was closed, there was no salvation offered. How would you pray for the earth the fourth day of the Flood? It took 40 days to cover the earth. You could plead, “Lord, there are millions of children and elderly here on earth and the water is getting higher.” There would be no survivors. There was a hundred year warning, but once the door was closed, hope of salvation was past.

As terrible as the destruction was in Sendai, I feel strongly that is not to be compared with the horrible situation in Osaka, Kobe, Tokyo, and every city in Japan. Here we have multiple millions of people who are in the path of an even more terrifying wave of destruction that is irresistible progressing without any notice. It would be close to being statically accurate to say that in an 80 year period every soul in Japan will die. That is the entire nation. Sendai was a very dramatic visual threat. In Sendai it was terrifying to see that tsunami coming. But all over Japan there are much more people falling into the abyss of hell everyday unnoticed that we passively view as normal. The millions and millions of Japanese who die annually are in far more terrifying danger than those who were swept away in the Sendai tsunami. The ones in Sendai were gone in a moment of time, but the ones dying every year throughout Japan are falling into a pit where there is no termination. The only similarity is that in both cases there are only two categories – those lost and those saved. How serious is the situation that we are faced with in warning everyone around us of the inevitable fate that is moving their way! As I drove south from Sendai through peaceful Japanese towns, all I could think of was the immanent danger everyone is in. That was one of the illustrations that was forcefully impressed on my heart.

In any natural disaster zone there are three phases. The first is the immediate rescue of victims. In times of natural disasters, that time is measured in minutes, hours, or days. In many earthquakes, that period may be as long as a week as people are slowly being dug out from under the rubble. In a tsunami, like we just had, there are no survivors. There were thousands of people buried under all that debris, but there was no one yet alive.

The second phase is caring for the ones who escaped. That is a crisis lasting several days where there must be shelter, food, water, and clothing for those who have lost everything. That is the basic reason I returned to Japan from Thailand to help out in that phase.

The third phase is reconstruction. That defies imagination. I have absolutely NO idea how they are going to handle that. In Kobe it was a giant task but one you could grapple with, as the area of destruction was restricted to about ten kilometers or less. In this case it is over 500 kilometers of hundreds of cities and towns. After a house fire, you can clean up the mess of charred timbers. But here it staggers the imagination how they are going to just clear the land, much less rebuild the towns. This will take many years. And where are the people going to live in the mean time? There are only three options. One is to move away or live with relatives. The second would be to put up tent cities. This is occasionally done after earthquakes or floods. The third option is to put up temporary housing until regular houses can be constructed.  But to house hundreds of thousands along a 500 km stretch of Japan for years as they rebuild?

This entire issue of humanitarian relief is something that we must look at in the light of eternity. Jesus didn’t come to help us improve our methods for humanitarian relief. There was a tower that collapsed while Jesus was on earth, that killed 18 people (Lk. 13:4). There must have been many more injured. He didn’t organize a group of people to rush to the scene of the disaster to support the families of victims or assist those who undoubtedly were injured. All He did was comment that unless people repent, they all would likewise perish.

The victims of this tsunami disaster are kawaiso (pitiful). It is heart rending to hear stories of children and family members who perished. It would be less than human if we didn’t weep with them. Those in refugee centers are in bad shape. They have lost everything and need help. But far more than food and clothing, their greatest need is salvation. I told Nagai sensei of the Bible school, “I fear much of this effort is simply devoted to seeing that victims have a more comfortable life and can go to hell with ease.” As much as we want to see that people have full stomachs, what is that going to accomplish if the Blood that Jesus shed for their salvation is not answered with a grateful acceptance and seeing the fulfillment for His original coming? Jesus didn’t pay the price of Calvary just to see to it that we have a more comfortable journey of self-indulgence. He came to bring us back to God. If that is not accomplished, what good is all this humanitarian relief?

Anybody with a concern for souls will certainly agree and say that the basic purpose for this relief work is to provide an effective avenue for evangelism. It is nice that the Red Cross and Samaritan Purse are intensely engaged in humanitarian relief. Somebody has got to do that. But that is not the Gospel message. The Gospel message is that Jesus came to save us from sin and the devil’s dominion. He came to restore us to God – not rebuild us a nice new house.

Gomen nasai. My heart is greatly exercised. Japan has an ASTRONOMICAL problem on her hands as to how to recover from this historic disaster. But it looks to me like the Church of Christ has an even greater challenge in seeing the Kingdom of God come to Japan.

I have no idea how that can be accomplished. Since the end of the 2^nd WW we have had 60 years of trying, and have seen very little progress. The only answer I know is BY MY SPIRIT (Zech. 4:6).

