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"A Music Teacher Prays for Twenty Years"
 
My name is Masako Yoshimura.  Yesterday, the day I was baptized, was my birthday and I turned 30.  First of all I would like to share with you concerning the religious environment in which I was raised.  My family for many generations has been Jodoshinshu.  My father has the typical interest in religion, as do most traditional Japanese people.  Every morning and evening he prays earnestly to the god shelf and butsudan.  My mother is relatively uninterested in religion and accepts that Japanese people are either Buddhist or Shintoist.
From the time I was very young, I just accepted this lifestyle.  My sister, who is two years older than me, and I frequently visited shrines and temples while growing up.
 I first visited church when I was in fourth grade at the age of I was 10. My music teacher at school, Mrs. Yamane, told me about church.  At that time she was a Sunday school teacher and she invited me and some other kids to church, saying, "Would you like to come to a Christmas party at the church?
I am sure if you do, you will find out the true meaning of Christmas."  I had always thought of Christmas mainly as the day one ate Christmas cake, but I was interested in finding out what the "true meaning of Christmas" could possibly be.  Several of my friends and I decided to visit the church.  I learned during the Christmas program about a very important message:  Jesus was God's son and that He was born to save me.  However, probably because I was so young, I did not understand the importance of the message and just attended because it was a unique experience.

 It was many years later that I learned that all men were sinners and that the forgiveness of God was necessary.  Even then, for a long time, I just understood this principle with my head but not with my heart.  I was an adult before I understood the concept of sin and Gods forgiveness.  I had financial and emotional difficulties leading up to that time and as I look back on it now I can see that God was guiding me according to his plan.

After graduation from High School, I entered Osaka University to study Tagalog and to teach foreigners Japanese.  During college I had an opportunity to teach Japanese in America for one year.  I returned to college after I coming back from America and had an opportunity to work at a Community English Conversation School.  This job was wonderful, yet had a very demanding work environment.  Later, I changed jobs and am presently working for the Navy as an English teacher.  While I was in college and while I was in America, I continued to go to church, but after returning to Japan, I experienced a time of emotionally instability.  This, along with my hard work schedule, was tearing down my body and caused me to not go to church for a while.  My gut feeling at that time was, "Christians are pure, right, and beautiful.  I can't even believe in myself right now, how can I believe what others are trying to tell me?  I can't go to church feeling like this.  God is a wonderful person but I don't have any right to ask Him for help.  It can't be helped if I'm miserable.  I deserve to be punished."  I may have been making too much of this at the time, but my heart was not at ease and my life was miserable.  Even as I thought, "I don't have a right to ask God for help," I still desired forgiveness.

After coming to Shimonoseki, I began to relax.  I made new friends and was introduced to the International Cafe'. I was given the opportunity once again to attend church.  As I began attending church once more, I was able to again turn my face towards God as I had as a child. Last December 25, at the Christmas service, I received Jesus as my Savior.  I asked God to help me with a pure heart and He made me new.   I was not able to stop my tears as I made my profession of faith.  In the Bible studies I have had since then with Pastor Tony and Naoko, I have learned that it was not God's desire to cause me hardship, but to give me a new life.

Twenty years have passed since I first attended church.  During that time, the teacher who first invited me to church, Mrs. Yamane, has continued to write to me each month.  She has watched over me.  Since she is not feeling well physically she did not come to the baptism yesterday, but is rejoicing from her heart for me.  I am deeply thankful for the friends who stood by me and for my family.  There are many things that my family and I do not yet understand.  As I strive to walk as a Christian, I know there will be times in which I will have conflict with them.  It is my desire to take their needs into consideration as I try to understand and serve them.  In Romans 14:8 it says, "If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord.  So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord."  I don't want to ever forget the joy of this moment.  I believe that God is in complete control.  It is my desire to serve the church as a member and to live for Him.