Mami-san’s daughter was in third grade with mine, but we met when we worked together as volunteers. There was an international marathon in the Japanese city where we lived at the time. We were translators.

She had studied Russian. Loved Dostoevsky. Would I be willing, she asked, to have a Dostoevsky book club with her? Mami-san could tell I was about to decline. “Could you help me by explaining all the biblical allusions in Dostoevsky? Could we learn the Bible through Dostoevsky?” I was pregnant and exhausted and soon going back to the States on home ministry assignment. It was the most reluctant Bible study-slash-Russian book club ever started!

But book club led to Moms and Kids club, and then Bible study and worship.

When new people in Bible study asked why Jesus had to die, Mami-san was quick to answer. Well, she said, we really have to start that discussion way back at the beginning. Then she proceeded to share of Creation, the Fall, and the need for a Savior.

She liked the church. Liked the Bible. She told her husband one night that she loved the Bible and thought she would probably read it every day, all her life. But, she said, she wouldn’t become a Christian. She and her husband agreed. It was just too crazy to think that what happened with a man 2000 years ago had any bearing on us today.

Three days after that conversation she was at a funeral. A Christian funeral. The pastor read a passage she was very familiar with. (One of Dostoevsky’s favorites!) Jesus went to Bethany to Mary and Martha after Lazarus died. Then the pastor quoted the verse she knew well, from John 11.

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life, whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” 

And that was her moment.

Three days after she said she would never believe, and three years after we first met to discuss Dostoevsky, the Holy Spirit pressed this verse, like a hot coal into her heart. She felt Jesus’ questions was now for her. “Do you believe?” She knew and understood so much truth, she loved the Bible, the church, the fellowship of believers. But now God was dealing with her personally. Did she believe? 

The God she knew so much about, who she discussed so readily, was waiting for her answer. She sensed it was now or never. God was graciously extending an invitation. As the pastor preached, she wrestled with God. Before the message ended, she reached a decision.

She told God yes, she believed. If He would have her, she was His.

And then Mami-san cast herself wholly on Jesus. She was all in. And she began to share her faith with friends and family. She invited Christian friends into her circles to share as well. Her best friend believed. Then her best friend’s sister.

Mami-san started a Bible study for moms at her son’s preschool. Many more came to faith. That Bible study got too big and divided in two. Most of those women believed and were baptized. One woman’s husband, after years of prayer, also believed. He is now an elder. Fruit continues to ripen in and through these families. What won’t God do?! Even from the seed of a very reluctant Russian book club!