Let’s give all we have to Jesus and maybe He can use us a little;

                                                                                                  bill

Japanese Tsuanami

5 April 2011

Dear Phyllis,

Gomen nasai for writing another mid-week letter. It is just that so much has happened in the past three weeks that I could write a book of the things that are on my heart.

I sincerely apologize for last Sunday’s letter. I fear that was not very edifying. It was just that the contrast of where I was blessed with reconciliation, and then hours later run into a stiff resistance against it, was the dominant impression in my heart.

The central issue of the past three weeks is the historic Sendai earthquake/tsunami. That will stand as one of the major events in Japanese history.

That was a very unique event that was recorded by many professional and armature videos of that enormous tsunami advancing wiping out entire towns in a moment of time. We have all watched in disbelief as that terrifying wave advanced irresistibly taking out everything in its path. The Japan tsunami and the one in Thailand in 2004 were much different. The one in Puket was water. But this one was a paste of ground up matter.

It is impossible to describe what it was like to stand there in the midst that mass of destruction looking at what happened. It was like someone had taken a huge putty knife and scraped the surface of the earth. Then they took the towns and placed everything in a blender grinding it up into a paste. After that they took that paste and spread it back over the earth like icing on a cake. As far as you could see there was nothing but a waist deep pile of broken boards, cars, and whatever else constituted of what used to be a town. You couldn’t distinguish the difference between towns and rice fields. Everything was evenly distributed over all.

We have all seen videos of people on bicycles or cars in the path of that moving wave. There was no escape. Unlike the destruction of an earthquake, there was no rescue operation after that. There were only two categories – those killed and those who escaped. I could only think that this looked exactly like the coming judgment of God. In the days of Noah, and the days of Sodom, once the door was closed, there was no salvation offered. How would you pray for the earth the fourth day of the Flood? It took 40 days to cover the earth. You could plead, “Lord, there are millions of children and elderly here on earth and the water is getting higher.” There would be no survivors. There was a hundred year warning, but once the door was closed, hope of salvation was past.

As terrible as the destruction was in Sendai, I feel strongly that is not to be compared with the horrible situation in Osaka, Kobe, Tokyo, and every city in Japan. Here we have multiple millions of people who are in the path of an even more terrifying wave of destruction that is irresistible progressing without any notice. It would be close to being statically accurate to say that in an 80 year period every soul in Japan will die. That is the entire nation. Sendai was a very dramatic visual threat. In Sendai it was terrifying to see that tsunami coming. But all over Japan there are much more people falling into the abyss of hell everyday unnoticed that we passively view as normal. The millions and millions of Japanese who die annually are in far more terrifying danger than those who were swept away in the Sendai tsunami. The ones in Sendai were gone in a moment of time, but the ones dying every year throughout Japan are falling into a pit where there is no termination. The only similarity is that in both cases there are only two categories – those lost and those saved. How serious is the situation that we are faced with in warning everyone around us of the inevitable fate that is moving their way! As I drove south from Sendai through peaceful Japanese towns, all I could think of was the immanent danger everyone is in. That was one of the illustrations that was forcefully impressed on my heart.

In any natural disaster zone there are three phases. The first is the immediate rescue of victims. In times of natural disasters, that time is measured in minutes, hours, or days. In many earthquakes, that period may be as long as a week as people are slowly being dug out from under the rubble. In a tsunami, like we just had, there are no survivors. There were thousands of people buried under all that debris, but there was no one yet alive.

The second phase is caring for the ones who escaped. That is a crisis lasting several days where there must be shelter, food, water, and clothing for those who have lost everything. That is the basic reason I returned to Japan from Thailand to help out in that phase.

The third phase is reconstruction. That defies imagination. I have absolutely NO idea how they are going to handle that. In Kobe it was a giant task but one you could grapple with, as the area of destruction was restricted to about ten kilometers or less. In this case it is over 500 kilometers of hundreds of cities and towns. After a house fire, you can clean up the mess of charred timbers. But here it staggers the imagination how they are going to just clear the land, much less rebuild the towns. This will take many years. And where are the people going to live in the mean time? There are only three options. One is to move away or live with relatives. The second would be to put up tent cities. This is occasionally done after earthquakes or floods. The third option is to put up temporary housing until regular houses can be constructed.  But to house hundreds of thousands along a 500 km stretch of Japan for years as they rebuild?

This entire issue of humanitarian relief is something that we must look at in the light of eternity. Jesus didn’t come to help us improve our methods for humanitarian relief. There was a tower that collapsed while Jesus was on earth, that killed 18 people (Lk. 13:4). There must have been many more injured. He didn’t organize a group of people to rush to the scene of the disaster to support the families of victims or assist those who undoubtedly were injured. All He did was comment that unless people repent, they all would likewise perish.

