Pastor Walton sat down with Dan and Ayako Matsumoto this week to discuss their growing up years, their return to Guam, and experience as a Christian family.
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Episode Transcript
Chris Harper: Welcome to Harvest Time. My name is Chris Harper, and our host on this program is Pastor Gary Walton, the lead pastor of Harvest Baptist Church. Every week, we spend these twenty five minutes together telling you the stories of our church by interviewing our members and other friends of the ministry. We have two services at Harvest Baptist Church every week, The first at 08:45AM, the second at 10:45AM on Sunday. We have Japanese and Korean translation during the 10:45AM service.
That’s also when we livestream at hbcguam.org. Hbcguam.org. This week, it’s the last message in our encounters with Jesus series from John 21: 15-25. Let’s begin today’s Harvest Time by welcoming Pastor Gary Walton. Hi, Pastor.
Gary Walton: Hey, hafa adai, Chris. John 21 is the last chapter in the book of John, and we’re coming to the last recorded instance of Jesus encountering somebody, well, in the book of John. And if you’re remembering that chapter, it’s actually an encounter with Peter. It’s not the first time that Jesus met Peter, of course, but there’s some really important teaching that comes out of this last chapter, and we’re going to be talking about the idea that even though sometimes we experience failure, it doesn’t have to be final. And God’s grace is sufficient for us and restoration can be a part of God’s work in his encounters with us.
So we’d love to invite you to come and join us. It’s been a great series that we’ve been in all this fall and just talking through the various people that Jesus met, the ones that are recorded in the Gospel, each one with a purpose for us. And we’re going to wrap it up, I think, with a very challenging and encouraging encounter with Peter that Jesus has in that last chapter. So we’d love to invite you to come and join us for those services this Sunday. Really glad and privileged to have Dan and Ayako Matsumoto with us on Harvest Time today.
First of all, welcome you guys. Thank you for joining us.
Dan Matsumoto: Thank you. Welcome, guys. Thanks for having us.
Gary Walton: Dan and Ayako were at Harvest and on Guam for about five years I think previously. Left for a few years and then are back. Just recently came back, connected with the Harvest family again. And we’re so excited to have your family back. We’ve been kind of hoping all along.
Tell us about that. Dan, why don’t you start? Why were you here? Why’d you leave? Why are you back?
Dan Matsumoto: We came here the first time from 2014 to 2019 just for work. Iako’s mom was getting sick and, we wanted to find somewhere closer to Japan and this was the closest I could get with my job. And it just so happened, maybe coincidence or not, but, the job opening came up. So I applied, they accepted me, so we came out here from Portland, Oregon. And then this time around we went back to Seattle area for the last five years.
And then this time around Ayako’s dad is a little bit of dementia going on. Kinda like, oh, we should go back to Guam. Ayako’s got great friends here. I have friends here.
Gary Walton: You got great friends here.
Dan Matsumoto: Yeah. Great friends here. The best. And then the job, I’m used to the job here. So it was a very easy transition for us.
Gary Walton: Well, really, I mean that was genuine what I said earlier. The idea that potentially you guys could come back here and the job would be available. Dan, you work for the
Dan Matsumoto: Oh, the FAA.
Gary Walton: FAA.
Dan Matsumoto: I do air traffic control. This time I came back as a supervisor. They ran out of candidates, I guess. They finally ended up with me.
Gary Walton: Well, we love your family and, you know, love just, the connection here at Harvest. And so glad that you’re back, really. So thrilled about that. We’re having these conversations with our Harvest family. We’re just talking about life and relationship with God and hearing some of our testimonies.
It was fun mentioning or talking with you guys just beforehand that it really is significant to be able to share your testimonies. And so thank you for your willingness to be able to do that. Let’s begin with your family. You guys have kids, right, Ayako? Tell us about your family and your kids.
