|
March 2000
Greetings from the Land of the Rising Sun!
As we are already about a fourth of the way through the new year,
it’s a bit late to be giving you New Year’s greetings,
but as we are only about one 4000th of the way into the new millennium,
wishing you a "happy new millennium" would still seem
to be in order! These are interesting (and confusing) times indeed.
Here in Japan, most people still view this year as the last year
of the 20th century instead of the first year of the 21st century.
Technically, of course, they are correct, as there was no year
"zero" in our system. Nevertheless, there is considerable
confusion on the issue, as was evidenced in a recent newspaper
article. It began with the enigmatic words: "Now that the
new millennium has begun, an Osaka amusement park company will
launch a project in mid-January to celebrate the next big event—the
turn of the century. The company will begin building the nation’s
largest Ferris wheel to be completed in time for a centennial
countdown event at year’s end."
Seriously, however, we were relieved to wake up on January 1
to electricity and running water. We were amused, however, to
receive a very detailed and bulky Y2K preparation kit from a church-based
organization that arrived in late January! Apparently, they had
a Y2K bug in their system. Anyway, we are now gradually consuming
all of that extra Y2K food and water we stored, though we’ll
keep some of it in stock for when "the big one" hits
(earthquake, that is—which will certainly happen sometime
during this millennium!).
As we write this letter in mid-March, Juji is in the hospital
again for her regular treatment. She is having another series
of "plasma exchanges" to reduce the level of the offending
antibody and therefore the symptoms (severe cramping, etc.) she
experiences. This round is going very well and she is experiencing
much less discomfort than has been the case in the past. There
is also promising news from some Japanese medical researchers
who keep her abreast of their work. They have come close to finding
out which specific part of the "potassium channel" is
the cause of "Isaacs’ Syndrome" and hope to be
able to develop a specific treatment in the fairly near future.
How long that will take and how effective it will be, of course,
remains to be seen, and so in the meantime please continue to
remember her in your prayers.
Her ministry as a kind of unofficial "hospital chaplain"
continues, as she ministers to fellow patients. She has become
well-known among the hospital staff and patients, sometimes resulting
in almost "celebrity" treatment. Many of the relationships
she develops while sharing a room (usually with four other women)
continue after being discharged from the hospital.
Mrs. Yajima, for instance, is a middle-aged woman battling ALS
(the same disease affecting the famous wheelchair-bound scientist,
Stephen Hawking). She has been very depressed by her steady loss
of movement, and often calls Juji to talk through her feelings.
She lives out in the countryside quite some distance from Tsukuba,
but every year, for the past three years, one of the highlights
of her year has been to come to the Christmas Eve candlelight
service as well as to see the thousands of Christmas lights we
decorate the Christian Center and environs with. Her family brought
her in to spend the evening, and the expression of thanks she
gives for the experience makes putting all of those lights up
worth the effort. This year, we had more outside people come to
our week-long "open house" than ever before. We gave
out a beautifully done testimony written by Ayako Miura, a Christian
novelist well known even in secular society, to about 100 people.
With air travel becoming relatively cheaper and easier to do
in recent years, taking a short trip back to the United States
has become fairly common, at least in Tim’s schedule. This
year has already included one such trip, with another planned
in August. The upcoming August trip promises to be especially
interesting as Tim will be leading a group of Japanese people
on an eight-day journey featuring three days in the Grand Canyon,
going down the last 90 miles of the river by boat. We plan to
visit churches in the Las Vegas area and have the members of the
group spend a night with various church members there. It’s
been nine years since a similar trip was taken, and the committee
overseeing our work suggested that Tim try to put together such
a trip again. Already, this rather ambitious trip is generating
a lot of interest. Our desire is that through this experience,
those who have not met Christ as Lord will be challenged to receive
him, while the Christians on the trip will have their faith strengthened.
With the finishing of translation and publication of the third
book, The Genesis Question, by astronomer Hugh Ross (along
with the release of his video, "Journey Towards Creation"),
Tim will be taking on a new publication project. This one, however,
will go the opposite direction, as it will be to put out a Japanese
book in English. It’s not exactly a "translation,"
however, as it is a rewriting of his own book in Japanese Bible
Stories Hidden In Chinese Characters. In the past, many have
suggested Tim put this book out in English as well. Numerous factors
have finally come together to do just that, and so hopefully by
this fall, the 99.9 percent of you who can’t read Japanese
will finally be able to read it in English. We’ll keep you
up to date as to progress on this book. One thing is certain,
however. The "translation" of this book will be a whole
lot easier that the last three Tim has done!
With Love,
Tim, Juji, Lisa and Jennifer Boyle
The 2000 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 172
|
