Chapter 5 - Call To Me

Hot sultry air hung heavily over the little Kashiwara church that late September morning as forty or fifty members gathered reverently for Sunday worship. Three typhoons had swept across Japan that month with tragic consequences, and still, cooler autumn weather had not descended.

But their thoughts were not on the weather as they padded softly to their pews in their stocking feet. Japanese courtesy forbad anyone turning to look, or smile, or whisper politely, but an undercurrent of excitement was there, kept patiently under control, for their own Miss Peggy had returned with her bridegroom.

With well-disciplined reverence, the Lord Himself was kept the center of attention as Rev. Umehara led the service, with the rustling of paper fans the only sound above the prayers and hymns. When volunteers were asked to pray, a diminutive grandmother was one of the first to respond.

Sato San also responded and those present were deeply moved as he prayed, for they had recently been greatly burdened on his behalf. For three years he had gone through a spiritually dry period and been powerless before the Lord. Through their prayers he had received the deep mercy of the Lord’s forgiveness, and his restoration had led to a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the entire congregation, resulting in a number of unbelievers soon being led to Jesus.

When the service was over there were many bows and smiles for the newlyweds, for the believers were delighted to have Peggy and I come to live among them, to continue the work of country evangelism and assist the churches in reaching their neighbors for Jesus Christ.

We had moved into the Bees’ home in Furuichi, and that evening a few of the same believers met again there, beginning a ministry that continued in the same way every Sunday evening. After a time of prayer we went out to witness to the 8,000 inhabitants of this little town, taking with us a drum, my accordian, and any other musical instrument available that might help stir interest and draw listeners.

The people did not flock around to listen to our music and turn easily to the message of the Savior. For like the rest of this fascinating but idolatrous nation, this area is largely Satan’s domain. Those bringing the message of the Cross are heavily outnumbered. After about a half hour meeting on the streets, our little group returned to our home for a weekly evangelistic meeting, bringing with them those few people who were interested. Sunday after Sunday fifteen or twenty believers served the Lord faithfully in this way.

Not long after we had established our home in Furuichi, a headline appeared in a special newspaper which read: “9,500 ADHERENTS IN TWO DAYS!” Had the people responded to the Gospel message? Far from it! These were new converts to the Tenrikyo Sect, won as the result of a special festival. This sect is said to be the largest of many religious groups that flood Japan. The headquarters where this festival was held was not far from our home, so we visited it one day, grieved to see the many thousands of people thronging the center, which could house up to 200,000 guests during these special events.

Peggy and I soon found that, as at Habikino, the Lord had prepared the way before them with His own precious witness among the patients. At Shimada His treasure was Mrs. Azuma, who had entered the hospital in 1950. Life had been hard for her. Little food and long hours of work during the war so undermined her health that she contracted tuberculosis. She tried to hide her condition at first, for if she entered the hospital, who would care for her two little sons?

But the unhappy day came when hospitalization could be put off no longer. Her husband took another woman in her place and she became not only an invalid, but a castout wife as well. How Mrs. Azuma hated the woman who had usurped her position in the home but this hatred for another made her conscious of the sin in her own heart that could cause such hatred. It was during this time of desperation and utter loneliness that Mrs. Azuma found the Savior, at the invitation of a visiting Christian. She responded to His loving words, “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will qive you rest,” and found it true.

Though with little hope of physical recovery, her condition did not seem so important any more, and the Lord put love in her heart toward this woman she had hated so much. She asked for a few days leave from the hospital to go visit this woman and permission was granted.

Gomen kudasai, “please forgive me,” she called, standing at the door of her own home as if she was a stranger. Her husband was not at home, and his new mistress, suspicious of Mrs. Azuma’s intentions, responded with stiff politeness.

“I love you,” Mrs. Azuma said softly to the hostile woman standing before- her. I know you’ve taken my place as my husband’s wife. I know you’re caring for my children and my husband. I’ve just come to tell you that I love you, and that if God heals me I’m quite willing to come to this house to become your servant, to win you and my family to Jesus Christ.”

Tears filled the eyes of the astonished mistress, who had never expected to hear such words. The Lord Himself didn’t expect Mrs. Azuma to pay such a tremendous price.

