October 2004
Greetings from the Land of the Rising Sun! Fall is upon us and
the weather is finally getting cool and nice. We’ve had
a rather severe typhoon season, the most typhoons coming ashore
in history, and we experienced quite a strong one here earlier
this month right after experiencing the strongest earthquake we’ve
had since coming to Tsukuba over 18 years ago. Fortunately, we
escaped both with no significant damage.
This past week was one of our busiest in a long while, as we
flew up to Hokkaido to visit Juji’s mother in the hospital
and see her other relatives there. Juji’s mother is 92 and
over the last few months has become quite senile. As she had become
quite difficult to handle, they have her under medication and
so she was not able to respond that much to us. She indicated
by nods and squeezing Juji’s hand that she knew who we were,
but that was about the extent of our communication. We do ask
for your prayers for her and the rest of Juji’s family as
they try to do what is best for her.
After returning late Wednesday night, Tim had to go into Tokyo
the next morning to help with orientation of new missionaries,
and then, on Friday, he took the train to Osaka to attend his
first board meeting for the Yodogawa Christian Hospital and get
oriented to his new position as representative for the “Southern
Presbyterian Mission of Japan,” the religious “juridical
person” (legal entity) under which the hospital operates.
As mentioned previously, YCH is a well-known hospital, and it
has been getting good publicity recently, as an independent organization
gave it the highest ranking of any hospital in the entire greater
Osaka region. It came in with the eighth-highest ranking of any
hospital in the entire nation, and so that is something to be
proud of.
The hospital is not without its problems, of course, as it struggles
to maintain its strong Christian base in a society that often
makes that difficult. Part of Tim’s role in serving on the
board of directors is to maintain that strong link with the Presbyterian
Church (U.S.A.) and the wider Christian community in Japan. As
he begins this important task, we ask for your prayers in asking
for God’s wisdom and guidance in how to best serve.
We look forward to seeing many of you early next year when we
are in the United States for three months. We leave on January
4 for Honolulu and from there on January 10 for Los Angeles. We’ll
be based in Pasadena until February 25 when we fly to Atlanta,
where we are based for the rest of our time. Our last Sunday will
be in the Washington D.C. area, and so we fly up there on March
30 and then leave from there on April 4 for our long flight back
to Japan. We are still working out our church visitation schedule
and have not confirmed a few places. We hope to be able to visit
all of our supporting churches.
In Christ,
Tim and Yuko (Juji) Boyle
The 2004 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p.
92
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