My Times are in Thy Hands

26 December 2010

Dear Phyllis,

It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes I sit down and open the Bible at random; and a verse just leaps off the pager at me. It is almost like God speaking to me in an audible voice. That happened the other day. As I went out on my balcony where I meet with the Lord everyday, I opened my Bible and my eyes fell on Psalm 31:15 – “My times are in Thy hand”. That was a word from God to me.

As we close out 2010 I am intensely engaged in one of the most confusing projects of my life. I am totally restructuring my shop. My dear friend, Dave Moore, is working with me, and when we get finished, it will easily be the finest shop I have ever had. Frequently I scratch my head and wonder, “Why in the world am I doing this?” The only explanation is that I have been forced into it.

When things closed down at NLL in Japan eight years ago, I walked away from thousands of dollars of excellent tools and the best shop I had ever had, to go back to SEA to be a Bible smuggler. I had no expectation that I would ever pick up a hammer again. But soon after getting back to Chiang Mai a brother asked me if I would make some tables for an orphanage. I said, “Of course, I would be glad to, but I have no tools.” Fritz replied, “That’s no problem. I have plenty of tools and you can use my shop.” When I got there I was shocked. He had a lovely home, but his tools were a disaster zone. They were next to totally unusable. I had zero support, and what little money I did have was barely enough to live on. Of necessity, I had to go out and buy a few basic tools to do the orphanage project.

As time went on I found myself acquiring more tools, but I desperately need some place to work. My good friend, Mark, had given me a room to live in, in his warehouse for Bibles. It was a nice duplex house, and they were using the other half as a school for their children. There was virtually no place to work. The only place available was a very narrow section six feet wide and about 25 feet long behind my house. There was a clutter of water pipes on the concrete and the slope was fairly strong. In desperation I decided to make a simple wooden floor over the water pipes and make it level. I made a simple roof over it, a bench for a chop (slide) saw, and at the end of the house I made a small extension where I could put a table saw. It was cramped, but I could at least do some basic work.

A year later they stopped using the other half of my duplex house for a school, and the children no longer needed the playground in the lawn at the end of my house. Marks’s wife, Astrid, asked me to make a large double bed for a new missionary. It was impossible to make that in my close closet shop. As the children were no longer using the swing set and merry-go-round in the playground, I move that, and made a simple wooden platform 8’x 8’ beside my shop to make the double bed on. That lasted for a year, but soon rotted. By that time the simple wooden floor in my hallway shop rotted and had to be replaced. Dave and I cleaned up the water pipes and poured a concert floor over that and a major extension in what was formerly the children’s playground. Now I had a first class shop, but it was still tight.

 A few months ago Mark asked me to make a new kitchen for them. I was glad to do that, but the kitchen was so big I couldn’t make the cabinets in my tight shop. If I was going to do that job I had to make another major extension in the lawn. A couple months ago we poured another major section of concrete. But, of course, it needed a roof. As we got started adding a roof to the new extension the Lord showed me how to tear out every thing we had put in thus far and totally restructure the entire shop. The simple roof we had put in seven years ago was rotted and the termites had totally eaten the posts that were holding it up. All that had to be replaced.

As 2010 closes down I am in the midst of restructuring everything, and soon I will have the finest shop I have ever been in. But why in the world am I doing this at this time of life? I am 75 years old. You would think I was 25 and just starting out in life. I am supposed to be closing things down – not putting things up. As I have wondered at the Lord’s strange guidance forcing me into things I never would have dreamed of, the Lord spoke to me from that verse, “My times are in Thy hand”.

Many years ago I met a dear brother who had gone through the Batan Death March in the Philippines in 1942. As the 2^nd WW progressed, the Japanese took a number to the American POWs and brought them to Japan to use as slave labor digging coal in Kyushu. Jesse Miller told me how they were working 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, digging coal, on one small bowl of rice a day, and 15 minutes break. I told Jesse, “The numbers don’t add up. There isn’t that amount of calories in one bowl of rice to do that amount of work. How did you survive?” Jesse simple replied, “God holds the last heart beat in His hand.” He told me how one day he was talking with another prisoner deep in the coal mine. The other man said despondently remarked, “It is all over. No one is going to come out of here alive.” Jesse replied, “No, my times are in the hands of God, and He will keep me until He is finished.” Ten minutes later, a 40 ton rock fell exactly where they had been standing, confirming that indeed his times were in God’s hands. I recently heard that Jesse Miller went to be with the Lord. He must have been close to 90.

My life came to an end in 1990. When my family collapsed, I lost EVERYTHING. I lost me wife, my family, my home, all my worldly possessions, my ministry, my friends, and my reputation. I literally had NOTHING left but Christ. For the next five years I was homeless drifting around Japan building churches and homes for missionaries and Japanese pastors for free. In 1995 I joined NLL, and for the first time I had my own room and bed to sleep in. Then in 2002, that came to an end. For the past 19 years I have had one request that I have asked the Lord for. Each year at Christmas time, I have pleaded, “Lord, please make this my last Christmas on this planet.” Each year has closed, and I have prayed, “Lord, You didn’t do what I asked You for last year, but please make this my last year here.” This year is the first time I haven’t made that request. I would be delighted if indeed 2011 is my last year on earth, but my times are in the hands of Jesus and I am satisfied to stay here as long as He directs.

I can’t imagine why I am making such an elaborate work shop when I should be hanging up the sign, “Out of business”. I didn’t come to Thailand to be a carpenter. My heart is totally given to promoting the Kingdom of God. I would rather be building His Church than making kitchen cabinets. But this is what He has placed in my hands and the only job I have. I do have an occasional opportunity to preach, which I enjoy immensely. We have a weekly Bible study at Scott’s house, and I do teach Japanese and share the Gospel in the ladies prison each week. There have been a few people saved. But is this a missionary life?

But the Lord has brought me to a time of life where I have never enjoyed Jesus more. Every morning I feel liked a kid on Christmas morning opening packages under the tree.

Many years ago one of my closest friends was Dennis Turner. I didn’t know a man in Japan who suffered more than Dennis Turner. His wife had left him for another woman. He had been ostracized by his home church and the missionary community. He was living by himself in a freezing house in Ina, in central Japan. But what a man of God! His life was Christ! He told me how one day he went into town, and the store owner remarked, “Tana (Turner) san, you must have had some good news this morning. Your face is shinning.” Dennis replied, “Of course my face is shinning. Man, I have just been digging diamonds.” Diamonds they were! Oh the jewels Dennis would find in the Scripture! The man was filled with Christ. He never took a breath but what he was praising the Lord or sharing Jesus with someone. I never met a man who could witness like him. There was nothing artificial or canned about him. Everything that came out of his mouth was life.

Dennis told me how one morning he was out having his morning walk, and went by a field where an old woman was working. She asked, “Tana san, why did you come to Japan?” The standard answer is, “I came to preach the Gospel”. That is what a missionary is supposed say. But Dennis replied, “Obaa chan (grandmother), I have found that many people have a nayami (sorrow).” The old woman burst into tears and shared, “I have a nayami.” He touched her heart. I never met a man who won souls like Dennis Turner.

One day I said to him, “I would give anything to be able to witness like you.” Dennis later told me, in his heart, he thought, “Man, you are mad. You have no idea the price that costs.” I will never be Dennis Turner. But the Lord has been extremely good to me in bringing into His house of wine (S of S 2:4). I know what Dennis is talking about in digging diamonds. I have no idea what 2011 has in store, but I do know that my times are in His hand; and that is all I need.

Joyfully,  bill