Time-consuming function call problem

Hi, I'm make an app that involves a 2-D array. and I have a functions refresh() that updates array based on the previous condition and a filltable() function, which fills the table using newly generated array. I'm planning on looping the process infinitely. However, it seems filltable() takes much long than refresh() to complete. When I tested the code with 2 iteration, 3 iteration,4 iternation... the code seems to ignore all filltable() but the last one, but still obtain the transformed array at the end(which means refresh() did work). So, how can I fix this Things I've tried-1 (using a loop):

for(int k=0; k<4; k++){
    fillTable(start,table); //start is the 2-D array
    start = refresh(start);
     }

Things I've tried-2 (using a delayed loop):

final Handler handler = new Handler();
    for(int k=0; k<4; k++){
    fillTable(start,table);
    handler.postDelayed(new Runnable() {
    @Override
    public void run() {
    start = refresh(start);//start is the 2-D array
    }
    }, 1000);
    }

Thanks ahead UPDATE1: somehow the format didn't work. Anyway, I have a 2-D array that contains string elements, and a function to refresh its elements based on previous state. Another function fillTable() will put corresponding image into a table layout, and this is also the function that kind lags. The dimension for the array goes up to 254 X 144 (pretty big). So, is there any way speed up such cell by cell update process using for() loops? and tricks or hints to improve the execution of such large array update?