On her return to the hospital, Mrs. Azuma became a radiant witness for Jesus in this dark place also, telling her fellow patients in the ward about the Savior Who loved them. When we came to minister in Shimada Hospital, there were conversions from the time they began, for Mrs. Azuma’s gentle testimony had prepared the way, and she had led some of the patients to Christ even before we appeared on the scene.

Mrs. Azuma went home to the Lord on December 18, 1960. For ten faithful years she had been a shininq light in the dark sorrows of Shimada Hospital, having never recovered enough to be discharged.

Her loss was keenly felt at the Mission because of the blessing she had been to so many and the great encouragement she had been to Peggy and me in our first years of hospital witnessing. The possessions she left behind were valueless to human eyes, but her all, which was about four dollars, was left in her will to the Japan Mission. It was to be used for the salvation of needy souls who were sick, as she had been, with tuberculosis. This offering was one of the most precious Christmas gifts we had ever received.

Mrs. Azuma left one other treasure behind — a little story she had once written about her Lord:

Daybreak

The Lord Jesus looked back and saw me and asked,
“Why do you follow me?”

Trembling I answered, “Please let me, if I am not in Your way!”
I could not venture to say more than that.

Jesus turned around and spoke to me again.
“Have you any request?”

All flustered I replied, “Please save my family.”

Jesus just quietly said, “Follow me.”

Because Jesus kept walking on and on in silence, my heart began to get ruffled, and I nearly lost sight of Him. Jesus turned once more and asked, “Why do you get so weary, and why are you so joyless?”

I seized hold of His garment and said, “Oh, I am so weak. Please let me rest, and please talk to me till daybreak!”
Daybreak had come at last for Mrs. Azuma. Death, where is your sting! Grave, where is your victory!

One bitterly cold, bleak day in January we made our way up to Habikino Hospital as usual and entered one of the wards, trusting God to lead us to some prepared heart. Miss Konishi, whose name means “Little West” seemed to be the one. As we approached her bed in the large ward we could see that this was no ordinary day for her, for her face shone with a light rarely seen in the gloom of a tuberculosis ward. She poured out her story of how God had done two outstanding miracles for her within a very short time, so that her life could never be the same again!

Little West had been admitted to the hospital with a huge egg-sized cavity in one lung. It was not likely to heal within ten years time without a major operation, the doctors informed her.

Within a few months after entering the hospital, another patient led her- to Jesus. Only a few weeks passed before she faced the first major test of her new-found trust in God. On December 31st her whole body began to shiver, terrible pain attacked her head, and she was diagnosed as having meningitis. She was told that major brain surgery was immediately essential if her sanity was to be saved. It was scheduled for January 9th.

Little West recalled that she had read in the Bible that Jesus had suffered and died on the cross for our sicknesses as well as our sins, – “by whose stripes ye are healed,” and she brought this before the Throne of Grace.

When the final examination was made before brain surgery, the doctors were utterly confused, for her desperately acute condition had completely and miraculously cleared up.

Would not the God who had done one such a wonderful miracle do another in answer to prayer? She was compelled to think so, and soon the conviction grew in Little West’s heart that the cavity had in fact gone. Shortly afterward an X-ray was taken and wonder of wonders – it had! Praise God! Again the doctors were completely bewildered, and took two more X-ray’s before being convinced that a miracle had indeed taken place.

Little West told us that when she was released from the hospital she would like to work with us in hospital visitation.

Not long after we came to live in Furuichi, I bought a motorbike for the many trips to surroundinq villages and hospitals which we must make each week. Traveling on foot was much too slow, and it was simply not possible to carry my wife, an accordion and myself on a bicycle.

I rode in the front on this secondhand motorbike and Peggy in back. But since it had only two gear shifts, whenever we came to a steep hill we confronted a problem. I would go up as fast as possible in order to make it all the way to the top, but usually could only go part of the way. The engine was too weak and the gears not properly matched to make it over the crest of the hill. Peggy would have to get off and walk the rest of the way to the top while I rode. This caused many smiles and laughs from the Japanese looking on, but fortunately Peggy had a sense of humor and could laugh too as she struggled up the hill and climbed on the back of the motorbike behind me again at the top.

