Cosmos at Easter

It's not often that you get to see stories weave together, and seemingly disconnected events suddenly align into a beautiful picture. This Easter, we saw two pictures of this cosmos, the aligning of disconnected events for a restorative purpose. 

Easter scripture reading, under the cherry blossoms

One year ago, when we would ask Kid E what he was thankful for, he would say, "the nice lady." Many questions later, we further extrapolated that this "nice lady" came by his play room every day and brought a pile of snacks to the kids. Finally, we realized that the "nice lady" was named Suzuki, and she was CAJ's new janitor. Suzuki san came to CAJ from a string of previous jobs; as we got to know her better, her story unfolded an amazing past. Abandoned as a young child, adopted by North Koreans with some knowledge of Christianity, she had lived a rough life. Her husband died years ago, and her beloved son was recently diagnosed with cancer. Her son also ran a convenience store, which is where the snacks were coming from (somehow unsellable, but not expired, she assured us). Although not a Christian, she told our co-worker that "God brought her to CAJ." A few months after beginning work at CAJ, Suzuki san's son died, and we all grieved with her. Soon after, she began attending our church, which meets on the CAJ campus. Through daily conversations with the staff with whom she works closely, and through discipleship by some of the women at our church, Suzuki san has decided to follow Jesus, and celebrated her baptism this past week at our Easter service. We believe that nothing happens by accident, and we believe that even the smallest of encounters, at our work, in our neighborhood, and in our home, are sculpted by God to draw people to himself. 

Last winter, we savored a long evening catching up with two of our former students. Laughter, hot biscuits and soup, and lively discussion warmed our living room. We talked about ideas for CAJ curriculum and their memories of good and bad experiences. Later, one of the two made a point to come find Ryan in his office with an idea. He had befriended a guy at the weekly pick-up basketball game hosted by CAJ, but open to the community. Tatsu's mother had died and left the family store to him; the store was in disarray, filled with years of garbage and miscellaneous junk, completely unusable. Tatsu asked for help, since he knows that our student is a Christian. On Good Friday, Ryan went with a group of students to Tatsu's store, and spent a day bagging trash, cleaning the store, and helping him get it into a more usable condition. The project isn't finished, but they made good progress. This service project to Tatsu's store was one of about 18 projects that small groups of students and teachers worked on all around Tokyo on Good Friday. This service leadership curriculum is part of Ryan's job, and he worked with students and teachers all year to prepare for this day. We were thrilled to see the way that students reached out to serve and love individuals all over our school, neighborhood and city. 

At the sunrise service

After Easter, our community also celebrated a huge school festival: thrift shop! We sponsor a huge rummage sale, and many other events. Students raise awareness and funds for their senior research projects. For a view of the busy festivities, check out this video, made by my co-worker Ushio Sawada. You can see our smiling, camera-evading boarding student making Korean chijimi at minute 2:33~