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David Stellwagon
My wife and I were missionaries to Japan for almost twelve years.
We left for Japan about 10 months after being married. We had been
there three years when we finally made a trip back to the United
States for a short visit. I came to the States hoping to fellowship
with brothers from our home church, Christian Challenge, so that I
could be refreshed. The problem was that we stayed with my wife's
parents that lived about an hour away and we only came to Pineville
during the weekends. Top that with the fact that the people I wanted
to fellowship with had their schedules I didn't get to spend very
much time at all with them. There was one brother I particularly
looked forward to spending some time with, but he had just received
the call to be a pastor of a church about an hour away and that
fellowship really never materialized.
We spent a month in Central Louisiana and then headed off to
Mississippi and Chicago on a month trip to visit with family that
lived in those places. All this without having a chance to be
refreshed in fellowship. Returning back from the trip after a month
of travel I felt tired, and realizing that the time for returning to
Japan was getting near, I started to lose hope of being refreshed in
fellowship. It was during this last month in the States that I was
brought into a new place in the Lord.
One Sunday our pastor, Buddy Martin, preached from
Exodus 15: 23-26 where God used Moses to turn bitter waters into
sweet water that could be drunk. In this message the Lord ministered
to me that He was the one I needed to depend on. Then one message
later, Brother Buddy referred to a particular passage in his message
that the Lord used to bring me to a new place in Him.
Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood
and cried out, saying, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me
and drink. “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From
his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’” But this
He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to
receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not
yet glorified. (John
7:37-39)
The Lord started ministering a new realization that brought a
great change in my life. The Refreshing was in me. The Fountain of
Life had already taken His abode in my heart and life. In fact, if I
needed peace, the Source of all peace already lived inside me. If I
needed joy, there was an endless supply from the One who is the
source of all joy Who already lived in me. The refreshing that I so
longed for was something I needed not to go here or there to find
because the One who brings about refreshing was already there in me.
Not only that, but instead of trying to get any of these things in
fellowship from other people, there was already placed in me a river
that flows. This river would overflow to others who need the
refreshing, peace, joy and any other thing people desire deep down.
I went back to Japan refreshed, but not through the means I
thought would bring it about. This experience has given me a place
to return to when I start feeling dry and lonely. Instead of trying
to find the filling and refreshing in human fellowship, I am
reminded that the One who supplies all our needs, who is the source
of all the abundance of all that is life, lives inside me. I need
only to look to Him who lives within and thank Him for what He has
already provided in me.
David Stellwagon and his wife Kathy were missionaries to Japan
for 11 years. David is the son of life-long missionaries to Japan
and David and Kathy's three sons were also born in Japan. David and
Kathy returned to the states in 2000. David currently teaches Sunday
School and the New Testament Bible Survey in our School for
Christian Workers.
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