Soon after my bar
street decision to live for Jesus, a couple of US servicemen, Tim and
Manny, from a local church came by my house and invited me to church.
It was a wonderful place full of young servicemen and their families excited
about Jesus. Here I was baptized, discipled and welcomed into the kingdom of
God's people. As I learned more about the Lord I was able to begin to put together a lot of the things in
my past that God had been doing. It seemed like the Lord had taken a round about
way of doing things, but I realized that sometimes God has to do things in a
round about way because we do so much running around. I realized he had been
very patient, loving and persistent in my life and I was very grateful.
The church was very active in
evangelism and I found myself many times witnessing on the same street that I
use to stumble drunk down. They also took evangelism trips to neighboring
islands (there are many around Okinawa) and would pass out literature and bibles
to the local Okinawan residents. I think it was here that the next major step in
my life began to take shape.On these trips I would meet many people who never
heard even once of the wonderful saviour that had changed my life. After several
of these trips, it was at a mission's rally that I dedicated myself to the Lord
for ministry work. To me it was only fair. I mean how could I
stay in the Navy when there was such a need right here among these people.
My hitch in the Navy ended August 31, 1982.
The Navy discharged me in Okinawa, and the next day I was in school with
Christians in Action, the mission's agency that began the church I was
attending. They had a missionary training program and I spent the next three
years preparing for missionary service. The first two years were in Okinawa and
the last was in the States. From there I then traveled around the US raising
support. God blessed me with several wonderful churches and individual
supporters, and by February of 1986 I was ready to return to Okinawa to begin
missions work.