A Short, Glorious Life: Jamison and Kathryne Pals Went to Heaven instead of Japan

Your life may be more important than you think. I hope this will show you why, and increase your joy in what The Lord brings you to do each day. I think this is something the Pals family would have wanted. Jamison and Kathryne Pals were a young couple that attended our church. They were preparing to move to Japan as missionaries. They would bring with them their four-year-old son, two-year-old daughter, and a newborn son. Last weekend the whole family was on the road to Colorado for the final part of their training before moving overseas.  

In April, Jamison's blog Joy of Japan included a post with these words which he wrote to his wife Kathryne three years ago:

“I do not know how things will turn out for us.  As a husband I feel obligated to lead our family toward obedience—whatever the end may be.  Whether it is life or death or discomfort or disappointment, it is clear the Lord Jesus calls us not to an easy life.  However, He calls us to take up our cross just as He did to suffer and die.  Perhaps we will toil for years to raise support and never make it overseas.  Perhaps we will go and utterly fail as missionaries from all the worldly perspectives.  Perhaps we will labor for decades without any visible fruit.  Or perhaps through willing obedience many will pass from death to eternal life.” 

That road of obedience led them through Nebraska last Sunday. In the middle of the afternoon, a semi crashed into their car from behind and the impact caused a fire that took the lives of the entire Pals family.

Many people would only see this as a sad and tragic end to their dreams and hopes. Yet while the grief of family and friends is tremendous, there is also a surge of hope rising up in the midst of it. I did not get the joy of knowing the Pals personally, but I know friends who did, and I see that hope rising to the surface for them. In the stories that follow below, you can see that same hope in their parents. Part of the reason for that hope is that we firmly believe that the Pals are in the presence of God now, where there is no sorrow or regret at being welcomed home early. Christians know that the presence of God is unending joy and uninterrupted worship. Forever. That is why Paul says that to depart and be with Christ is "far better" than life on earth. (Phil. 1:23).

Another reason for that hope is that God never wastes our obedience and devotion to Him. Christianity has a history that shows extraordinary results from the humble deaths of people who loved the Lord. Sometimes death can produce a greater impact than a long life, if you leave the right things behind you. There is much that the lives of Jamison and Kathryne may yet do for the people of Japan and others who will be inspired by their story. The news of the accident as reported in the Omaha World-Herald the next day was full of details on the missionary vision for loving the people of Japan that had brought the Pals through Nebraska. Their story has been nationwide news. People magazine ran an exclusive story on its website this week that, again, displayed the heart of the Pals in bringing the Gospel to people in Japan. It also included many quotes from their parents showing their hope in the Lord even while mourning. Their blog Joy of Japan will now be read by far more people than they ever may have dreamed it would. How many of those people will learn for the first time that the 120 million Japanese people in Japan have almost no Christian witness among them? (See the Joshua Project for more.) Imagine if their story caused another 10, or 20, or even more people to dedicate their lives to the Gospel in Japan.

This has reminded me of another missionary, Amy Carmichael. Amy served in southern India from 1895 until her death in 1951. She worked to rescue young girls from sexual slavery and established a school and home to support and train rescued children, named Dohnavur Fellowship. In 1931, as she was concerned about financial support for the school, she suffered a terrible accident. She fell into a pit inside a dark house just rented for the school's purposes, breaking her leg and twisting her spine. It left her bedridden for the rest of her life. She was unable to actively serve in the ministry of the school she had worked so hard to found and support, although she continued to direct and lead it. While confined to bed, she wrote prose and poetry that ended up becoming known around the world. Through this writing, the work of her school and home for rescued children also became known across the globe, and her ministry received enough support that the Dohnavur Fellowship continues today.

Who can say how the Lord may now use the lives of Jamison and Kathryne? Amy Carmichael's personal disaster ended up making the work of sharing the Gospel in India known and funded, also drawing attention to the horror of young girls being enslaved and exploited in the temples. But she likely never imagined her work would gain such attention. She was just doing what she believed God wanted her to do. Just like Jamison and Kathryne followed the Lord in preparing to serve in Japan.

