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LTRP Note: Please pray for Yoko, the woman from Japan who wrote this letter to us. We have been in correspondence with her this past week and have e-mailed her a copy of Dr. Harry Ironside’s booklet called Redemption. She told us after reading it that she particularly liked this sentence from the booklet: “Do not forget that new birth is something more than just accepting certain doctrines. It is receiving Christ and believing the Gospel, as a result of which we are created anew in Christ Jesus, and we receive eternal life with all its new and godlike desires.” Let us also remember to pray for the people in Japan that many would come to know the Lord and believe in His Gospel.
To Lighthouse Trails:
Hello, my name is Yoko, and I’m from Tokyo, Japan.
I’d like to thank Ray Yungen for his books A Time of Departing and For Many Shall Come in My Name, which I bought earlier this year through Amazon and also for his talks on YouTube that I’ve downloaded as mp3 files and listen to them like almost every day I must confess.
You may think of Buddhism and Shinto religion when you hear the word Japan, but my background is quite unusual in that my mother was hugely influenced by the QUAKERS when she was a teenager, because of the Quaker Girls School that she went to from 13 to 19, which gave her silent worship opportunities every single morning. She then went on to become very much into metaphysics and western philosophy. She would often sit quietly doing nothing when I was a child, and she would tell me that Jesus was one of those people who had psychic powers to heal the sick. But I was little and I had no idea what kind of thing my mother was trying to convey or teach to me.
I had a chance to live with a Christian family in the UK when I was 18 as an overseas student, but I then I went on to join the Quaker meeting in London for a short while, and later the Quakers in Tokyo, which led me to join all sorts of leftist political activities.
And then I learned of the New World Order on the Internet lately, and while I was researching the NWO, I heard of the name Alice Baily, Madam Blavatsky etc. I then realized what the battle really is. At first, I didn’t know who Richard Foster was but I now do . . .
Ray’s books and talks are immensely helpful for someone like me, so thank you very much.
It is still very sad and confusing for me that my mother who loves me still hasn’t changed at all since I was a child.
Another unusual background of me is that my aunt was married to an author and researcher who was very much into Zen and helped popularized Tofu in the US in the 80s. So, as a child I always knew there are some Americans who are into eastern stuff but again, I didn’t have the dots connected.
By the way, most Japanese regard themselves as atheists, but many people would want to marry in a church because it looks fashionable; they would worship Shinto shrine on New Year’s day and go get buried inside your traditional Buddhist tomb along with your ancestors.
They are, of course, stressed out from working overtime and from living in a crowded environment (thankfully I’m not though!).
Zen meditation or mindful meditation is not so popular in Japan yet, but as in the west, Yoga has gained huge popularity in the last 10 years or so. Fitness clubs everywhere now have Yoga classes. Things like music festivals or mountain climbing tours, or surf retreats for the young people now have Yoga exercises added to them. It is now hip and cool to do Yoga, especially for the women who want to be beautiful and healthy. If something is hip in NY, Tokyo must hurry up and copy it.
Reiki is not at all well-known among ordinary Japanese, but I saw it advertised from people who are very much into environmental issues and social activism for “peace” etc. But it is still very minor.
I’m just writing this very casually. I haven’t researched the situation in Japan deeply or anything . . . but thank you for letting me notice these things.
I’d had a Japanese-translated Bible, but recently I bought a King James Bible, and I believe the Word of God is giving me strength every day.
Thank you very much.
Best regards
Yoko
LTRJ Comment: Yoko later wrote a postscript to us, and we thought it was very insightful in light of the fact that the leading pioneer of the contemplative prayer movement, Richard Foster, is from a Quaker background.
P.S. From Yoko: I knew that Quakerism that I’ve been familiar with for a long time in my life isn’t Christianity at all but it is in fact occultic, and you reminded me that the real Christianity is nothing like it.
No one in the Quaker camp that I knew of talked about Jesus Christ as the Saviour and no one talked about Satan’s deception (because the Quakerism itself is his deception) and certainly not about being born again. I don’t remember them talking about us as sinners and that we need to repent, so it is a satanic religion I’ve now come to think. They may be panenthiestic like the new agers but it is, like Ray has written in For Many Shall Come in My Name, a bundled package and a subtle one too. They don’t actually state that God is in all things, but they manifest it as radical environmental activism etc.
As you know, they are obsessed about the Inner Light in every man and woman. I couldn’t really understand there was any Light inside of me but I tried to think that way while I was there ! At times, I did experience some mystical strange energies flowing about in their meeting too. I don’t know what realm I was put into then.
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