When they came to team lunch, it felt like Thanksgiving, as many of us have met them on previous visits or at missions conferences in the USA. There were warm greetings all around and questions about how various church plants are doing, where different ones are living now, and much more, as they genuinely showed an interest in the lives of the rest of us.
The eyes of all were drawn to a little girl whose Grandpa made eating carrots fun. Her little playmate watched wide-eyed, wondering, I'm sure, who this Grandpa was. He wasn't her Grandpa, she knew. But what other older white man does she ever see in her life here?
We watched as Grandma held her youngest grandchild, storing up memories of his face at this stage. And many joined in the fun outdoors as the older children tried to catch praying mantises and delighted in the fact that Grandpa took delight in their play.
This Grandma and Grandpa have a precious investment in the work of the Gospel here. And we who are brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles of their Japan family were blessed by their visit as well.
Though we and their Japan family are not related by blood, we are bound together by the common struggles with language and culture, the common temptations to comfort and complaining, the common thrill of being on the frontlines watching God changing hearts, and the common grief and weighty sadness of living in a nation where fewer than 1/4 of 1% meet together to worship the Lord each Lord's day.
We have not lost our families; we have gained a hundredfold! And the other day we got to visit with some of our new family's extended family!
Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.
~ Mark 10.29-30
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