Chapter 4 - In This Place

June is a lovely month in Korea, a time when its rugged mountainsides and greening valleys lie caressed by the warming sun, but lonely Sato San had no eyes for beauty. During each day he kept his motherless baby in the ice making plant with him, carrying her home again to care for each night. Occasionally one of the local girls would help look after her when he was especially busy at work. he had never been so tired, yet never before had he been more conscious of the quiet presence and blessing of the Lord.

He continued attending the little Presbyterian church in Pusan faithfully, and visited patients in the local hospital whenever he had a little free time and could find someone to look after the baby. He passed out tracts and told the sick of the love of Jesus, his heart heavily burdened for them. he knew the awfulness of tuberculosis only too well through the tragedy that had come to his own little family.

The care of his baby daughter became increasingly difficult, and after a year lie decided to take her to his parents’ home in Japan. He left her with them and returned to his work in Korea, able to visit them only once each year during his annual vacation. Soon after his return to Korea he left the ice making plant to work in a fish cannery where he was given a more responsible position.

The members of the church Sato San attended felt responsible to find a wife for him, and eventually arranged a marriage with a Japanese girl who occasionally came to church. Soon a little son was born to them. By this time war was raging across the continents of Europe and North Africa and throughout the Orient. One after another the men of the little church were conscripted into the Japanese army, until Sato San was one of only a few left, rejected for military duty because of his poor eyesight.

The financial support of the church evaporated with the loss of its men so that the minister could not afford to continue as pastor. He resigned to become a school teacher. Sato San was left with full responsibility for the church in addition to his job. He willingly conducted tile Sunday morning services each week and continued visiting hospital patients on Sunday afternoons.

Japan was faring badly in the war. The first high hopes of a quick and certain victory faded as month after month went by. A year passed. Two years. Three. Finally even Sato San was conscripted into the Japanese army in Korea in spite of his limited vision, for they were reduced to taking almost anyone. But after three months of army training he was recalled to the cannery. The Japanese government had taken it over to make rations for the soldiers and he was needed to supervise the Koreans who worked there.

Japan had occupied Korea since 1910, but in August 1945 its rule ended. World War II was over, for Emperor Hirohito of Japan had surrendered to the allied forces. Elated with their new freedom, many Koreans treated the Japanese badly so that there was a great rush among them to return to Japan.

Because he was a Christian, Sato San had always treated the Koreans in the factory kindly and no personal animosity was directed toward him after the war. Even so, he now had another little daughter in addition to a son and felt it best to take his family home. He had been in Korea for almost ten years, but it was not longer a safe place for any Japanese. So many were waiting to return to Japan, including soldiers who had first priority, that it was impossible to book passages, for ships were few. Yet Sato San felt impelled to return and made this need a matter of earnest prayer.

The little brother and sister often clung tightly to their daddy, for the boat pitched and tossed in seas far too rough for such a small craft. Sato San’s little family along with a half dozen other passengers were on a six ton ship belonging to the cannery. They had been smuggled aboard in September by a sympathetic Korean for the trip across the Korean Straits. The crossing was so tortuous that the boat stopped at a small island off the coast of Japan for three days to allow everyone time to recover before proceeding.

Their ordeal at sea was not yet over however, for when the journey was resumed they discovered mines had been planted all along the coast which could explode at any moment. Sato San prayed earnestly for the safety of all in the boat. As he prayed a great peace cane into his heart, and God guided the little craft through all the dangers to a safe landing.

But September is typhoon season in Japan and this year was no exception. Just as the little boat arrived and unloaded its passengers, an especially severe typhoon struck. The railway system, already operating with difficulty because of the disastrous war, was knocked completely out of operation. Even if the trains had been running it would not have been possible to get tickets to their home near Osaka, for no one was allowed to travel during or just after the war without an important reason. Since they had been smuggled into the country it was impossible even to apply for a permit to travel.

For a week or two Sato San and his family stayed with a local fisherman who kindly offered them shelter, while they lived off the supply of rice they had brought with them from Korea. Sato San’s wife had a brother who lived about 50 miles away. They decided to go there until it would be possible to go on. It was with great difficulty that they reached her brother’s farm, walking almost all the way carrying the children on their backs. They stayed for a month, Sato San helping the brother tend his fields, for it was impossible to leave or even to send word to his parents, due to the typhoon damage.

