Missionary Stories of Souls Saved

Someday, God willing. In the meantime this thread gives me an opportunity to get it all down in a computer doc. :thumbs:

 

What to Do When Your Husband Gets Saved

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Let me take a moment to tell you about our church sign. I worked for hours on Saturday to have it ready for our first service in our new building after we found a place to rent. I labored carefully on each kanji (Chinese character) and kana (Japanese alphabet character), then attached it to the telephone pole outside our church. I was proud of that sign!

The next day we had our first service, with our family of three and Mrs. Matsumoto and little Megumi. As we sang our hymns a knock came at the door. “Oh, boy,” I thought, “Our first visitor!” I opened the door and saw a well-dressed man. “Oh, boy,” I thought, “Our first deacon.” The man handed me his business card and said, “I make signs, and I noticed you needed one!” So we had a Japanese believer in another church paint us a real sign.

One day the Wakamatsu family was driving down one of the main streets of Konandai, our Yokohama suburb, when they saw our church sign. “Konandai Baptist Church,” read Mrs. Wakamatsu. “I wonder if that is the same kind of church I went to before we got married?” A member of a Baptist church down south, she had fallen in love with a gentle Japanese office worker ten years previously, said yes to his proposal, and then been disciplined out of her church for marrying a lost man.

The very next Sunday the whole family showed up at church: Dad, Mom and three children. Their little Megumi (“Grace” is a popular name for Japanese girls) unfortunately did not like my guitar playing, and cried all through the song service! She was much more used to her mother’s piano playing. At any rate, God blessed the service and they decided to come back. Every Sunday there they were, right on time. We began praying for God to do some wonderful things in this family.

Finally one Wednesday night, Mrs. Wakamatsu heard a visiting Japanese missionary preach, and God broke her heart. Weeping, she went forward to talk to the missionary and get everything right with the Lord. From then on she was a wonderful blessing to us, becoming our most faithful believer and our piano player. She actually was at a professional level in her piano playing, since she had graduated from the second best music college in Japan. At last I could put down that guitar and stop annoying Megumi!

Mrs. Wakamatsu, along with us, then centered her prayers on the salvation of her husband. He attended with his whole family for a year or more, and then one day after I preached a salvation message, God moved me to have a public invitation. Now in our small Japanese churches I usually simply have them stay in their seats and raise their hand or simply pray quietly on their own. However, God’s leading was plain and I gave an invitation for people to come forward and claim Christ publicly.

Down the aisle came Mr. Wakamatsu! My heart skipped a few beats as I asked him why he had come. “I believe in Jesus now!” he said to me quietly and simply. No fanfare, no shouts, no tears—simply a quiet voice saying, “I believe in Jesus now!” I called Mrs. Wakamatsu up to the front and said, “Mr. Wakamatsu has something to tell us.” Before everyone, he said again, “I believe in Jesus now!” Mrs. Wakamatsu’s face lit up with such a wonderful light from within, and then she clapped. Yes, she clapped! Her prayers had been answered, and she was so excited that all she could do was clap loud and long.

A couple of years later we learned some very sad news. Mr. Wakamatsu had been transferred to Nagoya, and we would be losing our best family. I said to Mrs. Wakamatsu, “What will we do without you?” She said, “God will lead another family to the church to replace us.” We began praying that God would indeed send another family to us, and do you know what? He did!

Just before they moved, the Wakamatsu family took us to a very exclusive and expensive little French restaurant, where we had one of the best meals of our lives. Later, down in Nagoya, Mrs. Wakamatsu found a Bible school to go to so she could learn to serve the Lord better. And I have no doubt that He answered many more of her prayers!

 

Amen. A Christian, not to mention a missionary, without a prayer life is a complete failure. :type:

 

Things started out rough when we moved to Yokohama in 1983 after language school. Our only child Paul usually played fine with the neighbor kids one on one, but was bullied when the Japanese kids got together. Bullying is very common in Japan, where the group is everything. Once the neighbor boy kicked Paul with all of his might, and when I confronted him he said happily, “I kicked Paul!” I used to watch the yard out of our second floor window when Paul was playing and this boy was outside, because this kid was nasty. When I saw something starting, I would yell from the 2nd floor, "Hey!! Stop that!!" The kid started thinking I was omniscient and omnipresent!

