CHRIST IS ALL
Autumn 2025 (September, October, November)
Richard Yerby,
PO Box 4, Matsuida-Machi,
Annaka-Shi, Gunma-Ken
379-0200 JAPAN
Dear Friend in Christ,
“O
give thanks unto the Lord for he is good.”
September
2025
I’ll
continue from last month, last quarter, with one more tragic suicide story. Previously,
a prominent local Japanese family ran a bustling
bookstore on this short Tennis Court Lane in Karuizawa Town, close to my
present Rescue Mission location. They lived upstairs over the bookstore, owning
that highly valuable property, along with 2 small rental shops opposite to the
bookstore on this narrow lane. In the 1990s, I consulted with the owner about
renting one of those shops. But I choose not to.
The bookstore owner
(husband) was also Karuizawa Chamber of Commerce “chairman” (or some such title), and controlled its purse strings. Upon getting into a
personal financial crisis, he dipped into Chamber of Commerce funds, hoping his
personal finances would improve enough for him to return the portion he had “dipped”,
before his crime would come to light. But alas, that did not happen. So, in his
compact utility van, he drove out onto the major highway near Karuizawa, drove
full speed down a mountainside, and turned head on into a large oncoming truck.
He was instantly killed. The truck driver was not injured in that large rig,
but what a miserable ordeal for him to endure. The dead man’s elderly parents
and stately wife were terribly grieved, and shamed.
Presently, I gaze on that bookstore, now vacant.
Saturday 13 September 2003:
A genius, elderly European Jewish man shocks me with an invite to
a restaurant supper nearby. When he was a boy, his parents fled Europe to USA
to escape Hitler’s death sentence on them. As a young adult Jew in the
US, he worked in high level government liaison. He later came to
Japan, in a high-level position in Tokyo (government or business). He married a
Japanese lady. They bought a resort house in Karuizawa. And in the late 1900s,
that high class couple often strolled past my lowest class
street preaching and peon selling business, condescending to
talking friendly with me. I don’t think they had any children. The day came
when he came by alone, saying sadly that his wife had died. “I’m lonely without
her.” In a few days, he treats me to supper on the above date.
Mon
22 Sept 2003: Today, the elderly Jew again invites
me to supper, in his resort house tonight. I walk to his house at
prescribed time, watch TV news with him and the retired TV movie star (an American,
popular on a young folks uproar of a TV show here in
Japan) who is also his guest tonight. After the news, along with the Jew’s
Japanese lady cook/maid, we 4 have a quaint, nice supper together. I speak
low-key of salvation in Christ, to those three. The Jew lightly laughs it off,
saying no doubt God will make room for all of us in Heaven. Maybe
I should have then asked him what he and Hitler plan to do together in Heaven
for all eternity. He was born before 1920, so he is now in eternity. Let us
warn people. God bless you for praying for me & supporting me as I warn both
great & small!
October
2025
Apparently,
the end-time deadly scorching sun of Revelation 16:8 is now
gearing up as prophesied in Revelation 16:8; record heat here again
this summer. I took necessary precautions to stay inside out of its rays,
manning the Rescue Mission, standing in its shade inside, singing praise thru
its wide-open sliding doors, to the many souls strolling past on their way to
their eternal destination, for most them, an extremely
hot Hell.
Thus, I am largely captive to
staying indoors (during extreme heat), tho
I preach to a vast multitude while doing so. Annually, I welcome the pleasant October
autumn temperature that frees me to be outdoors, preaching, or walking from
house to house, leaving the saving Gospel in print. By God’s Grace, it was a
great joy to me to do much of that during October, when not manning the Rescue
Mission. May it bear rich fruit.
Please pray for the salvation of the Japanese young
married couple running a coffee, tea, and snack shop near the Rescue Mission on
this Tennis Court Lane. Everything about the shop is bland.
