Agape about six months ago after first attending Mr. Kaneda's Christian funeral. She has been studying English for years with a number of different missionaries as her teachers. Mr. Kaneda was a relative of her former teacher so she attended the funeral. She was very moved by the songs and the message of hope. She is becoming more and more interested in Christians and what motivates them, etc. After last week's typhoon, I learned that there was some damage to a wooden gate at her house. Repair would involve some woodwork and some painting.
Saori holding the broken gate
I decided to ask the young adults if they would be interested
in helping out as a way to show Christ's love in a practical way
to Mrs. H. We picked yesterday, a national holiday to go and
help her, but some that wanted to go were unable to because
of previous plans. The Lord gave us beautiful weather with the sun shining brightly, warm temperatures, and a bit of a breeze! At first, Mrs. H. was very hesitant to accept volunteer help, but as she saw how eager and skilled we (Ben and Josiah) were. she gradually let us help with several projects. Even her granddaughter, Ami, who was visiting for the day pitched in and helped by holding things. Ami has visited Sunday School several times when visiting her Grandma and we hope she'll come back again. At the end of the day, she served everyone curry rice. She was so appreciative of the help, but more so, the fellowship of having everyone there for the day, working together and then sharing a meal together. She has a lovely house and garden but it requires a lot of upkeep for just one woman. She was particularly pleased that Ben and Josiah were able to reuse some of the original wood when they repaired the gate and recreate it in the same style. Her late husband had made the original gate and it holds many memories for her. Hopefully, the new memories of her church friends coming to help her fix things up will also stay with her for a very long time. If you click on the link above, you can see more pictures from our day. Saori Wada, pictured at left with the broken gate, has been actively participating in church and music, even though she is now a high school senior and is preparing for the huge college entrance exams. Pray for Saori as she studies hard and works toward entering college in the spring. Pray that God will give many more opportunities to minister to our contacts/believers in practical ways. Another exciting result of this wonderful day is that we learned that Mrs. Hatada has many woodworking tools that had belonged to her husband and we will be welcome to use the tools in the future for other projects!!
If you'd like to see more pictures, click on the title above.
fixing the 2nd floor deck boards
Ami helping out with the gate repair
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