My Incredible Experience – How I became Alive!
It can happen to you too!
Introduction – World War II
Teiko with her husband from England, Steven
I was born on the 7th January 1934 in the prefecture of Hiroshima, Western Japan, on one of the Setonaikai islands. When the Second World War started, I was 7 years old and had to take care of my brother and sisters while my father and mother were doing farm work. Previously my parents ran a shop, but due to war rationing and great shortages their business closed and they had to look for any work they could find in order to survive.
One day, when I was 10 years old, helping my mother pick oranges in a mountain field, I saw the first blue-eyed person I had ever seen in my life. This was when an American fighter plane broke away from a squadron which was flying past our island towards a Japanese Naval port close to Hiroshima. The plane came directly towards us as if to attack us. My mother cried out, “It’s coming for us!” We started to run for protection behind large trees alongside the field, but we could not make it in time and so definitely thought that we were going to be shot at. My mother embraced me as we looked up in terror into the blue eyes of the young pilot who gazed down upon us. Fortunately he did not open fire, and he had to pull his plane up over the mountain to avoid crashing into it. He saw that we were only a mother and child. This experience was very horrifying for me as a child.
August 6, 1999 at Peace Park Hiroshima in front of the building that was directly under the atomic bomb when it exploded. The force of the impact went outward and flattened everything within a 2 kilometer radius except the building just below it.
Later when I was 11 years old, at 8:15 AM on the 6th August, 1945, everything suddenly went dark and then there was a brilliantly blindingly violet brightness, which was followed by a tremendously terrifying resounding boom with an earthshaking tremor from the USA’s first Atomic bomb on the nearby city of Hiroshima. Later the local public warning sirens sounded and we all had to quietly take cover and disperse from the small school. Some of the older school children and workers from our town were living in the nearby city of Hiroshima, and some older men from our town, who had just been summoned as fresh conscripts for the army, had just gone into Hiroshima earlier that day when this bomb mushroomed above us.
This sudden happening caused great concern in our town amongst the relatives of those that were in Hiroshima, so that they quickly went to the city of Hiroshima to find out what had happened only to find that the bomb had killed almost everyone within a two kilometer radius from the city’s center and others were in torturous pain. The relatives returned back to town totally heartbroken, only to find after awhile, that they themselves were now suffering from some kind of aliment that they knew nothing about, nor how to overcome it. Of course now that ailment is known to be cause by atomic radiation, which eventually brought about some of their deaths and suffering from long term sicknesses.
Bitterness and an “Ugly Duckling” fear complex
As you can imagine, this caused me to develop a strong bitterness towards Americans without realizing what it was that was bothering me. But also, before the war started, when I was only 7 years old, I had developed a strong “Ugly Duckling”fear complex while growing up. This was because all of my brothers and sisters were considered to be beautiful or handsome by everyone, while visitors to our family commented that I was not so good-looking. This caused me to develop an inferiority complex, so that when going to school I would make every effort to avoid meeting people,and rather than go the direct route, I would go by surrounding paths. Then as I grew up as a teen in defeated Japan and later trained as a nurse in the Osaka University Hospital Nursing School, it was only then that I began to realize that I was not the only “Ugly Duckling” on this planet.
The reason I started this nurse training in Osaka was because my mother realized that I did not have the special beauty of the rest of my family, so she very sweetly wanted to assist me through my life by helping me to develop a professional occupation.
I worked for 30 years and became what many would consider a proficient and diligent chief nurse in the highly respected government hospital of Osaka. If any foreigners were admitted to my ward, I would instinctively keep my distance from them and automatically designate another nurse to take care of them. I did not realize that this was due to a very strong, deep-seated, sense of bitterness in my heart towards Americans due to the War.
My extreme shyness because of a homeliness complex, caused me not to be able to discuss things with more than just a few people at a time. Only once around the age of 45, after I had become a chief nurse, was I asked to address a large audience. This totally terrified me and caused me to be trembling all through the speech. It was such a horrendous experience for me.
In my early twenties I developed heart problems. As I reached the age of 50 this condition was growing worse so I decided to retire from hospital work. The whole of life was becoming a big money game so I moved to the beautiful Pacific seacoast of Shionomisaki, southeast of Osaka, where I lived with my longtime friend who had also just retired from his work. Living in such a natural environment by the sea surrounded by nature and fishing, was a paradise for me for the first 2 or 3 years. However, soon my enjoyment with a free and natural life by the sea started to fade to a lack of any real fulfillment in my life. I became forlorn and depressed by the futility of life and the sorrows of this world.
It was at this time that I briefly visited my older sister who was living in Tokyo. My sister suggested to me, that if I would simply ask Jesus Christ to come into my heart, He would give me the love, truth and happiness that I so badly needed as well as give me a sense of fulfillment. I could not see how this would help me, as I personally had no interest in God nor any religious matters. However, I prayed with my sister and asked Jesus into my heart more out of courtesy and respect for my older sister’s desire to be helpful to me, and not because I thought it would do anything for me.
After leaving Tokyo and returning back to life with my friend by the seacoast, I totally rejected the whole idea of Jesus in my mind and did not feel that this was any solution to my problems at all. I later phoned my sister in Tokyo and told her while laughing that I was not interested in her "mind control". I think this must have deeply hurt her feelings, but my male companion and I had no interest at all in religion. Yet as we were living in Shionomisaki totally immersed in nature, we could not help but feel that there was definitely some greater power that controlled all the beautiful things of nature.