Ayako Matsumoto: Yes. We have two daughters. One is Azuki. She’s 28 years old. She lives in L. A. By herself and working for airline. And another one is Minori. She’s in seventh grade. Yeah, she’s 12 years old.
Gary Walton: Okay. And Minori came back and slid well I don’t know, but it seems like she slid right back into her friend group and school.
Ayako Matsumoto: Yeah, she was kind of struggling with settling down, but now she’s totally fine. Because the school she used to go in Washington, she just carry one laptop computer.
But here she is complaining about the heavy stuff.
Gary Walton: Backpack with real books.
Ayako Matsumoto: Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s a good thing to build muscle. I told her.
Gary Walton: Well, it has been a privilege for us to have you back and God’s using you already here as you’re back. Tell us about where you grew up, your background, maybe part of your spiritual story. Dan, let’s begin with you.
Dan Matsumoto: I was born and raised in Hawaii. My parents are from Japan. They moved a couple years before I was born or I guess my brother was born. Grew up in Hawaii. My family is not believers.
They’re not Christian. They’re very agnostic, guess. They don’t believe in any one thing and they celebrate pretty much everything.
Gary Walton: Mhmm.
Dan Matsumoto: So like a lot of families in Hawaii, there’s a lot of mix of cultures. Yeah. Lots of Asian influences. So there’s a lot of Buddhist stuff there. A lot of Christians also.
But my parents put me in a Christian preschool and it’s Makiki Christian but the preschool, the church, it looks like a Japanese castle in Hawaii. It’s like the only one that looks like that. So I went there, they taught a bunch of bible stories and then I remember like my neighbor, they were believers and I would go and play with their dog and they would always like read us the bible. It’d be like a picture bible. But and then my friends growing up, their family was believers.
So they’ll invite us to camps, church camps, to their house, all through middle school. And then in high school, I joined campus, campus life. Okay. Campus Crusade. And then, the teacher, he would invite me.
He was my math teacher, which I only got like a d minus on. I don’t even know. I don’t think I passed that class, but, he would invite me, but it’s always during lunchtime. And I turn him down every single time because You
Gary Walton: didn’t wanna skip lunch.
Dan Matsumoto: I didn’t wanna skip lunch with my friends. Yeah. And I was already getting a D anyway, so But then he’s like, you know, I’ll buy everybody pizza. So I was like, alright, what time what time is it? So we show up and then he did a bait and switch where you have to listen to him talk about the Bible for ten minutes and then he’ll feed you.
So every week we just sit and listen through this thing to get free pizza. But he would take us like spearfishing, volleyball practices. My school didn’t even have boys volleyball, so he invited us to a boys church league.
Gary Walton: Mhmm.
Dan Matsumoto: So he’d do all the pickups for everybody and take us out to lunch and dinner. He bought us our spears.
Gary Walton: Wow.
Dan Matsumoto: Our sling spears.
Gary Walton: Yeah.
Dan Matsumoto: And like, I’m sure you guys know, teachers don’t make anything. Right. So I was surprised that he would pay for all this.
Gary Walton: Yeah. Was there a big group of you guys, Dan? Or just a couple of you?
Dan Matsumoto: No. There was like from that group, there was only like four of us. Okay. I mean, there was a bigger group in the in the Campus Crusade, but Yeah. He would always take like four of us Yeah.
Guys around. Okay. Yeah. And he was I locked his keys in the car when we went spearfishing. We had to get a tow truck and everything.
It was very strange. I can tell he was visibly mad, but at the same time he was like, try not to like kill me or drown me or anything. So it was very interesting experience having an adult that wasn’t your your immediate family. Right. So yeah.
Yeah. Was was not like a huge like turning point or anything, but it was more gradual throughout the years. It only finally was like it clicked, you know?
Gary Walton: Yeah. Yeah. Your family though did not, your family’s not believers now. What did they think about all this? Then
Dan Matsumoto: It’s my parents don’t care either way. Okay. So I guess that’s good and bad. Like if I’m saying grace to myself before a meal with my eyes closed, my dad would tap me on the shoulder and be like, hey, pass the shoyu. And I’d be like, hold on one moment.