On our second term, we located for 6 years in an apartment building filled with roaches. My Michigan-bred wife to this day refers to it as "that roach-infested apartment." But in many days it was the best place we ever lived. It was a wonderful neighborhood with lots of kids, and they all became Paul's friends. We lived short blocks from the church, so we had a "walking route" instead of a bus route to go to Sunday School, and six kids, including four little boys and two little sisters, would go walk with us. Through Paul's friendship, all six of those kids got saved in our Sunday School!

Unfortunately, all but one family eventually moved away, and then we had to relocate on our third term. The parents of one little boy who I had baptized split up and his father took him way north, never giving us his address like he had promised. Other families went elsewhere. Our next door neighbor had us over for dinner before moving way down to the island of Kyushu. This woman had come to our ladies Bible study in our home, informing us that she was just coming for the fellowship and would NEVER become a Christian. When they had us over for dinner before moving, they asked us where a good church was where they were going, because their children had become so good and obedient through Christ!

Just before we left on our second furlough, the Sugisawas, whose son Shu was Paul's best friend, took us out to a lovely steak house. In the car, Mr. Sugisawa asked for the first time to know more about Jesus Christ, and we were able to witness to the family extensively. They, too, had been very impressed with the changed lives of their two children!

Mr. Sugisawa then told us this story about our son. We had limited Paul to four hours a week of anything with a screen (television, computer games, videos), but he was so careful at it we started letting him keep track of his own time. Mr. Sugisawa, knowing our rule, one day decided to test Paul. He said, "Paul, play this game with me." Paul said, "No, Sugisawa San, I can't because I've already used up my four hours this week!" Sugisawa San said, "Hey, that's okay, Paul, I'll never tell your parents." Paul said, "I can't. It wouldn't be right!" It was this that decided Mr. Sugisawa to consider Christ!

Paul is in seminary in Pennsylvania now, soon to finish his M. Div. degree, after which he will pursue his Ph. D. in Greek linguistics, thus continuing the heritage given him by his bilingual missionary kid upbringing. And we couldn't be prouder of him! And we sure do miss him!

 

This is about one of the boys I mentioned in the previous post. I originally wrote it for kids, and I'm going to give it to you as is. :type:

THE STORY OF NORI
By John R. Himes, Missionary to Japan​

"Konnichiwa!" (Hello!) We are missionaries in Japan. We live on the northern island of Hokkaido now, but we used to live in Yokohama. It has three million people, but only one Protestant church for every 17,600 people. (How many churches are in your town?) That means we have to work extra hard to tell people about Jesus Christ, because there are very few Christians to witness to very many people.

We lived in an apartment with just four small rooms when we met Nori. Japan is a very crowded country, so most people in Japan live in apartments. In fact, everyone in our church lived in apartments. Do you have your own house with a big yard to play in? Nori would sure like to have lived in your house!

Nori and his mother and father and little sister moved in just above us on the third floor of our apartment building, and he soon became fast friends with "missionary kid" Paul Himes. The two boys, along with "Shu" and "Mitsuru" were inseparable. They loved playing baseball, "catch the goblin" (tag), squirt guns, "Nintendo" computer games (called "Famicon" in Japan, short for the English word "family computer") and many other games together almost every day.

On Sundays, the boys would always walk together to Sunday School with us at Konandai Baptist Church. There they enjoyed many wonderful Bible stories, especially the ones about Jesus, who died on the cross to save us from our sins and rose again from the grave. One day Nori bowed his head in Sunday School and trusted Jesus Christ as his Savior. How happy he was to find out that he was going to go to Heaven someday!

