Before I continue, I need to explain that the town of Itanayagi, where we are ministering, is apple country. This town is very famous for its apples and very proud of its apples. The town symbol is the apple and it graces everything from stores and homes to bridge guard rails and manhole covers and even cell phone ornaments.
Not too far from the train station is a walkway called the Apple Walk. It is a lovely walkway, about 2 km in length, which many of the local townspeople enjoy. Along the walkway are huge red granite apples, which look as if they’ve just fallen from the sky. At the end of this walkway, there is an apple museum and also a shop where all parts of the apple and apple tree are used to create dyes, food and artwork.
Apple trees are everywhere; acres and acres of them in all directions, interspersed with rice fields, houses and commercial areas, and of course, Itayanagi Chapel. J The apples of this region are truly special. They are cared for meticulously, and when they mature in September, they are the size of grapefruits. They also have an amazing delicious apple flavor, and we haven’t even had the fresh ones!
This brings me back to Aoyama-san. Aoyama-san is committed to serving the Lord with his whole heart. He is very generous and gives a great deal of his time and resources to the people of the church and to church ministry. He also has family concerns that involve a good deal of his time.
Because of these things, his apple trees have suffered. They are VERY full of apples. Now we would think that is a good thing, but it’s not. In order for his trees to produce the best fruit possible, most of the apples they produce naturally, must be cut off. Now we could give something back to Aoyama-san: we went to help prune his trees.
Apples grow in clusters of 5, sometimes 6. The trees must be pruned so that each apple left on the tree is about one scissor-length apart from another. This way they will stay on the tree longer and will be able to grow very large and sweet.
It was very difficult deciding to cut off so many apples. We literally had to decide which would die and which would live. Many had to die for the sake of a few. The parable of the vine and the branches became starkly clear to me. Pruning is necessary for abundant life, both for specialty apples and for the children of God.
However, I still struggled with the loss of all the apples on the ground. And I thought, do I care more for these apples, whose death will actually help the ground they come from? Or, will I care more for the millions around me who are perishing without ever knowing the Lord of the harvest?
The next day, I spent most of the day at the orchard with 2-3 other teammates. I had fun pruning that day. Aoyama-san’s lovely wife, Emiko-san, worked on the lowest branches. I worked on the ladders, going up as high as I could. Aoyama-san had his cherry-picker type truck and he cut off the very highest apples, which we couldn’t reach from the ladders. Watching him work made me feel much better. As master of the apple trees, he knows what needs to be done and he does it.
I pray for an abundant harvest for him and his family. I pray for an abundant harvest for the Master in Japan as well.
- Kathie
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