Ep. 55: The 85-year-old Sprout

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Three points on sharing the gospel as a lifestyle, not a project.

He also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground.  Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how.  All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head.  As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.” (Mark 4: 26-29 NIV)

1. Discern whom the Holy Spirit is already at work in.

A few months after moving to Ofunato, I was vacuuming our apartment, minding my own business, when a name suddenly popped into my mind: “Rinko.”

I didn’t know anyone by that name, but at our ministry base staff meeting later that morning, I was told that we would be visiting someone named Rinko. Surprised, I told my colleagues that I had gotten that name earlier that day, so perhaps God was highlighting Rinko-san for some reason.

We visited Rinko-san at her cramped temporary housing unit, where she welcomed us warmly and invited us in for tea. Though she was 85 years old and in ailing health, her petite frame hunched over from a lifetime of heavy labor, her mind remained sharp and her spirit was strong. Rinko-san was delightfully feisty– unafraid to be her own person, she wasn’t the type to bow to peer pressure or hold back in calling out what she saw going on, even if that meant standing up to those in authority. She was anything but a pushover.

Rinko-san shared how she was doing and aired some of her frustrations regarding her situation. We tried to encourage her, sharing Scriptures to show her where God is in the midst of it all, and asked if she wanted us to pray with her. She did.

2. Reach out by meeting practical needs.

Rinko-san had been making regular visits to a prominent local physician, arguably the most well-known Christian in Ofunato, who had been sharing the gospel with her. He gave her a set of messages on CD, but her CD player was broken, so I offered to get her a new one.

About a month later, a coworker and I returned to Rinko-san’s home with the brand-new CD player. She thanked us, invited us in for tea, and shared more of how she was doing, again welcoming us to pray with her. We’d continue to visit her every month or so, just to offer a listening ear, a bit of encouragement, a message from God’s word, and prayers of blessing. We would also talk about what she was learning from the messages she would listen to on CD.

I offered to buy her a new CD player not because I was trying to impose anything upon Rinko-san, but because she told us that her old one was broken. Meeting practical needs helps others know that we care about them as people, not projects, earning us credibility and trust. I wouldn’t even have been able to visit Rinko-san in her temporary shelter if it weren’t for the trust established by the many volunteers from our base who had gone to help tsunami survivors for years, before I ever arrived in town.

3. Remember that the results are in God’s hands, not ours.

During one visit, Rinko-san took a phone call from a friend who had just begun the process of building a new home. (Like thousands of others in Ofunato, this friend lost her previous home in the tsunami.) We overheard Rinko-san telling her friend not to bother putting a butsudan (Buddhist altar) or kamidana (small Shinto shrine for the home) in the new home, “because we don’t need such things.”

During another visit, she invited two of our staff members into her home while her children and grandchildren happened to be visiting her, too. She had them line up next to her, then told our staff, “Go ahead. Tell them about Jesus.” She encouraged her family to ask our staff any questions they might have about Christianity.

Months later, Rinko-san came to one of the events we held in the public meeting room of her temporary housing complex. When the event was over and most people had left, Rinko-san waved us over and, through her radiant, beautiful smile, proudly informed us that she was praying to Jesus day and night and had “entered the faith.”

Praise God!

Now which one of us can take credit for leading Rinko-san to salvation? Was it me, since I bought her the CD player that she used to listen to messages? Was it the doctor who gave her the CDs? Was it the staff who first built up a relationship with her?

It’s so human to try to take credit for such a thing.

What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. (1 Corinthians 3:5-7 NIV)

We do what we can, but the results are all in God’s hands. He gave me Rinko-san’s name before I ever met her because He was highlighting what He was already doing. I can take credit for nothing. Besides, Rinko-san was so strong-willed that I don’t know if any human being could have ever persuaded her to make any decisions.

We’re just gardeners, planting and watering seeds.

(To be continued)