When we woke up this morning, it was grey and very cloudy again. We left to head to the airport at 6:00 AM. It was my fear that we would get all the way to Ishigaki and have to spend all of our time in the rain again. I prayed the whole way there that God would lift the clouds while we were there. Praise God because He did!
About 20 minutues outside of Ishigaki we saw blue sky for the first time. By the time we set foot on the island, there were puffy white clouds around and the sky was blue! That was NOT in the forcast for the day, but God is bigger than the weather man!
We got a rental car as part of our travel package, so we spent some time trying to work out the details on that. Kathy Johnson is fluent in Japanese, so she took care of those details. I sure felt pretty stupid as I waited around unable to help in any way, but Kathy took good care of us.
We dropped our bags off at our hotel (very nice to my surprise!) We were unable to check in until later, but we could at least leave our bags there until later. Our hotel was right accross the street from the port, so we walked right on over to board a ferry. We took a short 10 minute trip over to an island called "Taketomi". This is a tiny little island with one small village. They have a K - 8 school there with 39 students, I think, and 29 teachers! Talk about small classes! Once the kids hit high school, they need to take the ferry over to Ishigaki for school. The village is a very traditional village. It has the old stone walls along the very narrow dirt roads. The houses are much more traditional in appearance, and they run a water buffalo pulled cart along the roads as their tourist 'bus service'. It was very interesting! We were also taken to a star sand beach, and we walked around to explore the island. At that time, I realized that by praying away the rain, we were smack dab in the middle of the heat and humidity of Okinawa for the first time since arriving. We didn't smell so great by the end of the day - and forget beauty. My hair was ....well, it was awful!
After we conquered Taketomi we ferried back over to Ishigaki for the remainder of the day. We took our rental car all around to explore the island. The weather forcast said that it would rain all of the other days we were there, so we tried to see everything that first day.
As we toured we saw a lot of Ishigaki Beef (cows at that time. A steak of the famous Ishigaki Beef would cost over $100 at some restaurants.) It is weird to see cattle on a tropical island! We also saw some very scraggly looking sheep which surprised all of us. The wool was falling off of them, but they were truly sheep. There were even some lambs in the mix. Very odd.
That evening, we ate dinner with a Christian Japanese couple. I mentioned the sheep before because as we were eating, they didn't really believe that there were sheep on the island. I showed them pictures and they were astonished. As we talked some more, I realized that there was a parallel into God's world in that picture. In Japan, only about 2% of the population is Christian. To encounter a couple that is professing Christianity and actively involved in a church is about as rare as running into sheep on a tropical island. However, with God all things are possible. We learned through their stories, and through stories of our graduates, how much impact even the smallest encounters can have on lives. One changed life as the result of some mission work, can impact so many people. What an honor it is to serve our Lord and Savior! I pray that I will be a willing vessle for Him to use - at any time!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment