Hitchhike Adventure to Tokyo and back
- Feb. 2005

February 3, 2005 Today is the first day in months for another faith trip adventure, this time to Tokyo and back. I hitchhiked most of the way, about 473 kilometers back and forth in 8 vehicles. Of these two of them were female drivers unaccompanied by a man. I like to keep statistics like that because it shows how relatively safe Japan is compared to other countries!

The first car picked me up within the first 3 minutes -- not bad! I have waited up to 3 hours! The average time it takes to be offered a ride is approxitmently 10 to 15 minutes.

The passengers were a middle aged married couple with the family name of Suzuki. The wife asked me when I first came to Japan, and I told her in the year of Showa 47 (1972). She replied, "You came when I was only 2 years old!" I was surprised to hear that because she didn't look that young. Referring to the man who was driving I said, "Is this your father?" She laughed and said that he is her husband! And she was very flattered that I would think she was so young. "You made my day!" she said.

It turned out that later her husband told me that she misunderstood me when I said Showa 47. She thought I said 27. This meant that she is the same age as me, ha!

In the beginning they were only going half way to where I needed to go to get to the expressway entrance, but the husband offered to take me all the way there if first he would drop his wife off at the hospital. She didn't look sick and so I asked her reason to go to the hospital. It was merely for a cold. I'm sure glad not to be dependent on doctors and the medical profession for minor things like that!

After standing about 15 minutes at the expressway entrance, a young man going my direction offered to take me to the city he was going to. I asked me to drop me off at the next service area only 6 kilometers down the road. Service areas are usually easier to catch a ride in because all the trafic is going the direction I want to go.

After waiting 15 minutes at the service area and being ignored by many passing drivers, a younger lady made eye contact with me as she passed by. I prayed, "Lord, I want to go with her!" And lo and behold, she stopped just before entering the ramp that leads back to the expressway! Praise the Lord! I ran up to the car and she said she would be going all the way not only to Tokyo - but near my exact destination in Tokyo! And so for the next 4 hours I had a captive audience to whom I could share the Good News of Jesus Christ with - a 30 year old mother of 2 small children, Yukari.

Not all Japanese are interested in hearing the Gospel. Some don't want to hear or talk about anything related to "religion" and so I try to probe them at first to see where they're at spiritually.

Evolution is one of my favorite subjects to use to break the ice. I normally ask them if they believe in evolution, and if so why? And then I talk about the differences of evolution and what the Bible has to say, and I use lots of examples from other scientists that blow holes in the teaching of evolution showing it to be false and not a true scientific teaching at all.

Yukari asked me how I support myself, and I told her that I "live by faith". She said, "Your world is so unrelated to mine!" But we did have one thing in common: She read "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens" and really liked it! I told her that the principles of life that Stephen Covey teaches is really what the Bible says in different words.

In that 4 hours our conversation was very deep indeed, much more so than average. I covered from Genesis to Revelation and gave Yukari a copy of the New Testament in Japanese which she thanked me for. She really listened and seemed to agree with everything, but didn't quite come to the point that she wanted to pray with me asking the Lord to save her. But I hope to keep in contact with Yukari and get to meet her husband and children some day.

The Return Trip

My business was finished at 2:30PM and with plenty of daylight left, I was pretty sure it would be fairly easy to hitchhike back to Niigata. But things did not go smoothly like the day before. It took me at least 30 minutes to catch the first ride, and the driver, an older man, only took me about a kilometer down the road. The next ride came a bit quicker, a middle aged lady who is a nurse (a high percentage of nurses pick me up). I told her I want to go to a certain service area about 20 kilometers down the road, but she replied that it was not only too far for her, but that particular service area was on a mountain and there are no access roads to get to it that she knew of from the low road. And so I asked her if she could take me to the next expressway interchange to which she agreed.

But I was not too happy to go to that particular interchange because very few cars come to it. There is a parking area not far from the interchange entrance, but there was no way to get to it without either climbing a gate - an option I considered out of the question - or going past what appeared to be a guard house. I decided to chance the guard house by walking past without looking into it ignoring the guards. But they stopped me dead in my tracks! And so I was forced to walk back to the interchange entrance and hope and pray for a car going my way.

The other option would be to go back to the main low rode. I didn't want to do that because it takes more than twice as long to travel that road compared to the expressway.

I called my wife and asked her to pray for me. I said, "I am completely at God's mercy! I have no other options than to stay where I am. There is no way I can take a train back at this time." And so she did pray for me.

Doubts crossed my head like, "Will I be here all night? There is no place to sleep and it will get below freezing." But God didn't fail me! A car with 3 young men who were going skiing finally came and took me to the next main service area on the expressway! And there within 5 minutes the next car took me all the way back to Niigata. They were 4 older men who belong to a ski club.

Was my adventure over? Not yet! Though assured of a ride all the back to Niigata, I still had to pray for safety as it was snowing hard and the car had to travel though walls of snow 3 to 4 meters high on either side! People have been killed when their car hit a large block of snow that crumbled down to the road. And the snow narrowed the road to where only one lane of traffic could safely pass at a time instead of two. But all was well and we passed though the snow area without incident.

Though back in Niigata I was left off at an expressway bus stop with still 27 kilometers left to travel. I could have taken a trains the rest of the way, but connections are not convenient from that point and it would have taken me up to 2 hours more by train. So even though it was now 7:30PM and already dark, I opted to hitchhike.

A young man picked me up. Though he was not going exactly the direction I wanted to go, he offered to take me to my city because it was not that much out of his way. I asked him if he believed in evolution. He said he does. I asked why. He said it is because the mass media always talks about it. I replied, "This is the point I want to make! Mass media is really a form of mind control!" And he agreed with me! The Japanese people are not into religion or spirituality, but neither do they like to be lied to. And so I found that by exposing the false doctrine of evolution, I have an excellent opportunity for the Japanese to open their hearts and ears enough for me to share the Light of the Gospel of Christ!