very morning the same amount was due on the debt, without men tion of the need to anyone save God through prayer. These were great lessons for the student body. God’s faithfulness in the smallest and largest matters spurred evangelistic zeal, and stu dents began arranging their own gospel campaigns during vacation time. One day eight students and a faculty advisor went 100 miles to the south to a tiny island where 13,000 fisherfolk lived. T ak i n g turns preaching, these young men and women contacted 8,000 people in One month and recorded 232 adult decisions. They left behind several preaching posts which are filled by students once each month. The diligence of JCC’s students, their warm testimonies and devoted Christian service attest to the power of the gospel in deliverance from tragic and misguided lives. Lives like Yoneko Hishiyama, a girl who once gave herself to wild living in Tokyo’s pleasure districts until inward loneliness drove her to a suicide attempt in which she lost both legs and an arm. In a hospital she met one of the students from JCC who led her to the Lord. Her friends marvel at her changed life. Shozo Sato also testifies to great changes since he surrendered his life to Jesus Christ and began train ing for His service. Once a fanatical Communist, he supported the red movement in a technical college and was expelled. He went from there to a mining company and injected Communist ideology into its union. “ I thought this was the real life,” he said. Then he heard the gospel from a Pocket Testament League sound truck and after two weeks of seri ous thought, left the party and be came a Christian. He was taunted and persecuted but he remained true and wrote post cards to all his relatives and ex-party friends to tell them of his baptism and the joy he had found in Christ. High-born M i k i o Yamamo t o grew up in the atmosphere of Bud dhist ceremonies. His father, a col lege professor, had studied to be come a priest and his grandfather, an officer in the Department of the Imperial Household, attended big
Shinto ceremonies with the em peror. Mikio first heard the gospel in a Bible class but found fault with the teaching of the resurrection of Christ. Once over this hurdle he was soundly converted and entered the college to train for Christian service. Kazue Matsumoto professed to be a Christian long before coming to JCC but sought after peace and satisfaction in worldly pleasures. At the height of her prestige and salary with the Far East Air Forces she anticipated supreme happiness but after surrendering to the will of the Saviour she wrote in retro spect, “ I have never lived in such misery as I did in those 10 months in FEAF.” Today she is a success ful student, anticipating years of continued happiness in the service of Christ. Their affectionate term for the School is “Jay-Shee-Shee,” a Japan ese attempt at pronouncing the ini tials of the college. School spirit is high and each student enters in wholeheartedly as each year pre sents the challenge of a $40,000 ex pansion program. This spring JCC will graduate 28 pupils and commission them to do the work of evangelists. There will be 100 applications for the next term and facilities for only 50. The challenge of tomorrow’s work today spurs mission leaders to provide Christian training for more and more of Japan’s enlight ened students. JCC’s motto is: “ Training Tomorrow’s Leaders To day,” based on 2 Timothy 2:2, “ And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.” “Essential as foreign missionary effort is,” says Reid, “ the ultimate task of evangelizing Japan must be done by nationals. Only fervent, disciplined Japanese, strong in the Word of God, can effectively evan gelize Japan’s 10,000 smaller cities and towns and establish centers of Christian testimony there.” That’s why TEAM’S men have laid down such time and expense toward building a college in Japan to educate its Christian citizens to disciple all nations — beginning in Tokyo.
S till waters Beside the still waters, my Lord leadeth me T o a place where His love and His mercy I see. And I stay with Him there 'til He leads me away Beyond the still waters . . . Then weary with work and the cares of the day I return to the waters to rest and to pray. — Mary Page
E ach new day Through the first waking When Life’s balances sway, Dreamingly from night to day, Comes a swift surging, And the heart’s sudden lift, Joyful for the golden gift O f a new morning
•— Nancy M. Bettesworth
L ord, let me not forget
Lord, let me not forget this pain, For it has come to be A tide which bears me on its crest, Closer, dear Lord, to Thee. Lord, let me.not forget this grief, Because from day to day I learn how tender is the hand Which wipes my tears away. Lord, let me not forget how weak I am, but how Thy strength Is all-sufficient, and supplies The need of each day’s length. Let me forget not that my sin Cost Thy last drop of blood As though ’twere shed for me alone, O, blessed Son of G od ! Remembering these, the day I stand And look into Thy face, It may be I can faintly glimpse The measure of Thy grace!
— Martha Snell Nicholson
16
Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker