Harumi Butler
I grew up in a tiny village of Japan. My family had several altars in our house. One for our ancestors, another for Shinto god and the last one for the local religion.
After I grew up and started working in Osaka midtown, I met an American missionary who was a co-worker. He introduced Jesus to me for the first time in my life.
His first word for me that shocked me was “Harumi, do you know that there is only one God in this world?” Since I grew up in the country of “yaoyorozu no kami”(eight million gods) I had no room to accept his comment but to think “What an arrogant comment!” Still God has been watching over me ever since I was a little girl. He had shown me several visions that proved He was there with me in the tiny Japanese village. I got saved a few years after Jesus stepped into my life through this missionary. I am still in touch with him over Facebook. When I got saved in Japan, I had a strong desire to stay in Japan to reach out to people, but ended up moving to the US to raise my family. 30 years later, this year, God granted me the desire I had. I am back in my home town where the majority of people don’t know the grace of God but good work of their own. Every morning I need to put on an armor of God to just face my parents, but I am excited that I can be a secret missionary amongst my people.