How should we feel after reading such testimonies? Usually we feel impressed, awed, and a little small in comparison. Often we feel guilty, too, as if we aren't doing enough to measure up to such devotion to God. I want to persuade you to set those thoughts of guilt aside. Instead, I think reading about the lives of the Pals and of Amy Carmichael should encourage us about our daily work and study. All they were doing was what they could, no matter how small. They had no idea where it would lead. Amy Carmichael couldn't have known that writing poems to express her feelings and faith would end up creating worldwide interest in her ministry in India and lead to generous giving and support. 

Jamison and Kathryne Pals had the same humble thoughts about what they were doing. And now, because they just kept seeking God first in how they used their time, and did not despise doing small things, holding to the hope that one day that faithfulness might produce a great result, their story is being read around the world. I hope and believe that the kind of impact they wanted to make with their lives and devotion to the Gospel will spread even farther through their unexpected deaths, showing people a faith that is worth living for and losing everything (on earth) for. If we want to honor their lives and their passion, I think we could start by seeing the ordinary things in our lives as vastly important to what God may do some day in the future. Maybe we won't see the future results ourselves, and maybe we will. But just as with the Pals and Amy Carmichael, the important thing is that other people would see, and believe.

For Supporting the Vision of Jamison and Kathryne Pals

Here is a video of the memorial service from Saturday, August 6, at Bethlehem Baptist Church. It was a remarkable service. This is one more way their story can be shared.



If you’d like to help the family with expenses, they have a GoFundMe page to raise money to bring the family’s ashes to Japan. https://www.gofundme.com/joyofjapan

Jamison’s father asked that, above all, people might take some time to read the Joy of Japan blog, and learn what they were truly about. https://joyofjapan.org

Pastor Jason Meyer of Bethlehem wrote this about the Pals. The University of Northwestern-Saint Paul radio ministry, KTIS.fm, shared the words of Jamison's father and friends of Jamison and Kathryne (along with the WCCO article linked within). The People story highlights the thoughts of Kathryne's parents.

Spiritual Coffee: A Beautiful Life Raising Kids with Special Needs - Feast of Theology with John Webster - Teaching Children Obedience Without Legalism

Here are three things worth feeding your mind. You can find prior roundups under Spiritual Coffee, and stay tuned for new installments later this week.

The Beautiful Trial of Raising Kids with Special Needs, Paul Martin reviews Andrew and Rachel Wilson's book The Life We Never Expected: Hopeful Reflections on the Challenges of Parenting Children with Special Needs. (TGC)
The Wilsons "are part of the leadership team at Kings Church in Eastbourne in the United Kingdom" and their parenting took a completely unexpected turn when "both their children (Zeke and Anna) showed signs of autism around age 3. It was regressive autism, meaning both had been meeting typical developmental milestones, but then started going in reverse." Most people flee from the idea of having a child with any developmental disabilities or special needs. The Wilsons seem to have done a remarkable job of both showing the beauty and hope involved in parenting these unique and precious children, while also being blunt and honest about the discouragement, difficulty, and demands. Consciously or unconsciously, most of us pin our happiness on having the life we expected. But there is a glorious and breathtaking part of experiencing God that can only be seen and felt by people who have surrendered and let God use them to humbly serve other lives. We usually fight tooth and nail against that surrender, and it is helpful to be shown the reward of what's on the other side by people like the Wilsons who have been taken there.

 "When you read The Life We Never Expected, you feel like you’ve been transported into the Wilsons’ living room to shoot straight with them about life and parenting—only with a twist. 

"God, in his great wisdom, saw fit to bless the Wilsons with two children with autism. It may be worth stopping here to say what autism is and isn’t. Some tend to think a few good spankings, more rigid discipline, and a parenting course or two will straighten things out, but you cannot discipline genetics. Autism is 'a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impaired social interaction, verbal and non-verbal communication, and restricted and repetitive behavior.' Its cause is unknown, and it manifests in a variety of ways—Asperger syndrome, pervasive developmental disorder, not otherwise specified PDD-NOS, and childhood disintegrative disorder are all related disabilities on the Autism Spectrum." 

