Investing With Right Weapons At Okinawa: One Minute Testimonials

Clarence Hall, a World War II correspondent, gave this remarkable testimony:

“I can never think of the boons and benefits that the Bible invariably brings without thinking of Shimmabuke, a tiny village I came upon as a war correspondent in Okinawa.

“Thirty years before, an American missionary en route to Japan had stopped there just long enough to make two converts—Shosei Kina and his brother Mojon. He left a Bible with them and passed on. For thirty years they had no contact with any other Christian missionary, but they made the Bible come alive! They taught the other villagers until every man, woman, and child in Shimmabuke became a Christian.

“Shosei Kina became the headman of the village, and Mojon the chief teacher. In the school the Bible was read daily. The precepts of the Bible were law in the village. In those thirty years there developed a Christian democracy in its purest form.

“When the American army came across the island, an advance patrol swept up to the village compound with guns leveled. The two old men stepped forth, bowed low, and began to speak. An interpreter explained that the old men were welcoming the Americans as fellow Christians!

“The flabbergasted GIs sent for their chaplain. He came with officers of the Intelligence Service. They toured the village. They were astounded at the spotlessly clean homes and streets and the gentility of the inhabitants. The other Okinawan villages they had seen were filthy, and the people were ignorant and poverty-stricken.

“Later I strolled through Shimmabuke with a tough army sergeant. He said, ‘I can’t figure it out—this kind of people coming from a Bible and a couple of old guys who wanted to be like Jesus Christ. Maybe we have been using the wrong kind of weapons to make the world over!”