The Word of God is a powerful tool that the Holy Spirit uses to change lives. Clarence W. Hall tells about a village that was transformed by the Word of God.

 

“I can never think of the boons and benefits the Bible invariably brings without thinking of Shimabuku, a tiny little village I came upon when, as a war correspondent, I was following on the heels of our troops beating out their tough and bloody victory on Okinawa.

 

It was an obscure little community of only a few hundred native Okinawans. Thirty years before, an American missionary on his way to Japan had stopped here. He hadn’t stayed long—just long enough to make a couple of converts, leave them a Bible and then pass on.

 

One of the converts was Shosei Kina, the other was his brother Mojon. From the time of the missionary’s visit, mind you, they had seen no other missionary, had no contact with any other Christian person or group. But in those thirty years Shosei Kina and his brother Mojon had made that Bible come alive. Picking their way through its pages, they had found not only an inspiring Person on whom to pattern a life, but sound precepts on which to base a society.

 

Aflame with their discovery, they taught the other villagers until every man, woman and child in Shimabuku was a Christian. Shosei Kina became head man in the village; his brother Mojon, the chief teacher. In Mojon’s school the Bible was read daily. To Shosei Kinas’ village government, its precepts were law. Under the impact of this Book pagan things had fallen away. In their place, during these thirty years, there had developed a Christian democracy at its purest.

 

Then after thirty years came the American Army storming across the island. Little Shimabuku was directly in their path and took some severe shelling. When our advance patrols swept up to the village compound, the  GI’s , their guns leveled, stopped dead in their tracks as two little old men stepped forth, bowed low and began to speak.

 

An interpreter explained that the old men were welcoming them as fellow Christians. They remembered that their missionary had come from America. So, though these Americans seemed to approach things a little differently than had the missionary, the two old men were overjoyed to see them.

 

The GI’s reaction was typical. Flabbergasted, they sent for the chaplain. The chaplain came, and with him officers of the Intelligence Service. They toured the village and were astounded at what they saw—the spotlessly clean homes and streets, the poise and gentility of the villagers, the high level of health and happiness, intelligence and prosperity of Shimabuku. They had seen many villages on Okinawa—villages of unbelievable poverty and ignorance and filth. Against these Shimabuku shone like a diamond in a dungheap.

 

Shosei Kina and his brother Mojon observed the Americans amazement and took it for disappointment. They bowed humbly and said: “We are sorry if we seem a backward people. We have, honored sirs, tried our best to follow the Bible and live like Jesus. Perhaps if you will show us how…”

Show them?

 

I strolled through Shimabuku one day with a tough old Army sergeant. As we walked he turned to me and whispered hoarsely, “I can’t figure it, fellow—this kind of people coming out of only a Bible and a couple of old guys who wanted to live like Jesus!” Then he added what was to me an infinitely penetrating observation: “Maybe we’ve been using the wrong kind of weapons to make the world over!”

 

Whenever I think of what’s wrong with our world, and of all that must be made right if civilization is to survive, I can’t help thinking of little

Shimabuku, of Shosei Kina and his brother Mojon. Nor can I help thinking of that Book that started it all, and of the Bible Societies, which are struggling to meet the mounting demand for the Scriptures---a demand that is increasing from freedom hungry people all across the world.

 

I can’t help relating Shimabuku and the Bible Societies, for I held the Book in my own hands for a few memorable moments. At my request Shosei Kina reverently took it down from the pedestal where it rested, handling it with loving care one would use with the original of our own Declaration of Independence. It was weather-stained and frayed. Its covers were almost off, its edges dog-eared from thirty years’ use. Carefully I turned its pages. I couldn’t read a word of it, of course. But I could read the inscription on the flyleaf. It said:  “Published and distributed by the American Bible Society, New York.”

 

This textbook of freedom had made a new little world of Shimabuku.” Who knows how God will use the copies of the Gospel that we distribute as a part of Texas Hope 2010. Pray, pray, pray and then pray some more.