Day after day Father Sato bowed low before the godshelf praying for his son, for a telegram had cone from Korea several weeks earlier saying that he was bringing his family home. That was the last that had been heard from them.

Day after day Mother Sato bowed before the little kitchen godshelf, praying for their safety, while her granddaughter watched, frightened for her daddy.

“They are surely dead,” Father ‘Sato said sadly one day.

“We must not give up hope. We must keep on praying,” said Mother Sato, for her little granddaughter’s sake rather than her own, for she too had given up hope.

Still the prayers must go on, for now that Minoru had joined the deceased ancestors he must be honored along with them. Father Sato rummaged through his papers until he found a picture of Minoru. With great ceremony he had the picture placed on the kamidana, making many bows and prayers to honor the son he thought was dead.

But even at that time Sato San was on his way home with his wife and children. He had eventually been able to get a train to Osaka, but the trip which usually takes only twelve hours kept them four days along the way. The trains were jammed with passengers and there were continual stops and delays and breakdowns when nothing moved, due to war arid typhoon damage.

It was a heartbreaking trip for Sato San as he saw how the beautiful, meticulously kept Japanese countryside and villages had been ravaged by war. His years in Korea had insulated him from its worst effects, which he was now seeing for the first time. As the train crept past Hiroshima tie saw how that great metropolis had bee n flattened arid ruined by the atomic bomb, arid he wept in anguish. Little more than ashes remained as a ghostly reminder of that awful holocaust. Would he find the city of Osaka also destroyed? What of his young daughter and his parents would he find them alive and well, or injured, or starving, or gone?

There was great joy in the Sato household when all were safety reunited, but there was no food with which to celebrate. People all over Japan were near starvation both during and after the war. Sato San had money, but no one wanted it, for there was no food to buy, but clothes as well as food were in great demand so that occasionally he was able to exchange some clothes for a bit ff food.

Since rice was rationed so severely that there was only enough for five days a month for his family, he immediately went to a hillside nearby and planted a field of potatoes. As soon as the leaves began to sprout he picked a few each day to cook with their bit of rice, to keep themselves alive until the potatoes were grown.

Soon the United States began to help Japan provide food rations and this aid, combined with the great resourcefulness of the Japanese people and their willingness to work hard, prevented the disaster of nationwide deaths from starvation.

Tuberculosis, always a problem in Japan, had reached epidemic proportions with the added hardships imposed by the war. Sato San soon began visiting the hospitals near his home just as he had in Korea ever since his first wife died. Streets that had been desolate during his boyhood were now more so than ever, and he was greatly burdened to bring the Gospel to his suffering people, especially those affected by this dread disease.

Shortly after his return he visited the little Kashiwara church were he had accepted Christ, and found it in a bad state. Miss Hoare had had to return to England at the outset of the war, and few Christians still attended the services there. In Furuichi, meetings had been discontinued completely.

Sato San began weekly prayer meetings near his home in Furuichi, and prayed for a minister to come help in the work of the two churches. The Lord answered by sending a young man who preached in Kashiwara in the morning and in Furuichi in the evening on Sundays. He was followed after a few months by a permanent pastor, Rev. Umehara.

Although Sato San continued helping in the churches and witnessing in the hospitals, he returned to his own home each time with a heavy heart, for his family still lived under the dark shadow of the godshelf–its evil influence continuing on his parents, wife and children. He had no authority to change this situation, for Father Sato would be head of the household as long as he lived, even though Sato San supported the family. The bad man insisted that he be supplied with money for his drinking, continued living his dissipated ways and refused to allow the godshelf to be removed.

Fortunately, soon after his return to Japan Sato San had been able to obtain employment with the government as a social worker, responsible for counseling young people who had been in trouble or in prison. His early experiences working in the reformatory now proved valuable, for this was an excellent job, usually available only to university graduates. It provided a very adequate income for his growing family, to which two more daughters were eventually added.

Early in 1954, upon completion of language school, Miss Peggy Davey was sent to Furuichi to live with Mr. and Mrs. William Bee, for practical experience in country evangelism. She helped in the Kashiwara and Furuichi churches that Sato San attended and assisted the Bees in children’s meetings in various places. They thought it would be good for her to also get some experience in personal work with the Bible woman, Miss Niwa, in Habikino Hospital which was located nearby.