Nori wanted to be a good Christian, so along with Paul, he always stayed over for the worship service. How happy he was when he got permission from his "Otohsan" (father) to baptized! That meant he could show everyone in public how he loved Jesus and wanted to follow Him, and he could become a member of our church! One Sunday after the service, all was ready, and Nori was finally baptized, along with Mrs. Tamura. The whole church was happy for them!

However, not all was well in Nori's home. His mother and father started fighting a lot. One time Nori's daddy threw a flowerpot at his mother, all the way down from their apartment on the third floor! Nori and his little sister were worried--what would happen? One day Nori sat on my lap and wept his eyes out for a full fifteen minutes, worried so much about the future.

One day the worst Nori could think of happened. His mother and father didn't want to live together anymore. His mother moved away with his little sister--would he ever see her again? Worse yet, Nori's father announced that they were moving, all the way up North to live with Grandfather and Grandmother. He would have to leave his apartment, his friend Paul the "missionary kid" and his Japanese friends. He would also have to leave the church, where he learned the Bible, learned to follow Jesus, and had many other friends, brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ.

Nori did move, and we haven't heard from him since. His father told us he would give us their new address, but forgot. We know there is at least one good church in Nori's new town, and we hope he is going there. But one thing we know--we will see him in Heaven someday! We are glad we came to Japan as missionaries. Don't you wish you could be a missionary, and tell people about Jesus?

 

Teaching Mr. Abe​

When a missionary begins language school, oftentimes he or she must make crucial decisions on the matter of balance. Some missionaries elect to spend 100% of their time on language study and do nothing for the Lord until they have the language. These people often do not learn how the people think and talk on the street, get discouraged and quit. Others do not enjoy language study, and find all sorts of worthy projects to feel like they are doing something as a missionary: painting the church, going on long evangelistic trips, fixing cars for people, etc. These people often do not get the language, get discouraged and quit.

After reaching Japan in 1981, by God‘s grace I tried to take the middle road. While I spent 35 to 40 hours a week in language study, I also got out every week on visitation and on street evangelism in front of the train station. In this way I learned colloquial Japanese (as opposed to language school Japanese”) and gained experience in conversing with the average Japanese in their society and culture.

I am very grateful to the senior missionary with our board in those days for giving me an English Bible study to teach at the church. There was only one student, Mr. Abe (pronounced Ah-beh), but he was very attentive and a joy to be around.

Mr. Abe spoke English well and had the potential to be a great linguist. I say that because he shared with me that he learned his English from reading the Bible! He was reading a paraphrase that I would not recommend, but he was still learning good English from it.

He also went to church at a Baptist Renmei (“Convention”) church, the Japanese version of the Southern Baptists. I have no idea how good a church it was, but at that stage in my career I supposed it would at least preach the Gospel. That was before I learned that some of the Southern Baptist missionaries I was going to language school with were theological liberals or neo-orthodox!

At any rate, I developed some simple lessons on Bible subjects for Mr. Abe, and we always enjoyed our study together. One day he came to church and said to me, “Well, Himes San, I did what you told me to last week.”

“Huh? What was that?” I said, having no idea what I had told him to do. “You know, what you said about turning from your sin in repentance and to the Lord in faith!” Wow! He was listening!

Time passed. We moved to Yokohama to start a church. One day we received a letter from Mr. Abe saying that he had moved to the other side of Tokyo and started a house church! We lost track of each other, but occasionally I think of Mr. Abe and thank God for the power of His Word!

 

Fearing the Future​

“I got your tract, and I would like to talk with you, please. I need counseling,” the young lady’s voice said. Of course I immediately invited her over, and within a few days she was at our house. Patty brought her a hot drink as we sat down at the kitchen table.

“How can I help you?” I asked. Miss Nakajima was a lovely, sweet young lady of 27 years old, but deeply disappointed that she was not married yet. She didn’t know it yet, but that was just the Holy Spirit working on her heart.