"Andrew isn’t ashamed to tell us how, when the second diagnosis came, he

was overwhelmed by the most sweeping, drowning sense of pain and anguish I had ever experienced, ran into the playroom, curled up on the floor, and wailed until I thought there was nothing left. It was, and still is, the lowest point of my entire life.

"That’s the kind of raw honesty that pervades The Life We Never Expected. And that’s what I loved most about it. There’s a kind of denial the Christian church tolerates when it comes to disability. We often ignore things that scare us or we don’t understand. The Wilsons, however, bravely invite us into their world to taste their anguish and joys.  

"This book is much more than a lament. It’s that, but it’s also a vivid description of God’s dependability amid the sorrow and chaos of disability."

Perfection & Presence: God With Us, According to the Christian Confession, John Webster (Carl F.H. Henry Center at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School)
Webster, a massively influential theologian, passed away last month. At that time I posted some links to articles detailing his life and contributions to Christianity. Here is a great chance to absorb some of his work through six audio lectures. And yeah, this is probably much more than one coffee break, but consider it a chance to stock up and take these in little sections at a time in order to reflect on them.

"Professor John Webster delivers a rich reflection upon the perfections and presence of God. The question at the center of this lectures series is the nature of human fellowship with God. The Investigation of the nature of this fellowship entails for Webster, a comprehension of the divine perfections and their relation to the Trinitarian relations and missions. From the nature of God, the Trinitarian relations and the nature of Divine presence more generally, it can then be understood more clearly what scripture means when it speaks of the Word becoming flesh. Webster offers, therefore, an extensive reflection upon the human history of the divine Word and the nature of his presence in the flesh. Finally, Webster moves to discuss the nature of the resurrected and exalted Lord’s presence, a presence manifest in his Lordship over his creatures and in the practices and Sacraments of the holy church."

Is It Anti-Gospel to Teach Kids Self-Control Before Conversion? - Owen Strachan (For the Church)
Valuable reflections from a remarkable theologian, who is also the president of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (in other words, a man who cares very deeply about families and children). If we really understand the Gospel, then we know that obedience to God does not earn us salvation. Instead, obedience is frequently described in Scripture as "fruit." Fruit only grows on a tree that is already alive. Unless we are made alive by the Spirit, we cannot bring forth the fruit of obedience and good works. These things come after saving faith in Christ, not before. And the last thing we want to do is confuse our children by making them think that they have to "be good" in order to get God's approval, because that is the deadly peril of legalism. Strachan has a very practical answer for parents. Read on:

"No true transformation can happen without miraculous grace.  There is surely truth to this argument.  Without the gospel, we are slaves to sin.  We cannot conquer sin or master it; as long as we are unconverted, sin is in fact our master.  We need God-given faith in Christ to know true and lasting transformation.

"But I am wondering if, in highlighting this ultimate truth, we might forget a penultimate (secondary) reality.  It is good and well to train children, pre-conversion, in obedience and self-control.  If you do this in a way that indicates that successfully resisting a given temptation equates with the highest form of pleasing God, then that’s problematic.  In other words, if you train kids that doing right actions saves them, that’s tragic.  But it’s also tragic to not raise children to discern right from wrong and to think that they have no ability whatsoever to follow commands.

"If, though, you train children in good habits while always holding out the need for repentance and faith, I think you’re being a wise and godly parent.  The father who speaks repeatedly to his son in Proverbs clearly directs him to steer clear of sin.  The father is forming habits in his son, and those habits are not opposed to saving faith.  They are creating channels through which the life-giving water of the gospel will flow."

Spiritual Coffee: Why Read Chesterton? - Challenging Hollywood for Despising Disabilities - How to Spend Your Life on What Matters Most

Here are the top three things that impressed me as worth your thoughts and reflection from the past couple of days. I put some extra thought into summarizing and quoting some of the main ideas and gems because these topics were so interesting. There were several more I came across while out of town, which I'll catch up on posting later this week. In the meantime, past collections of useful links are under Spiritual Coffee.