Thus at 2:30 one Saturday afternoon Peggy and Miss Niwa left the house and walked to the end of the lane toward the hospital. Along the way they could hear the clippety-clop of the geta (wooden shoes) that many were wearing, and could see the women going to the local shops to buy their rice, vegetables and fish. They made their way about a mile past rice fields, struggled up a hill and arrived at the little village of Haneyu, which is near the attractive new buildings of the large tuberculosis hospital which would eventually house over a thousand patients.

They walked up the large drive and entered the hall, removed their shoes and stepped into the soft slippers provided at the door. After passing through various winding corridors they eventually came to a large ward where they expected to find a young widow, Mrs. Takeda, whose husband died of the dread disease only two years earlier.

Mrs. Takeda greeted them warmly. Through her efforts a little weekly gathering had been started in the. dining room attached to their ward. Since Peggy and Miss Niwa had arrived at about three o’clock, which is temperature-taking time, Mrs. Takeda waited until her temperature had been taken and then got out of bed, wrapped her kimono around her and went to find any others who might be interested.

While Mrs. Takeda notified the others and they were getting ready to gather in the dining room, Peggy and Miss Niwa went up to the next floor to visit Toshiko Nohara, through whose prayers the work in the hospital had begun. Toshiko had been suffering from tuberculosis for seven years, and had recently had an operation which made it necessary for tier to lie on her back from morning to night. Even so, she greeted them with a bright smile, and for several minutes they read the Bible and prayed together.

Toshiko’s father had been a Shinto priest, and her family showed little sympathy toward her Christian faith. She had spent five years in the hospital when one day another patient handed her a Bible, the first she had ever seen. She had no interest in the little black book, and soon handed it back to her friend, unread. But the monotony of a bedridden life became more and more unbearable as her health worsened. She explained to Peggy how she had finally been led to accept Jesus.

“One day a friend gave me a copy of St. Luke’s Gospel,” she said. “I wanted to believe but my mind was divided in two. One half wished to be good, and the other did not. But I was so unhappy that one evening I knelt under a large tree in the dark hospital garden, and while I gazed up at the stars of Orion I asked God to deliver me.

During that night I dreamed that in the same place where I had seen Orion, there was a great Cross shining brightly in the sky. The wonder of that dream is still fresh in my mind even now! For the first time I knew the meaning of the Cross, for it was as if God was watching me with hands outspread like that big cross. That night I gave my heart to God.”

Peggy’s eyes filled with tears as she heard Toshiko tell how she began praying for others in the hospital to come to know Jesus too. The prayers of this young woman, isolated in her room, had resulted in Peggy’s coming from half a world away, to help minister to these fellow patients! Toshiko had introduced Miss Niwa to Mrs. Takeda, and thus the little meetings had begun which Toshiko herself could never attend.

By the time Peggy and Miss Niwa returned to the dining room downstairs quite a few patients had gathered, both men and women, most of them quite young. Some of the patients wore white muslin masks over their mouths. This is common in Japan, for even in the streets it is not unusual to see someone with a cold wearing a mask in public.

The meeting begins with singing a hymn, though it is difficult to sing through the masks, and it brings on a coughing spell for some. After the hymn some time is spent in prayer, and then for about twenty minutes the story of salvation through Jesus is told to these eager listeners. When the meeting is over the patients bow again and again, thanking their guests most gratefully, sorry that the time is over.

Visiting hours end at five o’clock, but if there is a little time left after the meeting, Peggy and Miss Niwa call on one or two other bed-ridden patients before returning to the front hall, where they pull their shoes on again and start the sunset walk back to Furuichi.

Great interest was shown in these meetings, and the numbers grew rapidly. Rev. Umehara, the local pastor, helped to conduct them, and soon the meetings grew so large that it was necessary to move them to the newly built hall, where sixty or seventy could attend.

But Mrs. Takeda could not attend these meetings, for a discharge from her lungs had begun again, and she was not allowed to go that far from her room. Undaunted, we began another smaller meeting in the same little dining-room again, for those patients as ill as herself.

In May of that year, several weeks after the meetings had begun, the Rees returned to the mission headquarters in Kobe, leaving Peggy and Miss Niwa in charge of the work in Furuichi.

Each appointee under the Japan Evangelistic Band is sent to work with an experienced missionary couple right after language study is completed. Thus while Peggy was sent to help the Bees in Furuichi, I had been sent to Toyooka to help Mr. and Mrs. Gosden in country evangelism there.