But he’d be like, no really, pass me the shoyu. So I’m like, oh, okay. I didn’t get baptized right away. I didn’t get baptized till I was like 28 or seven
Gary Walton: Okay.
Dan Matsumoto: In St. Louis before I moved to Oregon. And my dad came up to help me move. So I’m getting baptized and it’s a pretty big church that I’m in. And he was like, do I have to get in that bathtub with you?
And I was like, no no no. Because he’s like, because I don’t wanna get in there. It’s too cold. It was like February. So yes, it’s very like there’s a whole lot explaining.
Gary Walton: Yeah.
Dan Matsumoto: But at the same time, he doesn’t listen to me when I’m explaining either.
Gary Walton: I don’t know. I want to ask you some more about that. I’m going to hold for a minute. I want to get Ayako’s testimony. I want to ask you some more about formation.
So what happened where you really began to grow in your faith? But hang on. Ayako, what about you? Where did you grow up? Tell us about your spiritual story.
Ayako Matsumoto: Okay. I was born and raised in Tokyo, middle of Tokyo. It’s quite a busy city. And I just was normal like a Japanese girl, yeah, I went to the elementary school, high school and graduated from a university in Tokyo. And when I was 27 I got married to my boyfriend from university.
And one year later of marriage I got pregnant but I had a miscarriage. And then after miscarriage, one year later after miscarriage I got pregnant with my first daughter. But three, four months of pregnancy my husband in accident he passed away all of a sudden and it was so shocking news for all my family because it was a day that my husband passed away was very next to my sister’s wedding. So my mom told me that it’s just from heaven to hell. Yeah.
Wow. Yeah, but some people advised me to like if I would be myself to live and it would be easy to marry again without a child. So some people addressed me you should get abortion in Japan. And I was thinking about a little bit but before he passed away I got miscarried so if God’s will is not let my baby be born, yeah, she’s going to, I mean baby is going to go. So I just hold yeah, the baby.
And one year later, nine months later, my first daughter, Azuki was born and I lived with my parents for three years. And after three years I was looking for my own place in Japan but everywhere I go, just, you know, the old memory with my husband came up so. But one day my mom and my sister, yeah we all traveled to Australia to visit our cousin and I just fell in love in Australia and then I thought oh this is a place I live for me and for my daughter and I moved to Australia. But at that time I didn’t speak English at all and also I didn’t have any friends so I was looking for some place that I don’t need to pay anything to learn English and to make friends and I saw the sign of the church and maybe I should go to church to make friends. And that’s the place I met the Christian family.
And they treated us as part of their family and they gave everything I need and without any like expectation to get back from us. And in Japan we are supposed to take something when we visit to the friends or family like even small gift but they didn’t expect anything yet taken from us and I just wondering why they can do that to us because we are stranger to them and they are just showing unconditional love.
Gary Walton: Wow.
Ayako Matsumoto: Yeah. So I said why made you showing so much love to strangers? That’s Jesus.
Gary Walton: It’s really amazing, Ayako, how much that impacted you to be able to sense why are they doing this.
Ayako Matsumoto: Yeah and even not only they are feeding us but also they are asking me to babysit their kids so they can pay to me. And I just thought this wouldn’t happen to Japan, to anyone in Japan and yeah I see that God’s love, I see God’s love what they were doing But I stayed in Australia for a couple years but I ended up going back to Japan. And I sometimes went to church, visit church in Japan but I was not too much into the Christian, Christianity to learn how to Christian believe.
And also at that same time I was looking for to live outside of Japan again because yeah, it’s kind of freedom to me to live outside of the country and I applied like a lottery division program, America Green Card.
Gary Walton: Okay.
Ayako Matsumoto: And I got in. So that means I have to move to America. And then I ended up to move to Portland with my daughter and there’s no friend in Portland. So I started going to church. Yeah the church I went was a Japanese church so I could learn the gospel in Japanese.
