Marsha's Blog

 Last week a friend recommended a PBS video about someone I thought I knew a lot about.  But as it turns out, there’s more to this fellow than I knew. I’m going to call him a “Hero of the Faith”, but with a different perspective. If you have access to PBS, take the hour to watch “The Secrets of the Dead, A Samurai in the Vatican”, Season 19, episode 5."   His name was Hasekura Tsunenaga, the year was 1613, and he was the first Japanese to travel more than half way around the world looking for Christianity. Well … If only it were that simple.   Actually, he was a disgraced Samurai.  His father had brought shame on his family for some technical error and was ordered to commit ‘seppuku’ or ritual suicide for his carelessness.  Now the son, Hasekura, with really no future as the whole family was shamed, was ordered by the Daimyo (think Governor) Masamune to go to Spain and check things out.  Masamune himself, many years prior, had been sent to Northern Japan by the Shogun (the big guy

 A few weeks ago, we had the privilege of baptizing a new friend.   Hearing her testimony gave me goosebumps all over. And honestly speaking, we can’t claim much of the process in her journey to Christ; but the “goosebump event” came about more because of the reminder that God is at work all around us even when all around us seems to be tumbling down. Our friend is Japanese, but we were moved to hear of her family’s involvement in the local Buddhist temple. Because of that, she was naturally taught to be “good”, moral and hard-working. In addition to that, her family focused on the exterior, “visible” aspects of living circumspect. As she got older, those characteristics took her a long way, through a somewhat privileged life, traveling and learning languages, and becoming well educated.  She married and had kids, but there was still a God-shaped vacuum in her heart.In 2010, she came across a church, found it inviting and started taking one of her children there.  While there, a visiti

 We’ve been a bit ‘off subject’ lately, so today I’ll return to the ‘Known heroes of the faith’ via Canon J. John.    Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a name you may or may not have heard in your life, but if you’re like me, you’ve just cringed back in your ignorance, silently thinking ‘Let’s see; was he a good guy or a bad guy?” So here’s what I’m reading about him. He was born to an aristocratic German family living in Poland in 1906.  Obviously gifted, he chose to study Theology and had his PhD by age 21.  He then began to contribute to what were many international links including Germany and then the USA.   Returning to Germany in 1931 he was horrified by the rise of the Nazis and because of either his bravery or his naivety, wasn’t afraid to speak out against Hitler.  His was not a popular point of view because many German Christians, encouraged by Hitler’s manipulative use of Christian language, saw Hitler as the nation’s savior.  The lines became increasingly clearer, and soon Bonhoeffer

 I’ve been thinking about heroes lately, but another thought came into my mind as I was reading the 12th chapter of Romans.   You’ll remember last week I talked about men who lived with sacrifice and hard work, a product of their dedication to God.  Those efforts impacted so many people we can’t even imagine.   And that started me thinking about ‘those people’ who were impacted.  Not the Heroes, but let's say the “Hero-ees”: the people on the receiving end of the heroism…….. Tony remembered one sweet but frank church lady in our first church in Japan, back in 1979.  Here we were, all puffed up about ourselves and planning to bring God to these shores and save the whole Japanese Nation. Over tea and rice crackers, this sweet lady asked simply, “Are you planning to bury your bones here?” What a question! We didn’t know how to answer, and in fact, didn’t answer it very well. Who started talking about burying bones?  We were planning to be HEROES, not martyrs. But as I’ve thought about