“You know,” I said, “There are many married couples who are not happy at all. Even if you were to get married there is no guarantee you would be happy.” She nodded her head in agreement. She saw the point immediately. “What you really need,” I went on, “Is for the Lord Jesus Christ to save your soul. Then as you do His will you will find true happiness.” And then I opened my Bible and told her the wonderful old story of God’s love and salvation. Right there at our kitchen table she bowed her head and received Christ as Savior.

It wasn’t too long before I was able to baptize Miss Nakajima. It was such a blessing to see her faithfulness to the Sunday service, and she even came to prayer meeting. Then one day she said something that completely shocked us.

“Pastor, may I talk to you?” she asked. “I have to quit coming to church.” Well, that got our attention!

“Why?” I asked. “What could be the problem?”

“Well,” she replied, “Mr. Himoro asked me to marry him, and I turned him down, so it would be a loss of face to him for me to stay in the church.”

Well, this certainly blew us away. Mr. Himoro and his twin brother were also very faithful to the Lord, but we had no idea he was even interested in getting married, much less that he liked Miss Nakajima. And he was not really her type, though he truly loved the Lord. She was sophisticated, he was a road worker. She spoke beautifully, but he stuttered. She dressed in lovely outfits, he wore his blue jeans. Very sadly, we pointed Miss Nakajima to another church not too far from where she lived.

Several years went by, and then one day there was a knock on our church door after the Sunday morning service. Lo and behold, there was Miss Nakajima with her pastor. We invited them in, and sat down with them to talk. She was faithful to her church, was the Sunday School teacher, played the piano and sang special numbers. I could tell her pastor was a little worried that I’d invite her back to our church. But no, all she wanted to do was thank us for leading her to Christ! And someday in Heaven, we will have wonderful fellowship once again.

 

Whenever I tell a story of someone getting saved I have to think, "What hath God wrought?!" We certainly can't do it. All glory to God, amen? :godisgood:

 

Hi, Tony.

Welcome to the Baptist Board! :wavey:

Thank you for the excellent link. I'll check those Japanese websites out!

I have a missionary friend here on Hokkaido who has a website in both Japanese and English with a Gospel presentation, Bible studies and other resources. He's made some contacts and had some people do his studies. Here it is: http://city.hokkai.or.jp/~repent/

As for myself, I'm working on a new, copyright free Japanese NT translation. later this year, God willing, the Gospel of John will be finished with the field testing, and I hope to get it on the Internet at that time. I've not decided quite how to do it yet, so maybe those websites will give me some ideas.

God bless!

 

MIKI AND HER BEAUTIFUL HOPE

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Let me introduce you to a young Japanese girl, Miki (pronounced me key)." Her name means "beautiful hope," and has nothing to do with a mouse at Disneyland! I only met Miki once. She was in 7th grade, only it is called "1st grade middle school" in Japan. Miki never once worshipped with us at Konandai Baptist Church, she never was baptized and she never did even come to a Bible study or a youth group meeting at our church. But still, I feel sure we'll see her in Heaven, and then you can meet her too.

We like to pass out tracts in Japan about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We give them to people we meet, put them in mailboxes (that's illegal in America, so don't try it), pass them out in front of schools, and give them at train stations to people coming home from work or school. We had 10,000 copies of one tract I wrote printed, and were very excited about giving them out. I'm not sure where Miki got it, but one of those 10,000 went to her!

Miki wanted to be a novelist when she grows up, so she had fun writing letters to us. Miki's first letter went like this: "In the tract you said that if we believed in Jesus Christ, we ought to quit worshipping idols. What did you mean by that?" I was happy to write her and explain that you can't pray to a Buddhist statue or to one of the eight million gods of Shintoism, the ancient religion of Japan, and worship the true God at the same time!

Miki wrote me again, only this time she asked a strange thing of me. She asked that I not put any return address on the envelope, so that her family would not know she was writing to a foreigner—especially a Christian pastor! In spite of her fear, thought, she wrote me again and again, wanting to know more about our wonderful Jesus! Finally came the letter I treasure the most. Mike wrote, "I think I'll believe in this Jesus!"