Great Hope found through tragedy – Miracles start to happen
One day as were setting off to go fishing, my dear boy friend suddenly had a cerebral hemorrhage right in front of me in our boat! It really shook me up. He then went into a coma and I became totally heartbroken. Thankfully my concerned older sister from Tokyo came down to the coast at Shionomisaki to comfort me. Two days later he died in the hospital. After his cremation all my friends and acquaintances departed for home but my sweet sister stayed on with me for a while more. She was concerned that I might decide to commit suicide. She could feel in the spirit that my beloved friend and I had made plans to die together. My sister opened her Bible and showed me a scripture verse of hope, but I could not understand it at all.
During the night my sister spent many hours telling me about Jesus’ love and His healing balm. Suddenly she noticed a total transformation had taken place in my facial appearance. She suggested to me that I should look at myself in the mirror. In the mirror I saw that my whole face had changed into the face of a 4 or 5-year-old child! My sister continued telling me more about Jesus and His sweet love, life and power, so that my continence became more like that of a baby, with a big and happy smile. This was such a surprise to me because in my own thinking I had been so sad and I had felt so hopeless on the death of my beloved friend that I just wanted to join him by taking my own life.
After a very happy night’s sleep, the next morning I awoke to find that my usual reading glasses had become too strong for me and if I used the much weaker medium range pair of glasses that my deceased friend had used I could read with no problem. This showed me that my eyesight had greatly improved. It was a total miracle! Also for the previous 30 years I had suffered from heart problems, which was one of the reasons that I had had to retire early from Hospital service, but that morning when I awoke, I was also fully recovered from that problem. Also that morning all my body swellings totally disappeared and I found that I was now 10 kilograms lighter to the point that the neighbors did not even recognize me! I had also suffered for a long time from a severe backbone problem, as well as a continual ringing sound in my left ear for many years, but now all of these problems too were also completely gone! This was a complete surprise to me as I had been so medically aware of all my ailments from a scientific point of view.
The awareness of the spirit world started to become so real to me that my dear companion’s departure from this world was no longer the main problem anymore for me. Because my sister had talked with him and helped him to receive Jesus into his heart while he was in his comatose state just before he passed on, I knew that he had merely gone on ahead of me to be with Jesus. Of course sometimes I would feel strong remorseful and cold heart pains about my friend’s departure, but whenever I cried out desperately to Jesus my tears would stop and I knew that my friend was being well taken care of and I could actually feel Jesus’ loving arms around me.
 Before Salvation! |
 After salvation! |
It was not so much an articulate understanding in my mind, that I could understand these things, but rather it was an amazingly deep awareness of Jesus’ closeness and presence and supernatural help to me in every detail of my life which totally obliterated any thoughts of suicide and hopelessness. I had previously totally rejected any religious ideas and so never have touched a Bible before. However because of experiencing so many miracles at this time, when I did get a chance to actually read the Bible for myself, I was amazed to see that the physical and spiritual experiences that I had had at this time were all written about in the Bible. Thank You Jesus!
My move to Tokyo – a New Life Begins!
My older sister closed up my living quarters in Shionomisaki for me in such a miraculous way! I felt so incapable and was unable to do anything to help her. This demonstrated to both my sister and me that Jesus was doing all these miracles for us, as my older sister was also not so healthy or physically strong either. She was such a good example of being a dedicated witness of Jesus’ love to everyone we met while helping me, so this really taught me the importance of just forgetting my own self- pity and sorrow as I saw the great need and joy of just witnessing about Jesus’ love and His care in every situation and opportunity that I had. To do so was yet another miracle. I was totally set free from my previous fear of man that I had been under all of my life in speaking to groups of people!
Summer 1992, Harajuku, Tokyo. Harajuku is the fashion center of Tokyo where all the young people like to go.
I moved up to Tokyo to be closer to my sister along with other Christian disciples who really love Jesus and call themselves, “The Family International.” Some of them are foreigners. I then became aware of another miraculous transformation that had occurred: My strong bitterness towards foreigners had completely vanished!
In Tokyo I opened up an apartment to be near my sister. After experiencing so many miracles after my friend’s decease, I became deeply interested in the Bible and began reading it. Then I started reading the words of David Brandt Berg, the founder of the Family, which I found so simple and marvelous in helping me to understand the mysteries of life, so that I just wanted to read everything that David Berg had written about God and life and the life to come.
I had never before been aware how deep and immeasurable the spirit world is but I could now feel Jesus’ exploding Love from within stimulating me and a great hunger for the Word of God and Truth. I now wanted to be totally part of this Family.
August 1995 meeting homeless children in Vladivostok, Russia
Basically I just could not seem to get enough of God’s Word from the Bible and the deep guidance from David Berg’s literature of encouragement, as to how God’s love was so relevant to not only myself, but to everyone in the world today and all that is happening these days. This gave me such a strong spiritual thirst and desire to grow as close as I could to Jesus in spirit and in truth in every area of my life. The Scripture, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from of the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4) became a reality to me. I just wanted to witness about Jesus and the End Time warning message and Jesus’ Love, which can be experienced right now. I would go out on my own to tell others this truth, which I found difficult at first until I realized more and more that I just had to claim Jesus’ power to do anything.
