VISITORS

I'd had to leave college for health reasons my junior year and was resting in the home in Okinawa. when a visitor came to the house.

"The sign on the wall says 'Missionary Oshiro', but...does Kimiko Kaneshiro live here?" That's my mother's maiden name. I invited him in, called my mother out to the living room. When she came out, The preacher almost cried.

"Finally! I've been looking all over for you!" the man exclaimed. "You don't recognize me Kimiko-Sensei, but I was one of the boys in your Sunday School class a long time ago who found the Lord.  I gave my life to God, went onto Bible School and have been pastoring over 30 years. I had to find you and thank you." 

My mother was sitting down now and they were talking about the name of church and Sunday School, the village, believers, and years that had gone by. I went to the kitchen to get the kettle going--it looked like this was going to lead to hours of absolutely happy reminiscing.

What a contrast it was a few days later. 2 somber-looking junior high girls rang the doorbell, saying, "We saw the sign says 'Missionary'. Well, we were having serious questions about life and death and thought about ending it all but saw your sign and thought maybe we'd try talk with a missionary." We invited them in, and after hearing a little bit, Daddy talked with them--I wish I could say I saw them leaving with faces beaming...but sad to say, we never saw them again.

A junior higher whose face I DID see change quite a bit tho', was Kayo-chan. The first week she came to church, she was quite withdrawn, a quiet, timid girl, pretty much looking at the floor. I didn't want to scare her so carefully approached her, but she seemed happy at my talking with her and seemed to want to respond, so I kept talking with her; and for a Japanese, she seemed very open to the Gospel--God had, undoubtedly, prepared her heart.

"Have you seen this?" I ventured, I was going to talk with her with the wordless book.

"Oh! I have one too!" she pulled one out of her own bag! She told me she'd gotten it at a Billy Graham Crusade.. My heart soared. Maybe someone already dealt with her! Maybe she already knew the Lord! But the next moment, all that hope dissipated. "I don't know what it is tho'. A good luck charm?"

I started going through the truths of black-sin, Kayo's face got really sad as she listened to the fate of all men. But we turned the page to red-Jesus' blood, God did something about it. Kayo's face showed a flicker of hope. God decided His Son would die on the cross and die as punishment instead of us.

I can't remember the details of the white and gold pages. I just remember how she grew. Isn't that the green?. Kayo had been such a shy girl when she first came, but after that, she started making projects in school that would MAKE her stand out as a Christian and decorated her room at home with a picture of the Rapture so that she would have opportunities for witnessing to her friends, etc... Even her unsaved parents were saying how Kayo's personality was getting brighter, bolder, more assertive.

Perhaps...a female evangelist may come to our door one day inquiring of my son, "The sign on the doorpost says 'Saito', but does Oshiro Tomoko-san (that would be what I was called in Japanese) live here?"