Their store space is too tiny, a hole in the wall. Their prices were close to 4
times what they should be. This year, they cut their prices in half. They
had practically no customers till then. Also, they keep spending money
sprucing up the shop, likely with no increase in business, sending them further
into the red. It could result in a double suicide, tho not very likely. I once
bought a slice of cake there, and gave the wife a
Gospel pamphlet. They both see and hear the Gospel when they almost daily come
past the Rescue Mission.
Two Japanese
ladies and 1 guy (in their 30s?) came into the Rescue Mission together for the
1st time, wanting the short English lesson advertised in the window.
So, I gave the lesson, then spoke of eternal matters to them. They were open to
the Gospel, & took the short, powerful printed Truth
I offered. I know not their names. Pray for their
salvation, & for many others in whose eyes and ears
eternal Truth enters.
Five
summers or so ago, an Italian woman (in her 60s?) almost daily spent about 3
hours here on Tennis Court Lane, for a month or so. Across the Lane from the
Rescue Mission is Italian Mario’s café. For about 2 hours, she would sit at his
outdoor table in front of the café, chain-smoking while partaking of café
food and drink. Then, when her welcome was somewhat worn out for 1 sitting there,
she would pay up, walk over here to the front corner of the
Rescue Mission building, standing over the grated gutter along the narrow Lane,
standing, chain-smoking, dropping her cigarette butts straight down thru the
grate into the gutter. She appeared to be a retired, rich lady. She has not
returned here after that year, likely because she was either dead or disabled due
to smoking. While standing at the corner of my Mission, smoking herself
to death, she saw and heard clear Saving Gospel words.
Thank
you supporting friends, who give offerings and
intercede in prayer!
November
2025
“To
the tearing down of strongholds”
“Lord
Jesus, I praise Thy Great Name for making my path increasingly brighter with
each passing day.” As darkness fell on Monday November 3rd, I closed up the Karuizawa Rescue Mission for this year, as is
my annual custom. To me, it was a most glorious and blessed 6 months this year,
that I let the True Light of God shine out from that place to masses of lost souls.
Thank you for your prayers.
Previously,
more than once, I have mentioned the Karuizawa tavern named SIN, written
in English. Many times, I have walked past it, crying out in my heart for God
to close it down, often stopping & touching the building as I did so. At
the end of 2024, or at the beginning of this year, they took down their SIN
sign out front and boarded up the entrance door and all the windows with
plyboard. During the 6 months I exalted Christ in Karuizawa this year, I
watched that place stay boarded up all the time, my heart overflowing
with thanksgiving to God. Previously, I’ve also told you of 2 water
pipe dope smoking hellholes named WIND and WARP (“Warp” is on my street, in
sight of the Rescue Mission). As I prayed against each of them, I watched 20-year-old
customers having trouble taming their bicycle enough to ride away on it after a smoking session in WARP, the bicycle seeming to
have a mind of its own. In reality, the kids had blown
away their mind pulling on water dope pipes.
This
year, each of those places appeared to be semi-closed, each entrance door being
shut & locked, and window shades were pulled shut, tho
lights were on inside on some evenings. Praise God for pulling down
strongholds. Praise Him for hearing our prayers as we cry out against the sin
& evil around us. Keep up the praying, I plead. I plan to be at my house in
Matsuida Town thru out November, doing as much
outdoor evangelism as possible in the mild autumn climate, amid lovely autumn
colors, Lord willing. Let us hold on ever so steadfastly to Christ’s
Unchanging Hand in these perilous end times of government shutdown & such..
Carefully
studying the Holy Scriptures, comparing them one with
another, no doubt that our Lord’s Rapture of His Church is near; I think May
2028, likely. I was in the U.S. in early 2020 when Covid 19 reared up. It was
questionable if I would be allowed to come back in to
Japan from the U.S., Covid being much worse in the U.S. than in Japan. It was a
great relief when I was allowed back into Japan on May 2nd, 2020. I
haven’t departed Japan since then, & likely won’t leave Japan again till my
death or Christ’s Rapture. You please hold the ropes there!!
CHRIST’S
SERVANT IN BUDDHIST JAPAN,
Richard Yerby