Connections

One of the great things about Japan is that everything runs on time. Yesterday David connected from our house in Hiragishi to the OMF Guest Home in the Tokyo area by subway, train, plane, monorail, subway and train, just moving smoothly from one connection to the next. The Tokyo rail and subway network is just like a maze of connections - in fact some of the stations are a bit like a maze too. But as long as you follow the right connections, you get to your destination. In many ways that's a bit like starting a church. What we're doing just now is making connections with people. Some may connect some day to our church. Many won't - but our contact with them will lead on to another connection and another and so on until some of them do in fact find their way to Jesus. David was sharing at a church yesterday about bearing fruit - often we don't see the fruit, but maybe we're just part of the grand process, just a link in the chain that leads someone to Jesus.

Bearing much fruit

One of Hiragishi's claims to fame is that it used to be an apple growing area. Yesterday we were driving along when suddenly we noticed a long row of apple trees stretching about half a mile along the central reservation. And they were laden with all sorts of apples. Each tree was carefully named. Some apples had numbers stamped on them. Others bore the name 'Fighters' - the local pro baseball team. Some looked ripe to eat - though of course no one was taking any, this being Japan. In fact the fumes from the passing cars surely would not help the taste. Others had fallen from the tree or were rotten (no doubt attacked by the ever-present crows). As we live and work here in Hiragishi and seek to build up a church here, our desire is simply to bear fruit, good fruit, everlasting fruit.