Why You Should Read G.K. Chesterton (Even When It's Hard), Matt Nelson (Word on Fire blog)
This is the 80th anniversary of Chesterton's death in 1936. Matt Nelson has a nice and simple set of reasons that Chesterton is desirable reading for anyone (especially any Christian), and some good suggestions for how to stick to it even when he may be difficult to grasp. He also links to the American Chesterton Society, which is a goldmine of resources and help for finding a place to start with Chesterton and understanding his ideas. Here are two suggestions of my own for enjoying Chesterton without getting discouraged:
1) There is a sensory expansion that comes by reading Chesterton. You don't have to "get" everything he is saying in order to grow in your awareness. Like learning to recognize certain scents or colors by experience, you can learn to see wisdom even without fully understanding the logic behind it. Chesterton has an extraordinary gift for turning the world around you into a painting or a fairy tale so that you simply see with different eyes. Some of this is just absorbed from spending time in his mind, so that you begin to notice things you didn't observe before. There is even more value, and some protection, in understanding the logic as well, but it's surely worthwhile to get the wisdom even if the logic trails along afterwards. You have to start seeing before you can understand. I wouldn't say this about any writer, but knowing there's so much solidity and brilliance to Chesterton's thinking makes me very comfortable telling people: "Yes, this is definitely the fountain you want to drink from. Trust me on this one."
2) My second encouragement is to simply enjoy Chesterton. Don't feel pressured to work through the meaning of every single thing he is saying. Feel free to just delight in his prose and wit and the wonder of his imagination. He is a giant among storytellers, so by all means just sit and listen to the story. Chesterton's work often refreshes your soul even when you don't work your way through the intellectual ideas, simply because he pours beauty and wonder out of his pen into everything he writes. On some occasions the best use of a work of art is just to admire it and be moved by it, instead of trying to understand it. Feel free to take what comes freely from Chesterton, and at other times ponder over the parts that make you think. Both are full of grace and truth.

[Nelson:] Nonetheless remembering that “angels can fly because they take themselves lightly”, this larger than life apostle of common sense also took himself lightly because he took his faith seriously. He came to know God but he came to know himself better; which made him a better man. He was—to summarize—a joyfully serious thinker and wordsmith whom people loved (and love).Chestertonian scholar, Dale Ahlquist, writes:“There’s a goodness that just exuded from him...The biographical accounts of Chesterton always portray him as being very joyful, and humble, and good, so that everyone was just drawn to that, including his intellectual and philosophical enemies. The people who violently disagreed with Chesterton on the issues were drawn to him as a person because of his charity.” 

Remember that good physical nutrition presupposes “good chewing” to ensure good digestion. Good intellectual nutrition thus also presupposes “good chewing” to ensure good digestion. Chesterton’s words are like steak, not pudding. Hard work will make your head work, and reading Chesterton is hard head work. Hard work in a Culture Of Convenience might seem inconvenient, but adventuring with Chesterton is worth the rigour. As Chesterton himself says:“An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.” (from “On Running After Ones Hat”)

Would Hollywood Want the Disabled Dead? - John Knight (Desiring God)
Me Before You: Dear Hollywood, Why Do You Want Me Dead? - Ella Frech (Aleteia)
The movie Me Before You, recently released, tells a disappointing and all too familiar tale of a person with a disability who is surrounded by friends who help him make the 'courageous' choice to destroy himself to escape being disabled. Ella Frech, an 11-year-old girl who is paralyzed and in a wheelchair, wrote the most stunningly insightful rebuke of Hollywood's obsession with portraying disabled people as better off dead. Her courage and bluntness, as well as her peace of mind with her life and her clear understanding that there's nothing "wrong" with her, are magnificent. John Knight has some great observations to go along with it, but Ella Frech definitely steals the show here.

