Here is Beverly Rivers and Yoshi Hanks with our "Joy Luck Club".
The other thing that took me by surprise was that even tho' Beverly (a wonderful gospel singer), Helen Shopp (my pastor's wife) and I never collaborated about what we'd be sharing, God wove it all together into a wonderful ministry that encouraged and supported what we had come hoping to do. Then when Steve arrived 2 weeks later and Beverly and Helen flew home, that ministry just continued on. Now together, as husband and wife, we met and shared with the same people. Steve gave the message at the Mino Grace Bible Church on Sunday, Oct 11. This was a clear and to the point message of the need to place your trust in Christ and Christ alone, that He is the one and only God and Savior - there is no other. There sitting in the congregation were many of our new heart friends coming to see a man who could play his harmonica and guitar at the same time and to see a puppet play. However, they also heard about the love of Christ and the offer of salvation with the encouragement to do it now while they have the time.
I might mention also that another surprise for Steve and I was that we met, for the first time, his cousin Gregg Hutton and family who have been missionaries in Kyoto Japan for 25 years. Also, we were able to spend a week with our Japanese "son" Hiro and family seeing some surprising and new and beautiful sights of Japan.