This post has nothing to do with my regular topic.
We lost a friend to cancer several days ago. We had prayed for her healing for years, literally. At one point she was off of our prayer list as it seemed her cancer was in remission after removal of her affected kidney. But, as happens so often, the cancer returned and slowly ate away at her body causing her much pain and suffering.
Cheryl Johnson Barton was the daughter of former missionaries, Don and Betty Jo Johnson. Cheryl married Bernie Barton way back when and when to Japan with him as Church of God missionaries in the 70′s. They pastored the Tarumi Church of God in Kobe for many years experiencing lots of disappointment at times for the fact that very few Japanese accepted the gospel of Jesus the Messiah. The experienced the huge earthquake in Kobe back in the 90′s. Her parents Don and Betty Jo were there visiting at the time and on their way home stopped by his parents house, Cheryl’s grandparents’ Clarence and Leona Johnson. They were part of the church I was attending and later became the mission pastor there. We were invited over for lemon pie and to meet with Don & Betty Jo and hear their stories of Cheryl & Bernie and the earthquake. That was just one incident where we were able to spend time with another part of the Johnson family.
Another time Cheryl & Bernie and their son Ben stayed at our home and I remember talking to them about their ministry and how Cheryl got very teary eyed as she talked about their love for the Japanese people and how they were so dedicated to being a witness even if there didn’t appear to be any fruit being produced.
It was really a privilege for us to be in a position of being able to spend a lot of face to face time with missionaries and church leaders and pastors from many different areas of the world. We’ve had missionaries from Bolivia, Kenya, North Africa, and Japan to mention a few as well as pastors/leaders from Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda, India and probably other places too.
We probably had the closest relationship with Bernie and Cheryl and then some contact on a fairly regular basis with the rest of their family also. I met her brother John as he was passing through Portland one day and we talked “Missions Stuff” in my office one day and then later on he invited me to a conference in Taiwan that Cheryl also attended. As we had a tourist day one day I remember walking in the rain to a museum with Cheryl one day and her telling me in no uncertain terms that I didn’t know the whole story about something that was taking place in the missions community and she wanted to make sure I wasn’t speaking about something of which I only knew hearsay.
On one occasion we were driving Bernie and Cheryl to a speaking engagement in Portland and Bernie was telling us about his first visit to a Starbuck’s some years ago. He had heard all about the popularity of this new coffee culture going on in the northwest so he ordered a coffee and when asked if he wanted a double shot he said sure not having a clue what that all meant. He took a drink and had the shakes the rest of the day he claims. I remember taking Ben up to our church one Sunday AM and he was sitting in the back of the car playing with a Star Wars figure or something and I think he had had his fill of church visits. Cheryl told me once that she almost hated Sundays when they were on Home Assignment because of all the churches they had to visit every week.
We shared a lot of family stuff and missions stuff. We celebrated marriages and the arrival of Grandchildren. We shared huge issues in our ministries and gave encouragement to one another at times, many times over years of time. I think the only members of Cheryl’s family I never got to meet were John and Gwen’s children and perhaps the newest grandchildren. I met Stephanie and Little Ben for the first time in the Indiannapolis airport a few years ago and met her sister DonDeena a couple of times in Anderson and at our church.
Cheryl never failed to compliement us on our writings, and she was a very accomplished author. She appreciated everything we did for all missionaries and the mission efforts of our church and our movement. She always made us feel that what we had to say was importand and she was an active, interested listener.
I know that we are not the only ones that feel a loss of a friend in Cheryl’s passing but she was the type of person that made everyone feel loved and important.
God used Cheryl and Bernie for years in Japan and we won’t know the final impact of that until that day when we are all together once more. We don’t know what the future holds for Bernie but we know that God will continue to use him in some way, whether he continues his work in Japan or not. I can’t imagine how hard it would be to go on alone as he now has to.
In any case, God will provide whatever is needed as he has all along and I know that the pain Bernie and his family feels will not be wasted.
I needed to put down in words somewhere about the impact Cheryl’s passing had on us and how even though we saw each other a very few times over the course of 20 years or so, the relationship was valued highly.
Farewell Friend and may God keep the Barton/Johnson family close in his arms.
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