7 October 2018


Dear Phyllis,

The other day Lynn wrote encouraging me, even if they were reruns to go ahead and write old stories the second time. Encourage by this I want to share about the greatest soul winner I have ever met.

Mary Ellen Guderman was a USO dancer during the 2nd WW. During the war the USO asked local girls to come to USO centers to entertain soldiers to make them feel at home. There was nothing immoral about this but a patriotic way for everybody to help the war effort. About that time she heard the Gospel and got half saved. For the next 12 years she went to church and was a nominal Christian. But then when she was 32 she came down with cancer. Mary Ellen knew she was ready to die but she loved the world and didn't want to die. In her desperation she cried to the Lord and was delivered from cancer. This sobered her up enough to changed sides, go to Bible school, and decided to serve the Lord.

Upon graduation from Bible school she went to a Bible conference at Fort Wayne. The organizers had brought in one of the finest Bible speakers they could find and expected about 1000 people to come. Mary Ellen said the conference was a monumental fiasco. Only about 300 people showed up and the organizers were frantic to try to salvage something out of nothing. There was only one good thing that came out of that conference. God took all the grace and fullness of the Holy Spirit that He could put in 300 people and stuffed it all in one lady who sat up and cried all night the last night of the conference. I'm sure the organizers of that conference were surprised when they got to heaven to learn that that conference was probably the most produtive one they ever been held. I don't know what happened, but Mary Ellen always attributed that as the pivotal moment of her life. All I know was when I first met her in 1965 in Karuizawa she was a phenomenon like I had never seen – before or since.

I had just returned from a furlough in the states and was back in Karuizawa to start my second term as a missionary with more language study. Mary Ellen had just got off the plane to start her first term.. In the previous seven years I had met a considerable number of missionaries and there were about 20 of us in the language school at that time. Mary Ellen had only been in Japan a month but she was already winning more Japanese to Christ than 10 year missionaries. She was like a blow torch walking through a printing press lighting piles of paper wherever she went. The absolutely unique thing about Mary Ellen was, the lives she touched stuck. This is in contrast to the minuscule number of converts that other people claim to be saved.

I was riding a train one day witnessing to a couple of men sitting across from me. They weren't interested but a little high school girl sitting next to me asked a key question. I turned to her but before we could get too deep, we came to her stop. I gave her my address and
asked her to write me. A week later I was surprised when I got a letter from her saying she wanted to come to Karuizawa to see me. As a single man it was difficult for me to have her in my home, so I asked Mary Ellen if I could bring her and her friend to her place. I picked the two girls up at the eki (train station) at 3:00, took them to Mary Ellen's apartment, and said I would be back at 5:00 for supper. When I got there two hours later, three tear drenched girls met me at the door. Mary Ellen told me they hadn't been in the house 20 minutes before both of them asked Jesus to come in their hearts.. That was typical. A couple years later Mary Ellen told me that one of the girls went on to Bible school.

I was working with university boys in Takasaki at the time and coordinating closely with Mary Ellen. Man howdy, did we see boys saved! She was such a phenomenon that I was bewildered why. what she was doing that was so effective in personal work. I had led a few people to Christ since being saved, and had taught soul winning in Bible school, but I had never seen anything like Mary Ellen. One night I asked her to invite a couple of boys for supper and let me sit in the corner just to watch. I was stunned. I sat here and watched her open the Bible and show these two college boys the same thread-bare verses that I would have used from John 3:16, 1:12, 5:24: Rom. 10, etc. But the results were slam different. I asked Mary Ellen, “What in the world is different from the way you use the Bible and the rest of us? I would have shown those boys exactly the same verses, but with me they would have yawned and with you they cried.”

I don't know, but this is what she told me. “I am so overwhelmed with the Gospel that I can't imagine how anyone could possibly hear this and not want to be saved.” I thought, “Naru hodo (I see) I have been in Japan long enough that I can't imagine any Japanese who would hear the Gospel and ever get saved”. I knew a tragic number of missionaries who had been in Japan 5, 10, years and had never seen one Japanese born-again. Mary Ellen told me that in her first two years she was in Japan, the greatest resistance and issue she had to deal with was the deep, bed-rock, of unbelief in the hearts of senior missionaries. She couldn't believe such a thing was possible. I knew exactly what she was talking about. I was one of those who didn't expect anyone to get saved.

Fifty years later Mary Ellen Guderman still bewilders me. Yes I understand the principle of faith and unbelief. But I have known a number of people that fanatically believed that something would happen, only to see it fall through. The main difference between the people that Mary Ellen touched and the ones that we lead to Christ is that her converts stuck and ours don't. I believe there is something mystical about the spiritual law of reproduction. The natural law of reproduction is that everything brings forth after it own kind (Gen. 1:24). This applies to everything from apple trees to zebras. I believe in the spirit this law is still operative. One time I was attending a New Years Bible Camp at Matusbarako. I went in a room and saw a young man sitting by himself in a kotatus (a low blanket covered table with a heater under it.) I went over, sat down, and engaged him. In conversation. I hadn't been talking to him long before it was obvious that he was clearly a follower of Jesus. Man howdy you could just feel the heat coming off him. I asked, “How did you get saved?” He replied, “I was a student in university when a missionary, Mary Ellen Guderman came to our university and...”. I cut him off. “That's enough. That is all I need to know. You have her spirit.”

Many years had passed since I first met Mary Ellen in Karuizawa. She had long since moved to Osaka, and I was now the director of the Karuizawa Japanese Language School. I had been in Japan for over 20 years and had known a good number of missionaries. But one day we had a young man come to the school to study Nihongo that was quite different. I refused to take any missionary in the school who wasn't serious about serving the Lord and promoting the Gospel. We had some bad ones, average missionaries, and some pretty good ones, but Joel kaufman was different. He had a warmth, passion for Jesus, and a zeal for souls that was seen in very few missionaries. One day I asked him, “Joel, how did you get saved?” He answered, “Well, I was raised in a Christian home. My mom and dad were always wide out for the Gospel and we went to a very mission minded church. Consequently we always had a number of missionaries who stayed with us. Mary Ellen Guderman used to stay with us frequently and...”. I cut him off. “That is good enough. I know the rest of the story. You have her spirit.”

Mary Ellen has been in heaven for several years but Joel Kaufman is still banging away in Karuizawa bring forth believers after his own kind.

Oh Lord Jesus. Make us like Yourself and give us souls. Please.
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