3 November 2019
Dear Phyllis,
This is not a letter to be
read. You might want to save time and delete it now, or, If not, you might put
it in file to keep for some night when you can't sleep as it might be useful to
help with insomnia. But there is an interesting event in my life that I would
like to share with you that might give you a better understanding about my
recent interest in going to Pakistan. This story is too long to reduce it to my
usual five page Sunday letter so I am sending this out as a special mid-week
testimony.
By way of biographical
sketch, when God put me together He was short of parts of a good nature and
common sense, and to compensate He put in an extra portion of a hot temper and
a violent nature. My mother often said before I was born she knew the baby
would be a boy. While I was still in her stomach I would kick so hard I nearly
kicked my father out of bed. Mom said, “A girl can't kick that hard”. But there
is a place in the Kingdom of God for a violent man. Jesus said the violent
would take the Kingdom by force (Mt. 11:12). Phinehas was a violent man. He
speared Zinri and Cozbi to the ground (Num. 25). Samuel was a violent man. He
hacked up Agag (1 Sam. 15:33). Elijah was a violent man. He slew the prophets
of Baal (1 Kng. 18:40).
From the time I was young I
have always been known for temper tantrums. I have been known as a fighter. But
the Lord has been gracious in keeping me inside the parameter of the law. Many
people have been afraid of me, but actually the last person I have struck was
Doris Stranger in 2nd grade. She kept taunting me that she was
tougher than me. We wrestled after school for two nights, and then I powdered
her in the nose with my fist. She ran home crying and after that nobody messed
with little Billy Cook.
In 2000 there was a serious
problem with a crazy man calling NLL five times a minuted all day. After a
month, I spoke to Roald Lidal and said, “Why don't you stop that crazy phone?”
He replied, “I can't. I have been to the police twice and they say there is
nothing they can do about it.” “If they can't I can.” “Let's go to the police
station together.” “No. I would rather go by myself. I might say some things
you wouldn't like to hear.”
I went to the police station
and they told me to go to the telephone company. I went to NTT and the manager
told me they didn't have the equipment to trace calls. I told him. “You're a
liar. You have the equipment to trace calls.”. He honestly replied, “Well, yes,
that is true. We do have the equipment, but we can't use it without a court
order.” But the biggest problem was within NLL. Everyone clammed up and
wouldn't talk to me. I told Roald, “I'm making a little progress with the
police and NTT, but everyone here is stonewalling me.” Roald told me, “Yes,
that is true. Several folks have come to me and warned, 'Please call Bill off.
He is going to cause a big problem for us'.”. I told Roald, “If you like the
phone ringing, I love it. I'm out of here”. And for the next year I was away
most of the time. I spent a lot of time in SEA, and was in Nara building a
church for five months.
One year later. Roald called
me in Nara saying, “I can't ask you to do anything, but, after you come back, I
would be grateful for anything you could do to stop that phone from ringing.”
The phone had rung non-stop for one year. Noriko, on the desk, had had a
nervous breakdown and had to stop work. Roald had paid $10,000 for a lawyer and
a private detective and all he got was the receipts. I told him, “When I get
back I will do what I can.”
Revival had struck NLL.
People who before were stonewalling me before were now cheering, “Bill san,
gambatte (go for it)”. They knew all about the caller. The detective had taken
a stack of pictures of the caller on the phone. There was a wonderful girl who
worked in the design department that the caller wanted to marry. Chi chan had
turned down him down and in revenge he decided to destroy NLL. He was an
unusually large man for Japanese, a very violent man who had struck several
people in church, and was famous for carrying a knife which he pulled on
several people. Everyone at NLL was on my side but several men warned, “Bill,
please don't go down there by yourself. He will kill you. Please take someone
with you.” I wasn't opposed to help, but there was no one available to go. Most
folks believed he was demon possessed and asked if I knew how to deal with
demon possession. “Yes, I know how. I have had experience with demon
possession”. I decided if he was a knife fighter I would be glad to play with
him – his knife against my chain saw. The first time I went to Yokohama to take
him on I took my chain saw. I started it every 15 minutes because I didn't want
to get involved in a knife fight and have to choke my chain saw to start it.