The victims of this tsunami disaster are kawaiso (pitiful). It is heart rending to hear stories of children and family members who perished. It would be less than human if we didn’t weep with them. Those in refugee centers are in bad shape. They have lost everything and need help. But far more than food and clothing, their greatest need is salvation. I told Nagai sensei of the Bible school, “I fear much of this effort is simply devoted to seeing that victims have a more comfortable life and can go to hell with ease.” As much as we want to see that people have full stomachs, what is that going to accomplish if the Blood that Jesus shed for their salvation is not answered with a grateful acceptance and seeing the fulfillment for His original coming? Jesus didn’t pay the price of Calvary just to see to it that we have a more comfortable journey of self-indulgence. He came to bring us back to God. If that is not accomplished, what good is all this humanitarian relief?

Anybody with a concern for souls will certainly agree and say that the basic purpose for this relief work is to provide an effective avenue for evangelism. It is nice that the Red Cross and Samaritan Purse are intensely engaged in humanitarian relief. Somebody has got to do that. But that is not the Gospel message. The Gospel message is that Jesus came to save us from sin and the devil’s dominion. He came to restore us to God – not rebuild us a nice new house.

Gomen nasai. My heart is greatly exercised. Japan has an ASTRONOMICAL problem on her hands as to how to recover from this historic disaster. But it looks to me like the Church of Christ has an even greater challenge in seeing the Kingdom of God come to Japan.

I have no idea how that can be accomplished. Since the end of the 2^nd WW we have had 60 years of trying, and have seen very little progress. The only answer I know is BY MY SPIRIT (Zech. 4:6).

Let’s give all we have to Jesus and maybe He can use us a little;

                                                                                                  bill

NLL Visit

3 April 2011

Dear Phyllis,

I really don’t know what to say. It isn’t that I don’t have anything to write about, but to know how to sort through so much material and share the main point is the problem.

I am back in Ikoma. I got back here last night at the end of a very unusual odyssey. In retrospect it is hard to know why I came from Thailand for that Sendai relief mission. A great deal of money was spent for it, and we saw very little result. In self-justification I can say that I was the first one to arrive up there and the last one to leave. In the mid-week letter that I sent you three days ago I explained the gist of what has happened in Sendai in the past two weeks. In that letter I mentioned that I was staying at NLL waiting for two Mennonite brothers to get back from Sendai to see what they have going. They are from the same Mennonite group that I fellowship with in Chiang Mai.

One brother had come especially from Haiti where he had been engaged in relief work for the massive earthquake there. The other brother came from Bangladesh to help out in Sendai. They came up with the same blank I did. I asked them about their second trip to Sendai, and they responded that they found nothing to do in relief work but went back up there to talk with the Bromans about publishing some literature they are interested in. They are interested in doing some construction for temporary housing for the tsunami victims, but we all agree that that subject is somewhere in an unforeseen future.

Perhaps one of the biggest things that came out of this trip was for the Lord to do a major work in my heart. Roald Lidal and I had had been engaged in a heart-warming (in a negative way) correspondence, and he had suggested that it would be best if I not come to NLL again. I promised him that that was not on my itinerary, and I would not be stopping there. But it had been two years since I had seen some very dear friends, and I did want to, at least, say hello while I was in Japan. The first morning I was in Saitama I drove out to the NLL plant in Hatoyama. I saw my old buddy Sobi who is in charge of the printing section. I planned not to go any further than the printing section on the 1str floor and ask Sobi to call a couple of my other friends to come down to meet me there. After that, I went back to my truck to go back to Kishida's clinic. I just got to my truck when here comes Roald Lidal. He was the last man in Japan that I wanted to meet. I asked, “Did you hear a bad rumor?” He replied, “No, I did know you were here. I just came down to get something from my car, which is most unusual.” I thought that was a pretty dirty stunt of the Lord to pull something like that on me, but I turned out to be an amazing act of His grace.

I have said for years that Neil Verwey is the most Christ-like man I have ever met. But Road Lidal must come in very near the top of the list of the finest Christians I know. We had had a very unpleasant correspondence, but – unlike me – he is the kind of man who holds nothing in his heart. He was as warm and gracious as he could be, and pleaded that I stay there. “He said, “Please, your old room is empty, and we would love to have you stay there.” I had purposed that I would never again darken the door of NLL, but after 20 minutes of the most genuine fellowship, the Lord did a marvelous thing in sending a tsunami of His grace to clean out a huge pile of rubbish in my heart. I still was reluctant to stay in my old room. There was too much pain involved in staying there, but the Lord clearly told me that that was His appointment. To my utter amazement I enjoyed sleeping two nights in my old bed and had a wonderful time of devotions for the next two mornings sitting in a special chair I had made for myself many years ago. I am astounded at the ways of the Lord. It was almost like the Lord had sent me from Thailand especially for that moment.