"You sit there with your able bodies, and look at people in chairs and think you feel pity for our sad little lives, but the truth is you’re afraid. You don’t want to imagine that you might be one of us one day. You think you can be perfect, and think you’d rather die than have parts that don’t work right. I think that’s sad."

"While you’re sitting in your offices crying about the bravery of this guy who kills himself and leaves everyone else to mourn him, which seems pretty selfish to me, I’m going to be out living the amazing life you didn’t even bother to know was possible. I have friends, and go on sleep-overs, and live a regular life. A life that doesn’t make me want to die. It makes me happy that it’s mine." 

"This could have been a great movie. It could have been the love story of two people and one of them just happens to use a chair. It happens all the time. The people in love don’t think about the chair. It’s the other people who think it’s a big deal."

"You may not believe in God. You don’t have to, and I can’t make you. But I do, and because of that I believe in the value of all people. I believe we are all made in his image and likeness. That’s why I believe all people are worth something. If you believe that people only get their value from each other, then people can take that away. But if our value comes from God, then nobody has the right to say someone who walks is worth more than someone who doesn’t." 

[John Knight:]

Just as interesting are some comments on her article and other articles with the same viewpoint. While the comments for Ella were mostly supportive (who is going to directly attack such an articulate young girl, especially one with a disability?), even her article generated comments that sought to “correct” her perspective. These comments generally fall into one of two camps:

§           * She isn’t qualified to speak on the subject because she has not read the book or watched the movie.

§          * She misses the point about the movie. It isn’t about disability but about “choice.”

Both assertions are absurd. The one who has lived the life doesn’t need to read another book, or watch another movie, to comment on how the culture treats her.

And, of course, the movie is about disability. The whole “choice” argument made by the right-to-die movement is clearly discriminatory against disability. Even the hashtag for the movie (#liveboldly) applies to the lead character who is not disabled, while the one with the disability only gets to die boldly. At least they didn’t have to make up the organization that kills him — that one really exists in Switzerland.

How to Avoid the Worst Form of Failure, Tim Challies (Challies.com)

[Also includes a link to video/audio of his presentation at a Ligonier conference.]
Everyone struggles to keep their time focused on the most valuable tasks instead of the ones that draw away our attention. Smaller, or simpler, or more pleasant tasks that are less important are constantly luring us away from what really matters most. So any help in keeping our discipline is welcome. The quotes below capture why this is such a wise piece of advice. Challies zeroes in on the core of what makes the difference between a productive, or important, task vs. what makes some things less worthy of our time.

Of course, his advice is a general rule of thumb, and sometimes the opposite will be true. But the value of a concept like this is that when we're struggling to decide where our focus should be, it will steer us right most of the time and save us wasted time going in circles or in the wrong direction. That's worth accepting the necessary footnote of figuring out when to make exceptions. 

"Don’t we all live with this fear that we will succeed at the lesser things in life while failing at the greater things? It’s not like those lesser things are always bad things. Some of them are actually very good. It’s just that they are, by definition, lesser things. They are not the matters of first importance. There is an order to life and we all know that sometimes those lesser things can look so attractive. They can be so distracting. They can keep us from giving attention to the things that matter far more." 

"We are so tempted to throw away all the big things to succeed at the lesser things. But we can’t deny it: Succeeding at lesser things at the cost of the greater things is the worst form of failure." 

"The art of productivity is the art of succeeding at things that matter. At its best, productivity is ensuring that you succeed at the things that matter most. It is meant to ensure that you don’t look back over your life someday and realize you’ve only succeeded at the fleeting things, the minor things, the things that just don’t matter." 

"I believe we can read through the Bible and see something like this: Productivity is effectively stewarding your gifts, talents, time, energy, and enthusiasm for the good of others and the glory of God. What matters most in life, what matters most in the universe, what matters most to God, is the glory of God. God calls us to bring glory to him in every way we can in every area of life and especially by doing good to others (see, for example, Matthew 5:16). We do good to others and God gets the glory. That means that the greater things in life are the things we do for others, not the things we do for ourselves. The greater things in life are the things meant to benefit other people. The lesser things are the things meant to benefit ourselves."