This past Saturday was my Grandma’s funeral. I stayed up late the night before working on a slideshow of her life. 80 years in ten minutes. It was fascinating sorting through so many pictures of my Grandma that I’d never seen before, shuffling through her life from growing up in Okinawa, suddenly seeing my grandpa enter the pictures looking younger than I ever imagined he had been. Soon enough there were little girls, my aunts and my mom, all growing up, and my grandma, getting older year by year. It wasn’t long before my dad and my uncles strutted into the pictures and there Grandma was again, proudly watching her daughters get married. Then I finally came along, a dumb looking fat little infant, and things slowly started to look familiar. Grandma was older now, as old as I remembered her when I was old enough to remember anything. The final years raced by, and then I was down to my last picture, taken at my wedding reception in Huntington Beach 6 months ago. Grandma had wanted to come back to Japan to watch Tomo and I get married, but she had gotten sick the night before I left and had to stay in the hospital for a few days instead. I had been so excited at the thought of getting to be in Japan with Grandma.
She was really the reason I visited Japan for the first time. The first time I went to Japan, I went on a six week missions trip to teach English at a church in Tokyo. I didn’t go for any of the right reasons. I didn’t go to minister to other people, or to share my faith, or help the church in Japan. I went because my Grandma was Japanese, and through her I had always had a curiosity and a positive impression Japanese culture. I went because hanging out in Japan with my brother, and visiting the country that was somehow a part of us, because of Grandma, sounded like the coolest summer trip I could think of. There was no way I was going to miss that.
When I got there, I struggled and I learned. I stepped further outside my comfort zone than I ever had. God used me to share my faith, and minister to other people. He gave me a love for the people of Japan, and a heart for the church there. I met my wife, and changed my career goals. But none of that was the motivation for going in the first place. God used Grandma and the heritage I inherited from her to push me into that life changing experience.
At the memorial service I heard a story I had heard a number of times before. My Grandma, when she was young, before World War II, had been befriended by some American missionaries from Texas. They shared the gospel with her, and she placed her faith in Christ. Maybe that had a little to do with my desire to go back to Japan as a missionary as well. God took her to the US to live. Her faith grew, but she never moved back to Japan. She had kids, and they never moved back to Japan. But my brother and I, God’s sending back. I suppose that’s a good investment. Japan lost one of its few believers 60 years ago but because of that, it’s getting two missionaries in return.