One day as we were cycling home after visiting at one of the hospitals, I noticed from a distance that a young man was waiting at our door. I groaned, for Peggy and I were very tired from having conversed in Japanese for several hours. The language was still so new that our heads often ached from the effort of trying to think in Japanese.

Now I’ll have to speak Japanese some more, I thought, and I sure don’t look forward to that. I hope the man doesn’t stay long. I’m just too tired!

On reaching the house we opened the door and invited our guest to come in. We learned that he was a Bible student from a school in another community. Peggy served some tea, I prayed with him, and then gave a big sigh of relief when the young man finally left the house and started off.

But he walked away very slowly. After a few hundred yards he turned around and came even more slowly back to their door again. Bowing low he murmured, Gomen kudasai, “I’m so sorry.”

Bowing again he said, “I’m so sorry to trouble you, but I do not have enough train fare to got back to the Bible College. Would you be able to help me get back? Could you find some way for me to get the money for buying a ticket?”

I gave him the money, and when the young man went his way I hurried to my room, smitten in conscience before the Lord. “I’m so ashamed!” I cried. “You sent one of your needy children to my home, and I did not sense his need! I’m so sorry he had to humiliate himself by asking me for the money, when I should have known. I should have asked You about his needs!”

And then I made a promise to the Lord which has not been broken since. “I promise You,” I prayed, “that I will never again allow one of Your servants to cross our threshold without asking You about his need.”

This new lesson in faith taught me that I could not even handle my money wisely without the guidance of God’s Holy Spirit. Even in my decisions about giving I must be wholly dependent upon the Lord.

One day a well known minister from one of the southern islands of Japan opened our front door and called, “Gomen kudasai”.

We invited him in, served him a meal and had wonderful fellowship with him. He t1hon told us that he was on the way to Tokyo, and prepared to leave. As he went to the door and was putting on his shoes Peggy and I looked at each other and wondered if the Lord did not want us to give him some money to help him on his way. Quickly we decided that the Lord wanted us to give him 5,000 yen (about $15).

As I handed him the envelope I said, “This is some money to help you with your expenses on the way.”

He was so moved he could scarcely speak. When he regained control of his emotions he told us that at the big Osaka station that day, about an hour’s journey from our home, his briefcase had been stolen with all his money in it. He had been trusting God to provide him the money for a ticket to Tokyo.

How glad we were in those moments that we were sensitive to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and had given him enough money to pay for his ticket and help him on his way.

In April of 1955, a Tent Mission was scheduled in Furuichi for the week before rice planting time. Although God blessed this effort, I was vaguely dissatisfied. Spring is a busy season for farmers, and for six weeks they work almost day and night to get the young rice plants into the fields. The children stay away from school, friends come from town, people leave their workshops, and the wives leave their chores in order to get the rice planted in time. The Japanese say that “even a cat’s paw helps” in getting the rice plants out.

But it is difficult to get country people to attend meetings at any time, before or after rice planting. They seem to be completely taken up with endless rounds of village, business and political activities all year. In the summer months, those who come to meetings must wait until after sunset has ended their working day and the evening meal is finished. By that time it is often nine o’clock, and the people are so physically exhausted that listening carefully to the strange, new ideas of the missionaries often proves too difficult and they fall asleep.

The winter presents its own problems, with cold and snow making tent meetings uncomfortable and the listeners restless.

Country evangelism is slow, difficult work that takes months and even years in an area to show even meager results. Yet within a radius of one hundred miles of our home there were over 1201 hospitals, many of them with several hundred patients. As the months passed during which we worked both in the country villages and in the hospitals, we became increasingly aware of the vast difference in opportunity. It was very hard to get people together in country evangelism, but large numbers of people in the hospitals were showing a great hunger for Christ. Gradually a vision was born in our hearts for concentrating our efforts more completely on hospital evangelism, and we began making this vision a matter of earnest prayer.

More hospitals wore opening up for us than we could manage. The doctor in Kokubu Hospital was so anxious to have us come that he actually sent a taxi to bring us to his hospital. Word was spreading from hospital to hospital of the changes taking place in the patients as a result of our ministry.