And when I think back to what happened to my life, it’s just God’s plan.
Gary Walton: Yeah.
Ayako Matsumoto: From you know, I lost my husband, it was so miserable but so far, you know, I was just blessed to give everything I need And I got, okay, this is not my life, this is Jesus’ life. Wow. So yeah. Yeah, yeah. I should.
Gary Walton: How old were you when were in Portland and really gave your life to Jesus?
Ayako Matsumoto: I was 43.
Gary Walton: Okay.
Ayako Matsumoto: I’m not good at numbers. Yeah, 43.
Gary Walton: Wow. It’s really great to think about the ways that God directs our steps, right? Guides our lives, guides our plans, brings us to the place where we can hear him and hear his voice speaking to us. So Dan, pick up the story. How did you guys meet?
Tell us about that love story.
Dan Matsumoto: Oh, it’s actually literally right where she left off. We went to the membership class at the church in Portland.
Gary Walton: So you guys ended up in the same church together?
Dan Matsumoto: Same church. I just got there like a month after Ayako got there. I think she got there in January. I got there in February, March time. And then they they had breakfast like here, kinda like eggs, rice, bacon, Portuguese sausage kind of thing.
And then I was eating that, in the morning before during the membership class, right before it started. And Ayako walked in and she saw all that bacon grease running down my beard and she said she fell in love with me.
Gary Walton: She could not resist from Yeah, that moment
Dan Matsumoto: love at first sight or she was disgusted. I don’t remember which one. Yeah,
Ayako Matsumoto: that time I was a vegetarian. I tried to be a vegetarian so I thought, Oh, this guy’s eating greasy bacon from the morning.
Dan Matsumoto: I guess I eat it very well. It looks delicious, I guess. I don’t know.
Gary Walton: Well, God brought you together, which is fantastic. And then how long after that before you came to Guam?
Dan Matsumoto: Four years.
Gary Walton: Okay. Four years after that. You came here and you didn’t really know anybody coming to Guam. And you started looking for a church. Tell us about finding Harvest.
Dan Matsumoto: Well, I don’t know if you know this, but Guam’s not that big.
Gary Walton: Yeah. I think I know.
Dan Matsumoto: So I went to work and then I was driving around going to the hotel and then I saw this pretty big sign that said Harvest Ministries right by the McDonald’s. Yeah. And I was like, hey, that’s church. So I literally turned right when I saw it and then I just drove in and I walked in and it was pastor Crandall, Gary Crandall.
Gary Walton: Yeah, Gary Crandall.
Dan Matsumoto: And then Don Eckard, both of them were sitting there chit chatting. I was like, hey, this looks like a church. Can I get a tour or something? So they both got up and was like, Come on in. Let me show you around.
Gary Walton: Wow.
I Can imagine that if anybody’s, those of you that are listening that know Don Eckert and Gary Crandall, you talk about an introduction to a church. That’s the
Dan Matsumoto: Yeah. They left a very good impression of Harvest. Yeah. Wow.
Gary Walton: Dan and Ayako, you guys have just I don’t know how to explain this, but you just have a special joy about you. I was thinking about this earlier when we were talking about God bringing you back to Harvest. And Ayako, you had such a great smile on your face. But you do. You have a joy about your lives.
Tell us where I mean is that just natural? How’s that connected with your faith?
Dan Matsumoto: I don’t like if you saw us at home, Bill, I don’t we fight a lot, too. I just want make sure everybody understands
Gary Walton: I didn’t say that anything about whether you had a perfect relationship.
Dan Matsumoto: Like as much as you think our smiles are that big, that’s how big the fights are, too.
Gary Walton: You feel it both ways, right?
Dan Matsumoto: Yes.
Gary Walton: Yeah, yeah.
Dan Matsumoto: But we we we do end up saying, you know, we’re sorry. Mhmm. And we pray for each other. And so at the end it all works out.