Any romantic relationship between appointees was frowned upon until after two full years of training, so although I and Peggy had been mutually conscious of each other’s feelings for some time we had not been free to make it known. By spring of 1954, however, the two years had been completed and Peggy was able to send some happy news home to England in her monthly newsletter:

I want first of all to share with you some personal news which is a great joy to me and which brings with it a fresh revelation of the faithfulness and guidance of our Heavenly Father. On the 19th of April I became engaged to Neil Verwey (pronounced Fervay), one of the South African members of the Band. We do covet your prayers that in all the future way the Lord may be glorified and that our united lives together may count for His Kingdom in a way that they never could have apart.

I had arrived in Toyooka to work with the Gosdens in January of 1954. I had never seen snow before coming to Japan, and often wore three sweaters at a time indoors to keep warm, not to mention what was needed to keep warm outside!

“I think the Lord must have put me here in the heart of winter,” I said to the Gosdens, “to make me fit for mission work in the North Pole.”

Three feet of snow fell during the month of February, the weight of snow on the roof becominq so great that the doors of the house would not even open or close properly. During this month I gained my first experience shovelling snow. Although it was bitterly cold, I soon found myself wet with perspiration as I shovelled. It seemed to me that I shovelled tons of snow that month, and in front of the house a wall of snow built up until it was higher than my head.

During the cold weather the roads were slippery beyond description, so that often it was only with great effort that Mr. Gosden and I could reach the places where services were to be held. I discovered that it was nearly impossible to go by bicycle, and more than once I and my bicycle parted company in opposite directions. The meeting with mother earth was not always pleasant!

One Saturday afternoon we began cycling to Mie, a village about fifteen minutes away where a weekly children’s meeting was field. We had not gone far before we discovered that tile whole road was covered with a thick blanket of snow. We were the only ones on bicycles, for others were using sleighs.

“Will we have to go back?” I asked. “ThereÅfs no way to get through on our bicycles!”

“I hate to give up,” Mrs. Gosden said, “because the children will be terribly disappointed.”

Standing knee deep in snow we sent up a silent petition to the God of little children to allow us to get through. Suddenly we heard the roar of what sounded like a bulldozer in tile distance. I looked around arid discovered what was making such a noise.

The God who used the staff of Moses to divide the Red Sea for His children to have a road through, had sent a snow plough to open the way for the children’s meeting at Mie!

The words of Luke 3:4 flashed into my mind, “Prepare the way of the Lord!” I stood in awe, watching God work on my behalf. Once the snow plough had passed by, we followed it on our bicycles, watching it throw the white snow into the air onto the sides of the road. When the snow plough had gone as far as Mie, it suddenly turned around and started back. It had gone as far as we needed, and no further! with thankful hearts we pushed our bicycles the short way on to where the children had been waiting for us long past our usual time.

I was greatly relieved when the weather began to turn warm so that the snow began to melt, but was astonished one day to hear Mr. Gosden call, “Come on, Neil, Grab a shovel”

“Grab a shovel?” I asked, bewildered, “but the snow’s melting, and we’ve cleared all the paths.”

“I know,” Mr. Gosden laughed, “but now we have to deshovel the snow and spread it around so it will melt more quickly.”

I not only had to adapt to the cold and the snow, but also had to practice my newly acquired language on the neighbors. In Japan when one arrives in a neighborhood to live it is expected that he will take each of the neighbors a small gift. At Mr. Gosden’s suggestion, I bought sixteen little Japanese towels to give to each neighbor.

Carefully I practiced the correct phrase to use, repeating it in each home as I entered the door, bowing low. Nani mo shirimasen ga dozo yoroshiku. Wazuka na mono desu keredomo-I don’t know a thing, but please be greeted. This is a trifling thing

Okii ni, anata! Ookii ni anata!–“Thank you, thank you very much!” the woman said at the first home, bowing low and repeating her thanks over and over. I was astonished to find her reacting as though I had given her a thousand yen (dollars), rather than such a “trifling thing.”

In each home my gift was graciously received as I repeated my greetings and offered it. But arriving at one home I opened my mouth just in time to hear Mr. Gosden saying, Nani no shirimasen ga, dozo Åc

I stood like a statue, my mouth open, my well learned sentence inadvertently stolen! Now what could I say! I racked my brain for a suitable word, without success.

