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| Bill Carrell family -about 1957 |
Thinking back over the past 33 years as missionaries in Japan, I'm reminded of what great hopes we had upon our arrival and how little we knew of what lay ahead for us. I believe the Lord guided us from the beginning of our adventure to find sponsors all along the way, support from various sources just when it was needed, friends to help and care for us as we traveled from place to place, and guidance from His word as we tried to spread His message in Japan.
We began our adventure at the Tachikawa Church of Christ in western Tokyo. It was the congregation where I had been baptized as a boy at the age of 12. Learning Kanji (the Japanese written language) and spoken adult Japanese (since I had grown up learning some as a boy) were my first priorities. That first year in 1979, both Debbie and I tried to find out what was needed in Japan and had a wonderful opportunity to have 3 other missionaries and their families to help us get started. Bro. Lee Bulls had arrived in 1973 and the Albright and McMillen families had arrived in 1977 before our arrival. Dwight Albright and Darrel McMillen had just finished language study and Lee Bulls was the "senior missionary" upon our arrival in March, 1979.
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| CAJ Steve's 2nd Grade 1958 |
We chose to live in Hachioji while we worked with the Tachikawa church, also commuting to Iidabashi in downtown Tokyo for Japanese language study at the Lutheran Center. Those were the only formal language study classes Debbie and I have had in Japan. At Christmas time that year, we were invited to Sapporo on the northern island of Hokkaido to visit the Hasbrouck family. In my childhood, I had attended Christian Academy in Japan (a school for missionary children) from first grade through ninth grade. Steve Hasbrouck's wife, Marcia (Smith) had also gone to CAJ, so her family and mine had been friends from long ago. The Hasbroucks had asked if we might consider moving to Hokkaido to work with them. After much prayer and discussion, we decided that it would be good to do so.
Our daughter was born in July, 1980 in Higashi Murayama (Tokyo) and was only 3 months old when we packed up to move to Hokkaido in October of that year. We ended up spending the next 10 years in Hokkaido. Later 2 years in Ibaraki, a year in the States, then 14 years at Tachikawa, and we're into our 5th year now in Matsudo. But that's it for this edition of our adventure. We'll save the "rest of the story" for another time.
