Joy

The 16 year old girl that came to church last Sunday is an angel. I love her so much. I have no doubt that we are going to be best friends for the rest of eternity. She is deep, thorough and the cutest person. From the moment that we started teaching her (on Monday) she has had the strongest desire to develop a relationship with God.

On Tuesday we taught her more about who God is. We taught her essentially, that our goal in life is to return to live with God again. That there are obstacles to this - sin and death. And that Jesus Christ is the solution. She loved it. As she pondered what we taught, she said: "I believe that with this goal of returning to God for my life, I would be happy. I believe that this is the way to happiness." (that is a bit of a rough translation, but it was even more beautiful in Japanese. 

On Friday we taught her how to pray. As we explained prayer, we asked her when she thought she would be able to pray. She thought about it for a second and said, "well, I will pray when I wake up, and when I eat, and when I study and in the afternoon and before I go to bed." And we invited her to be baptized. She was ecstatic. The joy that filled the three of us was more than I can explain. We talked about the ordinance of baptism and how baptism is only the first step - the real goal is eternal life. 

On Saturday she got terribly sick and had to go to the hospital and missed church on Sunday. We were sad, and she was sad, but she mailed us expressing her excitement about prayer. Although she was sick, she had the strongest faith that if she prayed to God, He would help her be healed. This was yesterday. Today she is planning to go to Osaka Castle with us.

A week ago this girl didn't know who God was. She didn't know anything about God. She hardly had an interest in spiritual things. But, she has a keen eye for truth. She has the sweetest spirit of anyone I have ever met. It is beautiful. 

I didn't know that so much joy existed.

I love this work.

Grundvig Shimai