Ayako Matsumoto: Yeah, it’s so easy to, you know, what we believe is the same Jesus Christ. It’s easy to compromise and easy to forget each other, forgive each other. Yeah. Yeah and also when I see the people at the Harvest are working so hard for others, It’s so joy to me and motivate me to, oh, I wanna do something for someone. Yeah.
So I’m so glad to be back here and yeah, thank you for having us.
Gary Walton: Well, you guys are just part of the culture of Harvest and care for people. You love Jesus and like welcoming our brothers and sisters right back into the family. So glad that you’re here. Tell us a little bit about what God has done in sort of changing in your life as a family? Priorities, habits, the way you see your future?
How is having a Christian home different than maybe if you hadn’t been believers?
Dan Matsumoto: Well, like I always say when we argue, I can, we definitely have different viewpoints on like parenting, how to do laundry, how to clean dishes, like a lot of stuff. We have different viewpoints and we both think we’re right. So, but it is kinda amazing that you know, we do One thing we do see eye to eye on is we both believe in Jesus. So we always touch base back to that. And then we probably wouldn’t still be married if that wasn’t the case.
So, yeah.
Gary Walton: Well, I mean the Bible talks about this. We talk about it a lot, that our faith as the foundation for our life and as the foundation for our marriage. And so our love for Jesus, our commitment to him allows us to be able to change and respond to each other in ways that we can continue to grow. Grow towards Christ and grow towards each other. And I think that’s beautiful.
I love seeing that. Nobody’s perfect. I’ll get that. Thank you for being willing to share that with us. But to see God’s work in your life.
Coming back to Harvest, I know you talked about this a little bit, Ayako, but what has that meant for you guys coming back to see the church and your friends here?
Ayako Matsumoto: The first thing that I really appreciate is what has done for me because it’s very important to involve the church but also my dad’s as Dan mentioned about my dad, he’s a dementia and he’s living by himself and I want to care about him more but only my sister and the brother they are just taking care of him and that’s not enough for him and it’s harder to visit him very often for them. So I’m so glad that I came back here because I can fly to Japan often to see him. Yeah. And yeah, when I, before my mom went to the Lord, yeah, she wasn’t a believer and I visit her often from Guam to Japan and I eventually told about Jesus to her and before she passed away, she accepted
Gary Walton: Wow, what a gift, yeah.
Ayako Matsumoto: Yeah, even Dan’s family are not believer and my family are not believer, but still I can be a light of Jesus to spread the gospel to family or Japanese.
Gary Walton: Yeah. Amen. Dan, anything for you? What’s Harvest meant for you coming back?
Dan Matsumoto: I just want to make sure this is recorded, right? Like the whole time? Yeah. I just,
I’m pretty sure my wife said, Thank you, Dan.
I just wanted
Gary Walton: It’s to make there for all eternity. Yeah. Yeah. You can’t delete it, no.
Dan Matsumoto: Yeah. We had a good church in Seattle great friends from church and everything. But it does feel like we came home here. Yeah. So that part is really great.
It’s super comfortable. But at the same time, I like that Ayako was saying that everybody’s working hard for other people and for God and and challenges you.
Gary Walton: Well, know that God has, gifted you guys and, that we need you. We need your gifts and we need your ministry. And so thankful that God’s connected us together. Love your story. Love what God’s done in your life, and, know that he’s gonna continue to use you here in Guam.
So thanks for joining us today.
Dan Matsumoto: Thanks for having us.
Chris Harper: And thank you for listening to Harvest Time. Of course, at this point in the program, we always wanna personally invite you again to services at Harvest Baptist Church. Two services on Sunday, 08:45AM and 10:45AM. We have Japanese and Korean translation at 10:45AM during that service. That’s also the service we broadcast live here on 88.1 FM and khmg.org.
We hope to see you this Sunday. Thanks again for listening to Harvest Time.