It was different by the time I was born, but back in the 1930-40’s, people used to hide family members if they had leprosy so nobody would know. Mrs. Kawabata’s husband sent her to a leper colony and abandoned her. But there, she found the Lord, was cured, then returned to her home in the village of Uken, where her husband came and apologized. She forgave and took him back, but realized she needed someone to teach her about God and the Bible. Without even another Christian in the village, she prayed for a church.
The Adan Plant found on the Beaches of Okinawa
Imagine my Dad’s surprise when he began his work in Uken, where he thought there was no Gospel witness, when one person, Mrs. Kawabata, came to him, saying he was an answer to prayer! And because of the handful of believers’ strong testimonies to their families, unsaved villagers banded together to put up a Quonset hut the U.S. Military was going to discard, making it the believers’ very own meeting place—the church Mrs. Kawabata prayed for! The Japanese have a fish cake in this shape called “Kamaboko”, so the village children often called it the Kamaboko Church.
I remember Mrs. Kawabata as a very simple, quiet person, who was always smiling and saying she tried to start off each day thinking about how wonderful it was that God loved her. God must’ve loved to answer her prayers, I’ve often thought. Of course, the first prayer He answered was her prayer for salvation. Then He gave her physical healing. I don’t know if she prayed for her husband to come back, but they were fully reconciled. I hear she later prayed she could live to be 100. Mrs. Kawabata died at 100. Not 99, not 101, but exactly 100.
My sister and mother in front of the Uken Church
Mrs. Kawabata’s grandson got saved, went to Bible School, came back and pastored another church in Uken. I wonder if Mrs. Kawabata prayed for another church in the village too, or if God was just showing us He could do more than we thought was possible? Because when there wasn’t one other person who was a Christian in the village, and she prayed for that first church, even that prayer seemed pretty gotta-be-kidding!
Let’s keep making “gotta-be-kidding” prayers before our God.
