Hello friends and family,
One of my favorite stories from the Old Testament is that of Sarai’s Egyptian slave Hagar, after she conceives a child for Abram, is soon mistreated for despising her master Sarai, and runs away. God's actions after this are why I love this story. At the time Hagar lived, she would have been very near the bottom of the social hierarchy, not considered to be worth much to most people. But fortunately for Hagar (and for all of us), God is different from people. When Hagar, a female slave from a foreign land, found herself alone and distressed in the wilderness, the God of the universe saw her, and came down, and talked to her. He told her to return to Sarai, but he took heed of her affliction and promised to greatly multiply her descendants. After this encounter, “[Hagar] gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: ‘You are the God who sees me,’ for she said, ‘I have now seen the One who sees me.’” (Gen. 16:13, NIV).
There are so many things I love about the character of God, and in this aspect of his character I see something profoundly beautiful. No matter who you are, no matter where you’re from, no matter what you've done; whether you’re facing a trial or celebrating a joy; through the big events, and in the simplest of things — God is near, he is listening, and he sees. And always he is reaching out to us, though we are so small, our prayers so simple, our time so short. Our God is so infinitely big, and yet he listens to us all. He cares about us all. He sees us all.
Last time I posted, I had a few prayer requests, and I first want to say thank you to all who prayed. Because our God is a God who listens, I have some news to share about answers to a couple of those requests. However, to avoid writing another huge post, I am going to split this update into two more digestible (and probably still a bit long…) chunks. Splitting them up will also enable me to finally highlight some of the wonderful people who have been such a blessing to me and to others in Miyazaki, which I should have done months ago.
The first answer to prayer I want to tell you all about has to do with my jaw pain problems. What I didn’t mention in the prayer request was that around two years ago, my sister found some videos online about a relatively new way to practice orthodontic treatment called “orthotropics”. The reasoning and results shown in these videos seemed solid for children, and there were also videos indicating orthotropic techniques could help adults too, including with TMJ pain. Anyway, the long and the short of it is that I retrained myself according to some of these techniques. Because my pain began increasing last year around the time these new habits had really solidified and just kept getting worse throughout this spring and summer, I was worried that I had done something irreparable either by doing the techniques wrong or by doing them at all. I knew, however, that because of how rare orthotropcis is as yet, and because of the language barrier, it would probably be very difficult to find a dentist or orthodontist who could easily understand and assess the situation.
At least I thought I knew that. But thanks be to God that these two things are true: first, that we are worth more than many sparrows, which God feeds, and cares for, and notices as they fall; and second, that God listens to the prayers of his saints. Though a small thing, this disordered jaw joint of mine, God provided a big answer. Upon reading the last update, one of the wonderful Japanese friends and partners in ministry I have been blessed to know here wanted to help me find a specialist. She asked a doctor from her church if he could give me a recommendation for a very skilled oral surgeon they both knew about. My friend also said she was going to go with me to translate. I wasn’t sure whether the oral surgeon would have heard of orthotropics, so I sent some videos to my friend to help her explain it. From there she took it upon herself to look for someone with orthotropic training in Miyazaki. As it turned out, the oral surgeon I was going to see had a brother who runs a dental clinic here, and this brother had certificates in orthotropics. My friend called the clinic, explained my situation, and got me the first available appointment they had open.
Almost immediately after seeing a cast of my teeth, this specialist figured out how my TMJ disorder had started and why it is only in the left joint of my jaw (apparently one of the front teeth I had surgically removed when I was nine was a very important tooth). He also assured me that the techniques that I had done were actually good, and that I should continue to do the same things throughout his treatment plan. Four visits, several x-rays, some mouth/jaw movement and positioning tests, one mouthpiece, and still less than $150 later, my jaw situation has improved drastically. If I put my pain at a 10 when I first went to see him — it didn’t feel like what I would consider that painful, but just for comparison — then right now I would put it around a 2-3, and the specialist is confident he can make it go away completely. (At the bottom of this update are a couple of pictures, one of my crooked jaw and the other of my head in a testing contraption, for anyone interested. If x-rays and orthodontic mechanisms make you uncomfortable, avoid scrolling all the way down;)
I couldn’t have asked for a better or clearer answer to prayer. And in the midst of this process, every time I’ve visited, I couldn’t have asked for a better friend to interpret and explain everything both to the specialist and to me. If I didn’t know this amazing friend, and if I hadn’t come to Japan, I don’t know how long the pain would have lasted or how much worse it would have gotten or how expensive and complicated it would have been to find a solution. But the God who sees even such small things as this provided so exactly, so miraculously what I needed in every way, and I am so thankful.
And on that note, I will end part one of this update, soon to return with another story of an absolutely clear answer to prayer regarding language studies and being able to connect with Japanese people through that. Truly I have felt the body of Christ working throughout what I’ve experienced, and I can’t tell you how amazing and important your prayer support is. For this update, I have only one request. Please pray for the amazing friend I mentioned here. She is so kind, so servant-hearted, and she loves Jesus very much, so she really wants to share with others about him. Pray for blessing on her life, her work, and her ministry as a follower of Jesus among the multitude of Japanese people who do not know him. (If you are part of the Things Hoped For Facebook group or are able to access the newsletter to supporting churches back home, please check those for more details about how you can pray for her.)
In Christ, Anna Faeh
P.S. If you're curious about how Audra is doing, don't worry, I will let everyone know in the next post. :) Also, you will get to hear directly from her in the future, but she just thought that I should be the one to talk about the big answers to prayer, since they relate to requests I had before she came. I've contemplated asking if she wouldn't want to write you all a fun, "So Many New Things" type post sometime, because she keeps remarking on the most random things being different. XD (We could include a lot of pictures for once with that kind of topic, too...Anyway, we'll file that away for now.)
Things Hoped For