My burden for hospital evangelism had never left me since my first years as a Christian in South Africa. While in Toyooka when not assisting Mr. Gosden in country evanqelism I spent my spare time distributing tracts in the hospitals of the area. One morning I took some Gospels of John to a nearby hospital, hoping to receive permission to distribute them there. When the head nurse heard why I had come, she not only gave we permission, but came with me from bed to bed, actually carrying the packet of Gospels herself, even though she was not a Christian, she saw the importance of this little book for her despairing patients and was eager to give them good material to read.

It was at Kasumi, a small fishing town on the northwest coast of Japan near Toyooka, where I slept for the first time in a Japanese hotel. This time Mr. Gosden and I accompanied by a Japanese Christian to help with the tent meeting.

Gomen kudasai,–“Please forgive me. I’m an honorable nuisance,” each of us said as no walked through the door of the hotel. Immediately a few maids appeared, fell down on their knees on the wooden floor, politely placed their hands on the floor and bowed until their faces almost touched the back of their hands.

We bowed in return, then took off our shoes, slipped our feet into the heelless slippers provided, and followed the maids to a room. Can this be our room? I wondered, for there was not a single piece of furniture to be seen–not even a bed’

But there was no time to wonder, for no sooner had we sat down with our feet tucked under us than supper was brought in on several meal trays. I counted twenty bowls, little dishes, basins and cups with all sorts of strange-looking edibles,–or were they all edible? Among the delicacies I could recognize crab eggs and raw fish, but I could not figure out half of the items I tasted that evening, though it seemed safe to try anything that Mr. Gosden was eating.

Later on in the evening, after the evangelistic meeting was over, we returned to the room and found three futons rolled out on the floor to serve as mattresses, and another futon for each of us to use for a blanket. All of these were exactly the same thickness, well padded and soft. Each of us was given a pillow consisting of a bag filled with either rice husks or red beans. Pajamas were offered, but no towels, for we were supposed to supply our own. The bath tub was waiting for those who wanted a bath, but no soap must be used in the bath, for many people would be making use of the same water! It was a cold night, so the piping hot bath was very welcome.

The next morning before breakfast the “beds” were folded and packed away in another room, and breakfast served in the same way as the night before, on the floor. Soup, rice, seaweed, bitter green tea, a raw egg and several other such goodies were part of our breakfast. I broke my chopsticks trying to wrap some rice in the seaweed, but the understanding waitress politely brought me a new pair.

In spite of my difficulties with language and customs, Japan was becoming my home. God had brought me here, was helping me overcome these cultural barriers, and had prepared the right young woman to be my helpmeet in obeying God’s call. After I had spent several months with the Gosdens in Toyooka, Peggy and I were given permission to set a wedding date. We scheduled it for Thursday afternoon, September 9, 1954, at the Kobe headquarters of the Japan Evangelistic Band.

Our wedding day dawned clear and bright, although rain had been pouring down just the day before and two typhoons were heading toward Japan. Even the winds and sea obey Almighty God, and the lovely weather on that day added to the special sense of His Presence and His blessing on our marriage.

Approximately a hundred persons attended the ceremony, conducted by Mr. Bee in Kobe Mission Hall, which was decorated for the occasion with pink and white flowers. The text, “One shall chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight,” was printed in large letters over the platform.

Rev. Percy Luke, a fellow South African missionary spoke briefly on the text, “A threefold cord is not quickly broken,” impressing on us that we were not two, but three. The third Person was Jesus Himself. As long as He was kept central in our relationship, all would be well.

On Peggy’s finger I placed a very special gold ring. During all my time in Japan I had carried the little Africa-shaped gold piece with me. Before marrying Peggy I had the gold melted down and made into a wedding ring. “Peggy,” I explained, “You have to promise me, as I promised that lady, that if ever we are in need of food, this ring will have to he sold.” Peggy promised.

As I placed this ring on her finger, we both realized that through all the years to come, whenever she waved to me, this ring would be more than a sign of our happy married life and our life together in God’s service. It would also serve as a sign of God’s faithfulness to us for every time we looked at it we would realize that it would never have to be sold. Arid it never has.

After the wedding we spent several days by a beautiful lake at a mountain resort near Kobe for our honeymoon, and then went to Furuichi together to carry on the work of country evangelism there. We did not yet realize that God had been preparing us to bring about a very special plan, in this place.