The first day I went to
Yokohama I went first to his house to familiarize myself with the area. Next I
went to the police station. That was rich. I walked in the police station with
my cowboy hat and boots on with my jeans and western shirt and announced in
fluent Japanese, “I have come here to kill a man, and wanted to introduce
myself before I do.” All the girls in the police station had their heads down
on their desks laughing. I went into the office of the chief of police and told
him, “This is no joke. I'm dead serious. This is going to get real messy and
you are going to get involved. I just want you to know who I am and what I am
going to do before hand.”
He was an ell. I went to
Yokohama every day for two months. The police assigned one man to deal with me.
He was a wonderful guy. I liked him very much. He pleaded with me, “Bill,
please don't hit this guy. If you hit him, he will be the victim and we will
have to arrest you.” “Fine. I am going to take him out so he will never call
another person again in his life. NLL will have peace. You can arrest me and I
can have a jail ministry to witness for Jesus in jail. That sounds like a good
deal to me.”
I talked to everybody. I met
his mother. She was a fine Christian. She and her husband had been school
teachers in Nagano-ken and were very good middle class Japanese. Her husband
had died and she was living alone with her son, Terumi. His younger brother was
a pastor and told me, “The only way Terumi will be better is when he is dead.”.
I talked with his married older sister. She was very understanding, but there
was nothing she could do to help. I talked to his mother's pastor and he was
praying about the problem. His mother invited me in the house and I looked at
every door, window and everything in Terumi''s bed room. I went through his
clothes and looked at his books. But naka naka I couldn't catch him. I spent
hours driving all over Yokohama looking for him.
One night his mother invited
me to have supper with them and, “After he comes home you can talk to him”.
Great! I parked my truck some distance from the house so he wouldn't see it. He
knew me and my truck. He had spent time looking out the window at me but then
would slip out the back door. I took my shoes out of the genkan (entrance) so
he wouldn't see them. After my first two trips to Yokohama I left my chain saw
home and took a framing hammer. A framing hammer would be handy in a knife
fight. The handle is long and it is a very lethal weapon. When mother was fixing
supper she was cutting carrots with a large knife. I thought, “Oh, oh. I don't
have my framing hammer and if he uses that knife what am I going to do?” I
decide I would use a chair. A chair would take him down and good protection
against a knife. This may sound crazy, but for three months I had never
closed my eyes one time to pray for him or think about him that I didn't see us
engaged in mortal combat in my mind. His mother told me, “If you ever get
in a fight with him, he will fight to the death.” “Fine. That is what I signed
up for.”
His mother told me, “he
always comes home at 7:00 o'clock”. We waited, but he didn't come home. I
thought, “The demons have probably told him that I am there waiting for him.”
At 9:00 I was thinking about leaving but at 9:15 the door opened and he came
in. There was a long hallway from the genkan to the living room where mother
and I were sitting. Terumi walked down that hallway, opened the door, and saw
me sitting there. He froze. The number one thing in my mind was to see how
tough he was. I walked over and stuck my hand out to shake hands. He didn't
move. Finally he reluctantly stuck his hand out to shake hands and I grabbed
his hand and clamped down. He grimpsed with pain. No problem. He was a lazy bum
that never worked. I could take him easily in 15 rounds. Then I looked in his
eyes. I expected to see those demons glaring out of his eyes, but I was
startled. I saw a lonely 12 year old little boy looking out of the body of a 45
year old man, and my heat melted. I said, “Terumi. Let's talk.” Oh my goodness
I was wonderful! We talked for two hours. He tried to talk about the telephone
but I kept changing the subject.