As the months went by, Miki learned more and more about how to be a good Christian through our letters. Then one exciting day, we got a telephone call. It was Miki, with a friend, and she wanted to meet me and wanted her friend to hear about Jesus, too! I hurried down to the church building, where I met the two girls, and spent a short time talking to them. To me, the fact that Miki really wanted her friend to hear about Jesus, too, shows that she really did believe in Him, even though she never worshipped with us in Sunday morning church.

In December of that year, Miki wrote again, this time a very serious letter. What should she do about hatsumode (pronounced hah-tsu-moe-deh)? Her school friends had invited her to go with them, but she didn't know what to do!

"Hatsumode" is on New Year's Day, the biggest holiday of the year in Japan. On that day, the Japanese people go to Shinto shrines to worship idols, and to ask blessing on the new year from some of the eight million gods that the national religion of Japan claims to have. In fact, even to walk through the torii, the Japanese gate at the entrance to the shrine, is supposed to be a prayer to the idols.

I wrote Miki to tell her that she must not worship idols, since that is an insult to the only true God. Maybe she should just wait for her friends outside the shrine while they went in. While they prayed to the idols she could pray in her heart to the only true God and His Son Jesus Christ. We waited anxiously for Miki's answer.

Her next letter came in January. Miki did not worship at the shrine, but waited outside for her friends, and prayed to Jesus Christ instead! How happy we were for her!

Miki never did come to our church, but remained a secret believer, afraid of her family. Unfortunately our church had to move to a believer’s home while we were on furlough, and we never heard from her again. Sometimes I like to think of this precious girl, and when I do I think of her as faithful to a church somewhere, maybe after she went off to college. And I look forward to meeting her for the second time some day—in Heaven, of course!

 

I believe that the best way for children to learn to serve God is as they do it growing up. So we always went on evangelism as a family once a week. Afterwards we would stop somewhere for a snack--making evangelism a special time in our family!

I'v been looking over prayer letters from our first term in Japan, 1981-1986. It's been so long since I read them, I had forgotten a lot of these events! Here are a couple of times not just the Dad, but other members of the family contributed.

Little Paul and the Girls!​

We had one especially thrilling and unusual event in October. On a Wednesday evening, two girls came into the service for a few minutes before their night school class started. Many 9th and 12th graders in Japan go to night school to prepare for the difficult high school and college entrance exams. The girls were fascinated by the blond flair, blue eyes and fair complexion of little Paul (not to mention his sparkling Himes’ personality!). Afterwards, Dr. Norton dealt with both girls, and they professed faith in Christ! The next Sunday, the girls came to the English Bible class. John teaches in the afternoon, bringing three friends. The lesson was on baptism, making it easy to present the Gospel, with a faithful class member, Mr. Abe interpreting. In the meantime, Paul switched laps occasionally, and quietly charmed his girlfriends. (Don’t worry, he’s only one year old!) At the end of the class, another girl was saved! Praise the Lord for the littlest missionary.

Mother and Son,
from November 1984 Prayer Letter​

I’m very proud of Patty, who was able to witness in Japanese in October after much, much study. For a busy housewife and mother with no great language ability, she’s doing well.

Four-year-old Paul is also witnessing for Christ. The other day he got slugged by a neighbor boy who didn’t want to hear about Jesus, and came crying home. We explained to him that he now had “great reward in Heaven,” so he took courage, and the next day was back at it, asking for tracts to give the men who were moving our neighbors out!

Patty's English Class​

We have seen two saved recently through Patty’s English conversation class for ladies. Mrs. Maruyama’s 13-year-old daughter had just gotten saved when the Lord called her to Heaven. That made it easy for Patty to win the mother to Christ after she asked, weeping, “Where is my daughter?” Mrs. Maruyama received the Savior! Mrs. Maruyama’s neighbor saw the change in her life, and so it came to be that Mrs. Nemoto also trusted Christ, weeping from conviction!

 

Amen, Sopranette! The doctrines of salvation have such comfort in them.

