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“Of Course You Can, Kayoko. I Did!”

As told by Gladys Gregory

THE subject of our conversation was one that is dear to my heart​—pioneer service, that is, full-time preaching under direction of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. Kayoko, a young Japanese girl, was keenly interested.

“‘Do you really think I could become a pioneer?” she asked.

“Of course you can, Kayoko. I did when I was about your age.”

“It’s such a great privilege to be able to spend all your time in the service of God’s kingdom! But I’m afraid I do not have the self-confidence.”

“Well, as I remember, I didn’t have much self-confidence either. But I did have confidence in Jehovah that if I put him and serving him first in my life he would take care of me materially and spiritually. And he really has. I have never regretted taking that important step​—becoming a pioneer minister.”

“Gregory-shimai,a you have been in the pioneer service for a long time, haven’t you?”

“Not so long when compared to the record of some faithful ones I know. Some have served fifty years as pioneer ministers and are still going strong. I first learned the true message of the Bible in Roanoke, Virginia, through my aunt, Edna Fowlkes, back in 1940. It was not until 1944 that I entered the pioneer ministry. My mother had been Christadelphian, but she truly loved the Bible, and so, soon after I began to associate with Jehovah’s witnesses, she and my sister Grace followed suit. From the first, Grace and I had pioneer service as our goal. However, support of our mother necessarily occupied our immediate attention.

“About that time two zealous young Witnesses, having left their home in Georgia because of severe family opposition, came to Roanoke so as to be free to serve Jehovah more fully. They were Fred Rusk and his sister Mary. That made four of us who were working toward the goal of pioneer service. And we all made it! My brother Grey, not yet a Witness, but kind and cooperative, came home from the army and offered to take care of mother. It was like a miracle! Jehovah had opened the way for us! And Fred and Mary Rusk got started too, he being eventually invited to the Society’s Brooklyn headquarters, where he still serves.”

“It sounds so thrilling! And the young folks here in our congregation feel the same way, don’t they? Almost all of the younger ones are either pioneers or planning toward that goal.”

Yes, the pioneer spirit permeates the congregations of Jehovah’s witnesses in Japan. And Kayoko, who only a year ago had been a quiet, reserved girl when she started to study the Bible with us, blossomed into a bright, lively, enthusiastic publisher of the Kingdom, bubbling over with joy at knowing about God’s loving purposes. Now, newly dedicated, she too caught the pioneer spirit!

THOSE EARLY PIONEER YEARS

Reminiscing with Kayoko took me back to those early years of our own pioneer service. In the spring of 1946 Mary Rusk, Grace and myself were assigned to Loudoun County, Virginia. Pulling our trailer with a dilapidated 1936 car, we embarked on two years of full-time preaching ministry packed with experiences, some trialsome, many good, many amusing​—but altogether a blessed time. The county had not been visited by Witnesses for some time, and three girls occupying a trailer parked at a filling station raised some eyebrows as well as arousing various kinds of interest. Only by getting out the Bible and witnessing to everyone who came near did we convince them that we meant business.

We located many interested people and started some fine Bible studies. We organized a series of outdoor public talks in Mrs. Kelly’s cow pasture that summer, speakers coming from some of the nearest congregations. There were many interested attenders. That fall we first met Bob and Jane Harris. News of us had spread and so when we walked up to their house one hot day Bob came in from wheat threshing to see what, as one of the men working with him had called us, “those no-hell women” wanted. He told Jane: “Take the books if you want to. If they’re about the Bible they are bound to be good.” They agreed readily to have a Bible study, and when a congregation was formed in the following spring, meetings were conducted in their kitchen.

That summer we had a peak of thirty active Witnesses in that small congregation, all country people. Then, in the winter, our invitation to attend the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead for training as missionaries arrived. The Harris’ eight-year-old Connie said: “Mother, we can’t just drop our meetings and our Kingdom-preaching work because they are leaving!” And, of course, they did not. There are now two congregations, each with its Kingdom Hall, in that territory.

So closed one chapter in our full-time service, but we still rejoice to hear of fruitage from the seeds planted back then. The filling station where we parked was owned by Calvin and Lucille Athey. Though kind, they had never shown any deep interest in our message. But sixteen years later in Japan I received a letter from Lucille in which she said: “You won’t believe it but I am now your Christian sister.” It made me very happy.

GILEAD SCHOOL AND AFTER

Attending the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead was a rare and marvelous experience. We did not know there was such a wealth of Bible knowledge to be had. Gilead, then, was up in the Finger Lakes region of New York state. Its green lawns and quiet streams moved Asano Asayama, one of the first Japanese graduates of Gilead, to declare: “It is like a piece of Paradise!”

Eight of us who were originally of the twenty-five graduates assigned to Japan were later assigned to Korea. Things happened fast. It took two months for the trip from New York to Korea, with many interesting sights and encounters along the way. Then three months after we got there war started, and that meant our evacuation by the army to Japan. We were first in Kobe for three months and then ended up, in October 1950, in Nagoya. That was an action-packed year!