Such wide open doors and so many eager listeners led us to bring our concern to the Council of the Japan Evangelistic Band. We asked for permission to specialize entirely in this hospital ministry, as soon as we returned from our furlough which was due soon.

Our request was denied. “Our vision is mainly for country evangelism,” we were told, “conducting tent meetings and children’s work. We really do not see any way in which we could fit such highly specialized work as you envision into our program.”

We had reached an impasse. We knew we could not abandon the hospital work, yet neither could we continue to let it develop after our return from furlough, and still remain as missionaries under the Japan Evangelistic Band. Day after day Peggy and I cried to the Lord For His solution to this impossible dream.

A more immediate problem also burdened us in prayer. During our absence on furlough, there would be a great need for some pastor, missionary or Japanese worker to help carry on the work of evangelism at Habikino Hospital.

Shigeo Masuda, bothered by his conscience, had often lain awake at night in Hahikino Hospital haunted by the angry face of his wife and the hatred in the eyes of his eldest son because he had ill-treated them. He had been so difficult to live with before his illness that they had been glad to see him leave and never came to see him in hospital.

But when I had come to see him, bringing the gift of salvation from a forgiving God, he yielded to the Lord in real repentence, confessing his sins, and was gloriously saved. As soon as he possibly could, Mr. Masuda returned to his family for a brief visit. During this short visit God’s healing love came into his home and the family was transformed. Real love was restored between husband and wife and between father and child.

Overjoyed, he returned to the hospital ready to take a still bigger step in faith. “Doctor,” he said, “I know I’m supposed to stay in the hospital for another three years, but I’d like to put Jesus to the test. Let me go without medicine for one month and give me permission to go out into the hills for prayer early every morning instead, while the other patients rest. After thirty days, if I am worse rather than better, you can put me back on bed rest.”

This seemed most unwise, and it was with great reluctance that the doctor agreed. Thirty days later he was amazed on examining Mr. Masuda again to find every trace of tuberculosis gone! But he feared a possible relapse, and advised a period of rest.

Mr. Masuda wrote at once to the business manager of the camera firm where he had been an employee, relating what had happened and saying he felt so well he would love to come to work at once. After considerable correspondence, however, it was decided he should not yet go back to work, since he was amply covered by insurance, but should wait for six months and remain in the hospital where he could be under medical observation.

So Mr. Masuda remained at Habikino Hospital, a well man, joyfully taking over the work of an evangelist to free Peggy and me for our furlough. In this wonderful way God answered our prayer, and caused Mr. Masuda’s period of “rest” to coincide with the term of our furlough. Mr. Masuda proved to be a remarkable witness, carrying on personal work, organizing and leading meetings with amazing energy and spiritual power.

But we had still one more problem, for we did not have enough funds to leave. I sold the motorbike to a fellow missionary for $220 and sold everything else I could. Some money came in as gifts; but we were still $300 short of our fare, though we prayed earnestly about this need.

One evening we decided to spend the whole night in prayer, begging the Lord for this additional $300 to buy our tickets. Right after the evening meal Peggy and I went to our room, got on our knees and began to pray. We hadn’t been on our knees more than half an hour before such peace came over us that we realized the Lord knew all about our need! Believing Matthew 6:23, “for your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things” we realized that we did not need to beg all night. Neither did we need to cry to God all night and treat Him as if He were deaf.

Slowly we were learning the way of faith. Jesus revealed to us clearly that if we simply trusted His ability, His greatness, leaving it in His hands in childlike faith, He would take care of the matter.

“Lord,” I prayed, as simply as I could, “I see it now. You know all about these needs! We’re going to trust You to supply this $300 in time, for You know that we need the money before this week is over.”

Peggy also thanked the Lord for hearing our request, and then we went to bed, falling quickly into a wonderfully peaceful sleep. The following morning on awakening we again thanked God that He was going to answer our prayers.

The next day as we visited the hospitals we announced to the Christian patients in each one, “The Lord is going to send us $300 this week, from somewhere, – we don’t know where,” It was safe to tell the patients, because they didn’t have any money to give.

God did not disappoint us for within a few days an anonymous gift of $300 arrived from England, and we started on our journey with great rejoicing.