Connections

Connections

 

   On Christmas Day morning, I was tempted not to answer the intercom for our front door downstairs.  My mother was visiting all the way from Texas and we were near the end of opening Christmas presents.  I hadn’t taken a shower, but simply thrown on clothes and was enjoying coffee and a slice of Norwegian Christmas bread that Beth had made as we opened presents.  I was slowly waking up to the day after participating in three worship services on Christmas Eve, two in Japanese as a participant and one in English that I had led.  Furthermore, it was cold outside!  None of these factors worked in favor of answering the door. 

   I answered the door “Hi, moshi, moshi” in Japanese.  An answer came back in English over the intercom, “Hello!  This is Ichiro.  I would like a bicycle.”

   “Ichiro” is a young medical doctor from Mongolia who received a scholarship from the Japanese government to work on a doctoral program at a medical university here in Nagoya, Japan.  His specialty is the liver.  “Ichiro” --- his nickname because his Mongolian name is far too difficult for many westerners to pronounce, much less spell --- had shown up at our English worship service one week before.  He had recently moved into a building across the street from our church and had seen on our sign that we had English worship.  When he first came to our worship he reported that it was only the 4th time he had ever attended a Christian worship service.

   While talking with him after he attended our Christmas Eve worship (his second time with us) I mentioned to him in passing that we had an extra bicycle that he could use.  It had been left behind by a former attendee of our English worship service.

   All this information came flooding back to me as I opened the door downstairs.  Sure enough, at the door on the bright cold day, “Ichiro” stood before me, recently showered with his still wet hair neatly combed, all ready for the bicycle.  I do not know if it was then or when I walked with him over to the bicycle after I had put on a jacket that I realized that I had failed to disclose that the bicycle had been sitting outside for over a year.

   That fact did not deter him.  Together we got the bicycle out from where I had put it that afternoon after a family from Kentucky left it on the church parking lot before returning to the US.  Out it came from under the tarp, where it had sat neglected, now revealing itself as rusting and with two flat tires.

   I went back into the church to get a tire pump, some WD 40 to spray on the rusty chain and sprocket, and a wrench to lower the seat for this much smaller Asian man.  As he watched me and provided assistance when he could to get the bicycle in working order, we had a chance to talk.  In between discussion about the bicycle, I found out that his older brother had become a Christian in Mongolia over the past several years.  He had attended worship once or twice with his brother and had witnessed his brother’s baptism and now here he was a PhD student and across the street.

   After the bicycle was more or less serviceable I apologized for its “state” but told him that it now belonged to him.  This was not a rental; I did not want it back, it was a gift.  At that, he smiled broadly and his smile grew after he got on the bicycle and went around in circles, first slowly and then faster as he tested out the hand brakes and the handlebar gear shifts a completely new technology for him.  Before he rode off to go to the university library, he stopped and thanked me and said, “Thank you for my first Christmas present!”

  I was somewhat taken aback because from the time I had struggled to open the door and his riding in circles in front of me, I had momentarily forgotten it was not just any day … but Christmas Day … and here I had given him a “present.”  “Thank you Ichiro,” I said as I walked back upstairs to family, coffee and our Christmas.  As I walked I gave thanks that God had endowed me with a small hand me down gift so that I could make God known.

 

“Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms.  If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ.  To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.” 1 Peter 4: 10-11 (NIV)

 

   Thank you for your gifts that enable me to be serving in Nagoya, Japan so that together we can make God known!

 

Important News

 

   As I mentioned in my last letter (Fall 2009), for a variety of reasons including the economy, my four year term as a missionary will come to an end in the summer of 2010. 

 

   We will be returning to San Antonio, Texas as our home base as I look for a pastoral call.  From the time that we return to the time I receive a call, I will be available to come to your congregation to share more about our time in Japan.  A letter with dates and the costs will be sent later this year.  A schedule will also be found on our blog:

www.nagoyamission.typepad.com

 

   Please keep that in mind as you plan for 2010 - 2011.  I urge you to please consider continuing to support our ELCA missionary presence around the world as we partner with other Christians to make God known.

 

   In Christ,

 

   Rev. Charles A. Fredrickson

   ELCA Missionary

   Nagoya, Japan