None of us will ever forget that short stay in Korea. I have never seen zeal to surpass that of the Korean Witnesses. Materially destitute, many of them refugees who had fled Communist North Korea, they would usually have among the meager remnants of their possessions a well-worn Bible. Great numbers of these people came to our public lectures, and when each meeting was over they would crowd around every missionary present with their Bible questions. They would be satisfied only when the answer was read from their Bibles.

At the time of evacuation I can recall we were almost as concerned about having to part with our Korean fellow Witnesses as about the actual physical danger. The memory of their saying good-bye with tears streaming down their faces will long be with us. Indeed, it made it difficult for us to settle down to work in Japan for a time. Of our group only Don Steele and his wife could get back into Korea for quite a while. Meantime, it was suggested that, since we had begun to learn Japanese, we might as well stay in Japan. Other missionaries would be sent to Korea as and when they were permitted to enter.

“Gregory-shimai, your pioneer service took you around the world. Not everyone who goes into the pioneer ministry has such privileges, does he?”

“Pioneer privileges are varied. Some never leave their own country, Kayoko. And the need is so great in Japan right now that I don’t think anyone would want to leave this fruitful field.”

JAPAN​—STUDY IN CONTRASTS

In my twenty years here I have witnessed many changes. From a war-torn, impoverished land, Japan has been transformed into one of the most advanced countries in the world. The people are truly industrious, and are eager for education and to try new ideas.

At the first, Kingdom-preaching produced little result. With our limited knowledge of the language and a very small supply of suitable literature, this is not surprising. Nevertheless, some stuck with us, and as they matured in knowledge of the Bible, we became more proficient in their language. Some of those early students are still faithfully serving in Japan today.

Our language blunders were frequent. There is the one, for example, of the missionary who found that, because of a slight error in choice of a word, he had been saying “I am a Christian streetcar.” On one occasion I recall telling someone quite solemnly that “Christ Jesus came to earth to declare Jehovah’s name and address.”

We had many new customs to learn. We had to get used to sitting on our feet. Even now at most of my Bible studies with newly interested ones I still do. But everything is made so easy by the never-tiring patience of the Japanese people.

Despite the modernization of much in Japanese life, there is still much of the old to be seen. The kimono and the miniskirt are equally noticeable on the city streets. Japan ranks second in number of computers in use, yet almost no private homes have central heating. The usual equipment is a low table with a blanket over it and heat under it, so one’s hands and feet are warm while one’s back freezes. The Japanese are almost 100 percent literate, but there is much superstition.

While on the one hand Japanese youth are rebelling and campus riots are common, still 70 percent of the marriages in Japan are arranged by the family. Truly, Japan is a study in contrasts.

THRILLING PROGRESS

If the growth of interest in our Christian work here was slow at first, it has made up for lost time. It took ten years to produce the first thousand publishers of the Kingdom. Now, ten years later, there are over 9,000 regularly sharing in the house-to-house preaching ministry, of whom well over 1,000 are pioneer ministers. How is that for a success story? Fifteen of our original group of missionaries are still here, and what a joy and privilege to have shared in all this expansion!

The same qualities that have contributed to the economic progress here have exerted varied influences on the Kingdom activity. Industriousness is certainly commendable, but some people here who have come to know the real reason for present-day conditions allow themselves to be prevented from making Christian progress because of the long-established custom of putting secular work and ambition ahead of everything else.

Though people are education-minded and ready to accept literature, the deep-seated Buddhist religious influence still operates to maintain some form of ancestor worship. There is nothing in their background that provides basis for understanding the existence of God the Creator. So, with modern scientific education, most people under sixty and some over that age tell us that they are atheists.

However, there are meek, teachable ones, and some of these have made remarkable progress. As everywhere else, it is the right heart condition that counts.

Pioneer service, most of it in the missionary field, has certainly given me a large, loving family, true to the promise of Christ Jesus. (Mark 10:29, 30) Recently a young Witness, new in Tokyo Bethel (the Watch Tower Society’s branch headquarters), said, “Do you remember me?” Happily his face had not changed much. I recalled that he was attending primary school at the time when I was studying with his mother in Nagoya. Three in another family with which I studied are now special pioneer ministers.

A young man with whom I had conducted a Bible study during his school years introduced his twelve-year-old daughter who was being baptized that day in symbol of her dedication of her life to God. Some of my spiritual children have graduated from the Watchtower School of Gilead and gone on, some to serve as traveling representatives of the Society, others to serve at Bethel.

For myself I must say that Jehovah’s protection and guidance are never felt so strongly as when one is engaged in the full-time service. He adds a joy that makes it possible to know both “how to be full and how to hunger, both how to have an abundance and how to suffer want.” (Phil. 4:12) In the twenty years since I came to Japan I have been back to America three times, always with help extended through the Society from generous Witnesses around the world. The last time I had the privilege of attending the “Peace on Earth” International Assembly of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Atlanta and visiting my brother and sister and many friends whom I had not seen for eleven years. What a joyous reunion!

Nonetheless, Japan is my home now! I look forward to continuing on here through Armageddon and beyond, somehow busied in the worship and service of Jehovah. And as to Kayoko? She has been a special pioneer minister now for three years. A letter from her the other day reported that she is conducting ten home Bible studies, and one with whom she had studied is already a regular pioneer minister. I think she must have told that one, just as I told her: “Of course you can become a pioneer. I did!”

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