Go chase a lion!

My first time at a sushi bar...
I think Milwaukee needs one of these.

If any of you took a look at the profile about me on this blog you might have noticed that at the bottom the question, “How do you chase the lion?” is written down there. This post is about that.

A few years ago I was at a church service where Pastor Hartmann of Atonement Lutheran Church in Milwaukee, WI preached a sermon about “Chasing the Lion”. In fact the bulletin from that church service still sits in a frame in my apartment in the States to this very day. What was written on the front
of that bulletin encouraged me to continue doing some of the things that I had been doing at the time and stop doing some of the others. That bulletin has a lot to do with the reason for this leap of faith that I took. After hearing that sermon so many years ago I remember promising myself that when I die I wanted people to think of me as someone who was a lion chaser. About four days ago I finally decided to go ahead and take a look online at the book “In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day”. At this moment I have only been able to read the first chapter (it’s provided online) because I refuse to pay for the shipping to get the book here. This book is where the whole “chase the lion” phrase comes from. Have a gander! And then let me know what you think!

20 years in Japan and finally at the age of 26
I eat raw fish!

Three days ago a man walked into the center around 3:00PM. To be honest this is very unusual. He is my first unplanned visitor to walk into the center since my first day here, which was about three weeks ago. He began by asking if he could start English class. I obviously said of course and we began by having a quick chat before my next English class came. Well in that 15-minute time frame I learned a whole lot about this guy. He was a pharmacist, lived across the street, and knew stellar English. Oh, and he learned English by reading a chemistry book. He ended up staying for about 3 ½ hours that first evening and participated in a very interesting Bible class…lots of questions were asked and I can remember some very specific times, where, if it were not for Pastor Hartmann being willing to answer my questions about “my faith”, I never would have been able to answer my fellow Bible studiers.

Sunrise at the Kesennuma Harbor/Fish Market

Any who, Mr. Masayuki returned the next day at 1:00PM for our scheduled English class. It was during this two-hour conversation where we talked about everything from food, cultural traditions, stereotypes, religion, soccer, and Hurling! But it was also during this conversation where I realized I was in the presence of a true “Lion Chaser”.

Oshima Island at Sunrise

It came out in our conversation that Mr. Masayuki had lost his father at about six years old. He said he never knew how to be a father because he didn’t have one to give him an example. He was fearful that he did not do his duty as a father for his own three sons. Trust me, he did… if you only knew what his sons are now doing we would give this guy the father of the year award! Any who, my student proceeded to tell me how he learned some English in junior high school but then when he went on to undergraduate school he was very poor. He was so poor that he bought English books instead of Japanese ones because those were cheaper. He managed to learn English using these books, graduated from undergraduate school and returned to the Kesennuma area to take care of his mother. He explained that he really wanted to go to post graduate school. However, because he believed in his responsibility to care for his mother, he returned to Kesennuma rather than chase that dream. Mr. Masayuki got married and had three boys. He worked at the hospital here in Kesennuma as a pharmacist. Well one day he received a letter informing him that he had been accepted to post graduate school. So what did he do? Well with three children he decided he was going to chase the lion. He would work his 50 hours a week and then early in the morning on Saturdays he would make the two-ish hour drive to Sendai to study all day Saturday and Sunday. He would return late Sunday night and head to work the very next morning. He did this for four years without ever taking a weekend off. He received his Master’s degree 20 years after he received his undergraduate degree. For twenty years he held on to his dream. And then when he was given the opportunity he didn’t hesitate, even though he knew it would be difficult for his family and for him. After receiving his Master’s degree he was offered a position to be a professor at the college. He chose not to accept it. He explained that it turned out to be a good thing, because had he taken it, he never would have met me and never would have been given this chance to learn more about Christianity… something he had always wanted to do.

One of my students brought me lunch!

Mr. Masayuki is truly a lion chaser. He saw the center’s calendar on the window and decided to take a chance. He decided to chase the lion. I hope that you all are having a wonderful week. I hope that maybe this post gives you a little inspiration to go ahead and grab on to that opportunity that was placed in front of you by God. And I hope that you enjoy the many blessings that God intends you to receive from it. As for me, every day I am reminded of the blessings God intended for me when He set this opportunity in front of me. As terrifying as it was to go for it I am forever thankful that I did.