CHRISTMAS in SEPTEMBER? Of course not! But Dick Anthony’s new Christmas cantata is available NOW. That only leaves three months to prepare an out- of-the-ordinary holiday program for your church.
more loudly. Finally she said, “ The reason you’re so bold is because you’re a man and I’m a woman, but you wouldn't talk to a man from our group!" Grandly, he handed her his calling card and said, “ Here’s my address.” But no one ever came. Because of the bold stand that Motomi has taken , the Okaya church has progressed and pros pered. They bought land and put up a church building. They had no pastor, so the elders took turns preaching and teaching. Younger- sister and Younger-brother insisted on marrying Christians, so we ar ranged appropriate marriages for them. Because of the testimony of their changed lives, and because of the unusual, sweet re la tio n s h ip be tween mother- and daughter-in-law, their neighbor wants a Christian wife for her son, even though nei ther of them is a Christian! Motomi gives a strong testimony regarding the formerly-loved pach- inko playing. “ Do you think the American m is s ion a ry said, ‘You shouldn’t play pachinko’? No! In my heart I knew it was the wrong thing to do. Now I can walk right by the pachinko hall, and I do not have the slightest desire to enter.” When God changed Motomi and his family on the inside , they changed on the outside, too. Now their home in Okaya is a place of harmony and Christian hospitality. May God give us more homes like that in Japan — and the United States!
Japan has a "web society.” A group of 20 to 100 houses consti tute a "block,” and the members are mutually responsible for one another. When it is time to plant rice, they join together to plant the first man’s field and then all move on to plant the second man’s field — on and on until all the fields are planted. At harvest-time, the pro cedure is repeated until all the fields are reaped. They share re sponsibilities for weddings and fu nerals as well, all helping together with the cooking and other duties, the men happily downing gargantu an bottles of “ sake” rice wine as they carouse through the night. In this closely-knit group, when a family become Christians, they can no longer fully participate in the life of the community. They stay away from the O-bon festivals for the spirits of the dead returning to their ancestral homes. They no longer contribute to the upkeep of the Shinto shrine or Buddhist tem ple. So when the priest came to collect their assessment for the temple, Motomi told the priest that the family were Christians now and didn’t need his prayers anymore. Once on a train Motomi met a woman from the belligerent Bud dhist sect ca lled Sokka -gakki. (They are vicious in their approach and scare people into joining by telling them all the disasters that will happen to them and their fami lies if they do not.) The fiery young woman was passing out pamphlets. She and Motomi argued more and
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Light out ofDarkness
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