I just got back from evangelism with Mr. Habazaki. He forgot and slept in, but cell phones are so nice--I called him and got him up, and he was grateful because he enjoys our friendship. Then on the way to take him home I took a picture with my cell phone of our beautiful Mt. Taisetsu ("Great Snow") since it is a clear, cloudless day. I'm going to try to put the picture here on this post. Hokkaido has such beautiful scenery!

Well, shucks, the upload failed. But you can check out a previous picture of the mountain as seen from our church on our website.

 

Shy Little Mana​

“Pastor Himes, may we talk to you after the service?” said Mr. Ishikawa (not his real name). He was a successful businessman, a manager at the Japanese branch of IBM. He and his wife and their little girl were such a blessing to us while they came to our church. Unfortunately they were only with us for a short time while they waited for the condominium they had bought in Tokyo to be finished.

“Of course,” I answered, wondering what the subject of our talk would be. After the service we all sat down in a circle, with Mana sitting between her parents. Mr. and Mrs. Ishikawa had named their daughter Mana, the Japanese transliteration for the manna in the Bible, meaning to them that she was a gift from Heaven. She was a sweet but quiet girl of about twelve at the time.

“Pastor Himes,” said Mr. Ishikawa, “We would like you to baptize Mana, please.”

“Okay,” I replied, “Let me talk to her a little bit.” I turned my attention to Mana and said, “When did you trust Jesus Christ as your Savior?”

Mana didn’t answer right away, but only looked at her Mother for reassurance. The same pattern followed for all of my questions. She evidently was depending on her mother to think for her!

Finally I turned to Mrs. Ishikawa and said, “Sister Ishikawa, Mana does not seem to have assurance of salvation. Now, since she looks to you for the answer to everything I ask her, I suggest that you begin talking with her often about the Lord Jesus Christ. Since you are her mother, you have the best chance of leading her to Jesus Christ. Then we can talk about baptism.”

I shared with them how they could raise their precious little girl in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and try to lead her to Christ. They went home promising to do their best.

The time came when the Ishikawa family had to move away, and Mana was still not saved. We very reluctantly said goodbye, but were encouraged in the work by something the couple told us. “We watched your marriage and listened to your preaching. Now we feel much closer as a couple. We like to go on long walks together, and we enjoy each other’s company.”

Quite some time went by, and then we received a postcard from the Ishikawas. “Dear Pastor and Mrs. Himes: We are happy to tell you that Mana has trusted Christ as Savior, and will be baptized in our church.” How we rejoiced with our friends! Shy little Mana had entered the Kingdom of Christ.

Some time passed. One Friday I was returning from teaching at the Bible institute in Tokyo when I took a break at Yokohama Train Station. This station is huge, with a large underground mall. Feeling down and discouraged about our ministry, I thought maybe stopping for an ice cream bar would cheer me up. I bought my ice cream and sat down in a booth to feel miserable.

Suddenly I felt someone standing next to me. I looked up and lo and behold, there stood Mana, now a high school student! “Hello, Sensei” (“teacher,” the address used for pastors in Japan), she said brightly. And then she proceeded to cheer me up better than all the ice cream in the world could. “Thank you, Sensei, for everything you did!” And Mana, a gift from God, walked away with her friend, leaving behind her one very encouraged missionary!

 

Kio San​

It was winter in the city of Tokorozawa, “The Place of the Marsh.” Kio San was a young medical student who had been reading the Bible, searching for the truth! His heart was full of cold bitterness, colder than the Saitama Prefecture weather that winter, and he knew it. He did not want to continue living that way, but wanted to know how to forgive people.

I preached on I Cor. 13 on the day after Valentine’s Day, and Kio San was deeply touched by Christ’s love for His enemies on the cross. After the service I knelt by the window and prayed with him. Before prayer, I asked him if he wanted to believe in Christ, and he answered, “Yes, I want to. I hope I can!”

