Thursday, July 25th - A Few Thoughts

Dear Friends - It's Thursday, July 25th, 10:20PM.  I'm sitting in our room, Donny is reading email, believe.  I think I may have a half-hour window of clear thinking so I'll write until I can't.  After dinner tonight, we had a visitor from Chino Christ Church.  That is where we served with the Kawanos from 2007 to 2015.  We have known Hajime Yumoto from our first year in Chino.  His wife, Sanaye, was always around the church helping, prepare meals and driving us around.  His 3 children were participants in EEC those first years.  Then as the two daughters were too old to attend EEC, they became helpers.  Hajime is a manager at a resort near Chino and was always very busy with work, so we didn't see him as much as the rest of the family.  But those times we had to fellowship with him let us know what a good guy he was.  Since we stopped going to Chino in 2015, I have heard that he is now a leader in their church, and is also leading the MEBIG (Sunday school) program at the Chino church.  So to visit with him tonight was very special for me.  The whole family came to the states about a year ago and they came to our church for a dinner and to visit with people who had gone to Chino over the years to serve on mission teams.  When the Kawanos left the Chino church in 2015, the Crossway mission team members did not know of their move until after we returned home.  So we were unable to say proper farewells to people we had grown so close to over the years of serving there.  My heart was broken as I thought about never seeing them again and having the blessing of spending time with them.  Besides the family's visit to the U.S., Hajime and Sanaye made a long journey to send off a mission team for the return trip to the U.S.  I believe it was 2016 - a joint mission team from Crossway and South Bay, a sister church of Crossway.  It is a great blessing to see what God has done in the life of Hajime.  He was always a wonderful husband and loving father, but now God is using his leadership skills to lead and serve Chino Christ Church.  In spite of his busy schedule and responsibilities, God is using Hajime to bless the church and especially his family.  It touches my heart deeply to see how many people are now blessed by Hajime.  I think it's about time for me to lay down and rest my eyes, my brain, and this old body of mine.  May God bless you always - and thanks for reading the blog.  With love, Don
Me and Sanaye Yumoto in 2015 - our farewell at the train station.

Comments

  1. Auntie TracyJuly 25, 2019 at 8:28 AM

    Wow, Praise God!!! Thank you (as always) for such an uplifting update. Praising God for the fruit that has harvested in Chino. Blessings! :)

    ReplyDelete

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