By 11:00 o'clock I said,
“Terumi, I have really enjoyed this. Obviously we have a lot more to talk about
but I have got to go home. Can we talk again next week?” “Oh, yes. Please come
again.”. I suggested, “Terumi, Let's have a word of prayer”. “Oh, no, I couldn't
do that”. “Sure you can. I'll pray first and then you tell God anything that is
on your mind”. I poured my heart out to the Lord and then he began to pray. I
never heard anything like it in my life. He pleaded, “Lord, please don't cast
me away! Lord, forgive my deep sin!”. I went over and took him in my arms. He
put his head on my chest and cried. As I was leaving, his mother stepped out
from behind a corner in the genkan. She had been standing there listening to
our conversation. I did something that you never do in Japan, and took her in
my arms to hug her. That was probably the first time in 20 years that anyone
had hugged her. My shoes never touched the ground as I floated out to get in my
truck and coasted all the way home. That was the greatest miracle I had ever
seen in my life.
The next day Terumi called
me and asked me to pray for him. Sunday his mother called and said she was
worried. She said his face was changing and he was muttering, “If I don't call
I will be lonely.” Monday, the phone rang off the hook. Right back to square
one.
I went back to Yokohama and
the mother and I decided that the only option was hospitalization. We would
have to commit him to the funny farm. His mother asked me if I would go with
her to the city hall to fill out the forms to have him committed. Friday
afternoon mother and I went to the Yokohama city hall to fill out the forms,
but I was stunned when his mother did a complete 180 and changed her story.
What she said to the officials was the dead opposite of everything she had told
me for three weeks. You talk about being dumped – I was was dumbstruck.
For two months Chi chan had
been working with me very closely on this case. We had prayed together nearly
every day. She had been a tremendous help to me in explaining the family. Her
dad was a pastor and knew Terumi from years back. I had had supper with her mom
and dad. Chi chan had gone with me to Yokohama one time to speak with Terumi's
mother. I desperately needed help and called her from the city hall in Yokohama
asking if I could see her Sunday. Chi told me she wasn't surprised and knew the
mother might respond that way.
Terumi's mother invited me
to have supper with her again that night. It was an exact re-run of the week
before. He didn't come home on time and we waited until 9:00 o'clock. At 9:15
he came in and was startled to see me sitting in the living room waiting for
him. He froze again, and I went over saying, “Terumi, come on in and let's
talk.”. We sat down and I said, “Terumi, I have heard a lot about you from
other people, but tonight I want to hear your story from yourself.” We sat
there for two hours as he told me his life story, how he had met Chi chan's
father when he was his pastor in Kyushu and all the problems in his life. At
11:00 o'clock he asked, “Bill, will you wait for me? I have to pray.” “I will
wait, but I might fall sleep. If I'm asleep just wake me up.”. He went up
stairs and came down 20 minutes later.
This time it was different.
I brought down all his equipment and explained in detail how he had managed to
call hundreds of times a day. He said sometime he would look at his fingers in
amazement as if someone else was moving his fingers. He did his dead level best
to burn the bridge so that he would never call again. He had heard about Noriko
having a nervous breakdown and was concerned that he might go to jail. He
wanted to visit NLL and apologize for all the problem he had caused to so many
for one year. I told him I didn't think that would be possible but if he would
quit, they would forgive him and there would be no legal involvement.
When I drove home that night
it was different. I wasn't euphoric as I had been the week before, but I had a
deep settled conviction that it was all over. It was.
There are a couple of
take-aways from this story. Terumi told me the thing that broke the devils hold
on him was when he saw how devilish he had been - and the horrendous problem he
had caused to so many people for such a long time - but after all that, God
still loved him; that broke his heart and the devil lost his grip. But there
was another hidden factor. For six months, the ladies at NLL had been praying
for 30 minutes every noon that the Lord would solve this problem. It wasn't the
wild man with a chain saw and a framing hammer that was the key to this
problem. It was the prayers of the godly sisters at NLL that broke the power of
satan. But God can still use a violent man with a hot temper as a secondary factor
to show the love of God to a man bound by the devil. There is a place in the
Kingdom of God for kooks, crazy, and cranks. And sometimes they might even
think about going to Pakistan.
If you read this epistle
this far, you will get bonus points in heaven. Thanks again for the privilege
of your fellowship;
In the bonds of our
wonderful Lord Jesus,
bill
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