Because his English is excellent and I was still learning the Japanese language, he prayed a beautiful prayer of repentance in English, asking God to take away the barriers of hate he had put up against those who have offended him, and to save him! After prayer I asked if he believed in Christ as his Savior, and he answered with a light in his eyes, “Yes. Yes, I think I do.” Then, in answer to my question about God’s love in his heart, since bitterness was the particular sin the Holy Spirit had dealt with him about, he said, “Yes, I feel it!”

When we rose from our knees, he looked out the window in amazement and said, as if noticing for the first time, “The sun is shining!” And the Son was truly shining in his heart, as is evidenced by the many questions at the next English Bible Class.

 

Where in the World Did They Sleep?​

Where do you sleep if you have a grand piano in your bedroom, and your bedroom is only six by nine feet or so? We were visiting the Nohse family when we learned the answer to this riddle.

They lived in a “bed town” apartment in our suburb of Konandai, Yokohama. There were literally thousands of these apartments in our area. In one square mile which I evangelized, there were no houses, only about 10,000 bed town apartments. Mr. Nohse worked down in Tokyo as did thousands of men in our area, and his three room apartment was only for nighttime in his mind, since he left very early for work and came home very late. Sometimes he worked such late hours that he would sleep at the company! But his family had to live in those three rooms all the time.

The Nohse family came for the first time to our Christmas program in December, 1987. In 1988 Mrs. Nohse and her daughter, Tomoko, continued coming. We visited them at home in January, and dealt with Mrs. Nohse about her soul. She wept for about fifteen minutes after casting her burdens on the Lord. Among other burdens, she was due for throat surgery on March 22nd. Sweet little Tomoko received Christ at that time, and we thought Mrs. Nohse had been saved too, but her little boy, Tadamasa, was not yet ready.

We rarely ever saw Mr. Nohse since he was so busy with his job. Japanese “salary men” are often slaves to their company, since the Japanese Supreme Court ruled in favor of the company in a famous case. The office worker who brought the suit only wanted to be able to say no to overtime, but it was not to be. According to the Japanese Supreme Court, the companies of the country are more important than the men, and so the workers cannot refuse overtime.

Let’s get back to the piano, which you may still be wondering about. Mrs. Nohse was a graduate of the second best music college in all of Japan and was proud of it. Thus, she kept her grand piano in her tiny, three room apartment. One day they invited us over for konomiyaki (“fry like you want it,” a kind of vegetable pancake), and we were able to see the whole apartment.

There was a bedroom for the two kids, an LDK (living room, dining room and kitchen all rolled into one), and another bedroom for Mr. and Mrs. Nohse, and oh yes her mother who lived with them! And where did they sleep? Why, under the grand piano, of course! There was room for all three adults, because this wasn’t a baby grand but a full sized grand piano!

For the next year we were glad to see Mrs. Nohse and her daughter come faithfully to church. It was fun to get to know them, and Mrs. Nohse was happy to introduce us to other parts of her fascinating culture. Once she took us for hanami, which literally means “flower viewing” but is so much more.

For hanami the Japanese put down a blanket under the blossoming cherry trees, and enjoy a picnic. Unfortunately, many Japanese also use it as a time to get drunk and carouse, but fortunately for us Mrs. Nohse knew a place where few people came. The two families had a wonderful picnic together, seven people—not including poor Mr. Nohse who was no doubt slaving away at the company that day.

As I mentioned, Mrs. Nohseh had made a profession of faith that January of 1988, but then early in 1989 came clean and said she hadn’t really meant it! We continued praying for her and with her until finally, in a Bible study in her home on February 22, she said quietly that she was ready to believe in Jesus! After prayer, she had a little trouble with the Resurrection of Christ. When we explained that if you didn’t believe that, you couldn’t be saved, it turned out that her major problem was with the meaning of it. When she understood that, she readily confessed Christ as her Risen Savior!

Mrs. Nohse and Tomoko came faithfully for awhile longer, but then they chose for some unknown reason to attend another church. Last we heard they were still faithful to the Lord, and we are thankful for that, and glad we will see them in Heaven someday. But we will never forget that grand piano in the tiny bedroom, under which three adults had to spread their futon mats every night and sleep!