The first night I went out with two couples who are very special friends. It just plain doesn’t get any better. We laughed, cried, and rejoiced together for three hours over an excellent meal. Oh my goodness, the Lord is good!

From there I drove up to my old stomping grounds of Karuizawa. It was with great expectation that I began driving around trying to contact my friends up there, but no one seemed to be home. I had just the opposite success in Karuizawa of what happened in Hatoyama. This is one of the greatest griefs of my life.

Forty one years ago a young couple came out as missionaries to the Karuizawa language school to study Nihongo (Japanese). We soon became fast friends and developed one of the closest bonds I have ever had with anyone. The Rollins family was outstanding, but Bob was a different type of a man. I always thought his heart was excellent but he was the type of man that could best be described as having a few missing parts. He had incredible blind spots. He could cause enormous problems without ever realizing he had done anything wrong. Over the years, as we were very close friends, I spoke to him about several things, but – in all honesty – he just couldn’t see where he was wrong.

The first major nuclear was when a lady came to me to tell me that she had been in sin with Bob. When confronted, he was very frank about his failure. I thought that incident was handled quite properly. They were sent home by their mission to be disciplined and put on probation for one year. At the end of that time the home pastor recommend that they be cleared to return to Japan to continue their ministry. Obstinately, they came back to work under me. But at that time we were in a state of fluxed. We wound up leaving a ministry that I had been instrumental in starting in Karuizawa with the Rollins, and we went on down to Ikoma to work with the Japan Mission.

Then in 1998 a German missionary called Roald Lidal one night saying that there was a terrible rumor circulating in the German community about Bob Rollins, and he felt that Roald must deal with it. Roald was komaru and asked me if I would help him. Together we spent several days talking to several people. But in the process, a great deal of old wounds came to the surface. Bob was told to go to counseling. He was very honest and shared with the counselor facts about terrible failure he had had over the years that had never come to the surface. The result was that he was directed to return to the states immediately. I felt that everything was dealt with properly up to that point. But then disaster struck. Bob went back to the states, but made some further tragically bad moves which caused the split of his family. The older children were more or less scattered. Two were married, two were in college, and one was a missionary.  Betty wound up staying in Japan. For 30 years Betty and I had been very close friends. She had put up unbelievable non-sense and I admired her deeply. I thought she was the greatest wife I had ever seen. Bob was a good man, but had terrible blind spots. He had left a trail like a disaster zone in his family.

I have never figured out why, but for some inexplicable reason Betty turned against me. She was a deeply wounded wife, and I became devil #2. In spite of several really bad mistakes, the Rollins family was extremely high profile missionaries and had done a commendable job as missionaries. I was grieved that such well known missionaries with such an outstanding testimony should suddenly be the disgrace of the country. Having gone through the disintegration of my own family I was especially anxious to see reconciliation in the Rollins family. But this is not to be.

While in Karuizawa I was able to speak with, perhaps the most hopeful daughter, on the phone. It had been 13 years since the last time I had spoken with her. I thought she might be the best one to find a thread to lead back to reconciliation. She was polite, but I could feel tension that she was not happy to talk to me. I asked if she would e-mail me. But she honestly replied that she did not want to discuss anything of the past that was so unpleasant in her memory. As far as I can tell, Bob has done commendably well for the past 13 years. I have stayed in touch with him and, in my estimation, he has done everything possible to redeem himself. I may be mistaken but I believe he has kept himself pure for the past 15 years. But everyone is “waiting for him to repent”.  I don’t know what more he can do. Everyone has their feet stuck in concrete.  Because I would like to see Jesus honored with genuine forgiveness and reconciliation, I am a highly undesirable character,

This is what the Gospel is all about. Jesus came to reconcile us to God. And in the prayer that He taught us, the only point that the emphasized was that we are to expect God to deal with us with the same forgiveness as we extend to those who sin against us (Mt. 6:12,14,15). But in reality I have seldom seen bridges rebuilt. In the case of ruptured relations, time is not a healer. Barring the miraculous working of the Holy Spirit, in the vast majority of cases, time only hardens the resentment against offenders. This is true of the Rollins family and it pains me deeply to again find myself as persona non grati (unwelcome party), where once love and respect was dominant. Everyone says they are waiting for Bob to repent, and they are highly resentful of me for any attempt I make to see the family restored. I will be very surprised if the end of that story will not be Bob dying by himself a lonely man, and the rest of the family still grieving over bitter memories of their husband and dad.

 The Lord along knows where I will be next week, but at the moment I hope to get a ticket soon to get back to Chiang Mai and resume the work that I left there nearly three weeks ago.

It has been an interesting trip and the Lord is responsible for sorting out what He had in mind for this time.

 Until next week have a good time in walking with Jesus,

                                                                                           bill