Tilehouse Street Baptist Church, Hitchin Tilehouse Street Baptist Church, Hitchin
Dawn has been based at the Mission
Hall in central Kobe since 2001, where she has been teaching English and Bible
classes. The sudden death in 2003 of Rev. Takamatsu, who had pastored the
church for more than 25 years, led to a period of uncertainty concerning the
leadership and future of the Mission Hall. His widow, Mrs. Takamatsu, worked
hard to continue her husband's ministry, but her departure in March 2006
created a crisis for the fellowship. Dawn writes below of the challenges and
blessings she has experienced during this last year...
An Uncertain Future
Stretched to the LimitThis was a hugely scary thing, considering my total lack of
experience in church leadership and still shaky Japanese. I am also rather a
quiet person who doesn't enjoy being 'up at the front' too much.
God's Love for His ChurchBecause I did not have the necessary skills for the tasks put before me, I was forced to turn everything over to Him and I learned once again that it's not about us and our shortcomings - it's about Him and His enabling. The result was undoubtedly better than if I had been able to breeze through on my own. I also came to appreciate more deeply God's love for His Church. I felt that we were like the smouldering wick in Isaiah 42:3 which He graciously declined to snuff out. Instead, He assured us from Jeremiah 29:11 of His good plans for us which give us hope and a future. New Vision and Vitality
Dawn Bolton |
This has
certainly been an eventful year at the Mission Hall. I enjoyed working with
Mrs. Takamatsu, so I was sad to see her leave the church where she had
ministered with her husband for so many years. Amid uncertainty concerning the
future, about half of the church members decided to leave at the same time. As
an emergency measure, the JEB (JCL's sister organization in Japan) sent a
different pastor every week to preach at the Sunday service and the JEB
chairman, Rev. Kornurasaki, took on the responsibility of overseeing the
church. But for the next seven months, the day-to-day running of the church and
the responsibility for keeping the fellowship alive were very much in the hands
of the fifteen or so of us who remained, and, as the 'resident missionary', I
soon found myself called upon to step up to the plate.
But
from the first it somehow felt right. The Lord had put in my heart a special
love for the Mission Hall and that helped to motivate me when I was faced with
responsibilities for which I had no aptitude - and in some cases, to be honest,
no interest. My new duties included bookkeeping, producing the weekly bulletin
and also giving the sermon once a month - sometimes with an interpreter and
sometimes in Japanese. How grateful I was for my six months of language study
in Hokkaido the previous year! With my regular English and Bible classes
continuing throughout this time, I was often stretched to the limit, but God in
His grace sustained me.
Rev. Boku arrived in late October to be the
new pastor of the Mission Hall. He has brought new vision and vitality, and the
challenge for the church now is to keep up with all the things that God is
doing! After a year of so much upheaval, we are not yet the fully functioning,
united body that the Lord wants us to be, but we know from 1 Corinthians 1:27
that He chooses the weak things of the world to shame the strong. As I look
back, I can see that God has used the experiences of the past year to
strengthen my faith and to prepare our church for the new work that lies
ahead.