A Christmas Miracle

We got a very special gift for Christmas.  It was a Christmas miracle.  We have been preparing for the miracle for weeks.  But we now realize that God has been preparing this miracle for years.  We are humbly grateful to be part of it.  As we analyze each element of the miracle, we realize it was all part of a master plan. 

The miracle happened on Christmas day at our sacrament meeting.  In the weeks before that, we went to the homes of every active branch member, many less active members, and many non-member friends that we have come to know and love in the last year.  We got the addresses of our eikaiwa (English) students, people we work with at the volunteer center, and of course, neighbors, and did a personal Christmas visit to each one.  We started by singing, “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” gave them a wrapped box of chocolates, an ornament with a picture of Christ (that Kristen and her family and friends made and sent to us) and an invitation to our Christmas morning sacrament meeting.  We then showed them the Light the World video and expressed our love to them. We could see how the beautiful video touched their hearts.  We had to leave a few of the gifts in the genkon, but we tried hard to see everyone on our list personally.  The Lord blessed us, and we were able to meet most of them in person.  We visited one lady (Ken and the Elders have taught her a few lessons)- Tanyguchi san five or six times before finally catching her at home on the Friday night before Christmas.  It was a fourth floor, last door effort.  We gave her a DVD produced by Japanese news about our church.  She came on Sunday and said she had already watched it twice.  She was very moved. 

Some of the beautiful ornaments Kristen's family sent to us to give away.

The box of ornaments that she sent.

We loaded boxes with the gifts and put them in our trunk and visited and visited for three weeks.

The elders also invited people they are working with and one branch member invited a couple of friends.

Many of our students from Sakata don’t have cars and so, though interested in coming, had no way of getting there.  There are only two cars that come regularly from Sakata:  President Endo’s and his mom’s.  The two of them worked together and found room for everyone that wanted to come.  Bless them.

Also in preparation, we worked with our little choir to prepare the music.  We asked Katsumi (young adult in the branch) to narrate and our recent convert, Ryohei to speak.  I asked two sisters (one of them we helped reactivate earlier this year) to sing a duet.

A few weeks ago, Ken helped Abe San- the non-member owner of our church building- with some translation into English.  He said he would like to give us a Christmas cake to thank us and would we please meet him at the church on Friday at noon.  We did.  He had not one, but 10 beautiful Christmas cakes for us (a Christmas cake costs $30-$40 each here.)  He and his wife brought them in and humbly presented them to us.  Now what?  We brought them all home and put them in our storage shed (it’s cold enough) and then called President Endo and arranged to serve cake after our services (Christmas cake is the traditional Japanese way of celebrating Christmas.) 

All of the cakes inside the door of the church.

All of the cakes in the storage shed of our apartment.

A dear brother in the branch had to work Christmas morning, but, on Thursday before, he thoroughly cleaned the church in preparation and set up the chairs and configured them so that extra people could sit back in the kitchen as an overflow.  He partitioned off half of the kitchen so that it looked beautiful.  We would have never thought of that.  As we entered the room on Friday and saw that, we both were overcome with the sacredness of that room and what was going to happen there on Sunday.

We prayed.  We begged you to pray.  We felt remarkably calm as we realized we had done literally all we could do.  We had put our sacrifice on the altar.  On Saturday afternoon, I felt impressed to suggest to Ken that he may want to testify after Ryohei’s talk on Sunday.  We now know that was part of the plan.

Christmas day:  We arrived early with all of the cakes.  I practiced with the two sisters who were singing a duet, then the choir at 9:30.  The rehearsal was a disaster.  It was utter chaos.  I would have panicked, but I knew it would be fine.  I can’t even recreate the chaos for you, it was just so crazy.  I think they were all nervous. They had never done anything like this before.  I just couldn’t gain control.  We did sort of get through all of the numbers.  Then I began my prelude.  I had asked the choir members to welcome the visitors and help them.  They came through beautifully.  As each visitor and less active member walked in, our hearts rejoiced.  We had 64 people there- by far a new record (our average attendance has steadily increased over the year, but a year ago, the average was around 30.) And there were 16 non- members there and six less active members (some who hadn’t been to church for many, many years.)  Hallelujah!!!!!!!!  What a wonderful blessing to have so many people that we have come to love under one roof on such a sacred day!

The program went perfectly.  Perfectly. We saw members find the hymns and hand the guests hymnbooks, give up their seats, quietly explain to them about the sacrament, etc.

The choir and the duet sounded beautiful.  Our young adult narrator did great, and I hardly made a mistake (a miracle in itself!)  Ryohei told his conversion story and did a great job.  Then Ken stood to testify.  He often expresses frustration at not being able to speak from his heart in Japanese.  Believe me; he spoke from his heart.  After the beautiful music, hearts were prepared to hear his powerful testimony of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  It was powerful.  You could tell people felt that power and that sincerity.  He was born and prepared “for such a time as this.”  We both know it.  It wasn’t on our program for him to do so, but it was definitely on God’s program.  We both had tears streaming down our faces.  The program ended with “Joy to the World.”  I had that little organ rocking, even though I could barely see the music through the tears!

Afterward, the sisters served the cakes while we mingled. People lingered and visited, some sang Christmas carols, and ate cake and visited and visited.  So even those cakes were part of the miracle plan.

We were so busy talking and mingling afterward that we didn't get many pictures. But here are a few.  Pictured are the four elders, both of our recent converts, a young man that came to church for the first time in many years, and the father and son that the elders met on a bus- and beautiful Remi. 

In the kitchen where the cake was being served.

Me with our dear friend, Kadawaki san (who we work with at the Volunteer Center) and her daughter and grandson.

It was a miracle.  God had a plan and we simply did our little parts and it all came together.  And the miracle continues as we and the elders are teaching or hope to be teaching several of those who attended that day.  We hope our last six months here are full of teaching and loving and of more miracles.  We are humbly grateful for the privilege of serving our Savior here.  It was the best Christmas ever!