| Homeless at Home | | Print | |
Most people view Japan as a clean and prosperous nation of happy and disciplined people. This may be true in many cases, but within those beautiful homes and well trimmed Japanese gardens there often are individuals living who rightly could be called “homeless”. Here is the story of one such individual.
One sunny morning, I drove into the city to a cell phone shop. I arrived early and decided to make a couple calls to my intercessors. My friend and I were talking about an upcoming Aglow meeting, when I noticed a small, frail lady (in her late 30’s) standing in front of the closed shop. The storm shutters were still down, yet this lady was quite angry. She was yelling and hitting the shutters a couple of times. She returned to her car and lit a cigarette to wait for the shop to open up again.
Although I was double her size, there was a concern of what she might try to do next. I had never seen anyone act like this publicly in Japan, but she didn’t care. After five or so minutes passed, she then went to the door to repeat her previous actions even louder. My concern definitely increased at this point. I couldn’t imagine how the beating on the shutters sounded to the workers inside that shop.
I continued to take care of my business on the phone, when I suddenly heard a tap on my car window. I looked up and it was that little lady wanting to talk with me. I asked my friend to pray and wait, and then I asked the lady what she wanted. She simply replied, “I saw you sitting here smiling and you looked so happy. I just want to talk with you.” I told her that I was on a phone call. She said, “When you finish, can we please talk?” I nodded. She quietly and gently returned to her car and sat waiting. I couldn’t believe she was the same woman who had just displayed such violent anger a few minutes before.
I left my car to go approach her car. She asked if we could sit in my car to talk. I hesitated but the Lord assured me it would be alright. She sat down in my car and so politely said, “When I saw you and you looked so happy, I just wanted to come and meet you. You were smiling and looked so happy.” She repeatedly kept talking about how happy I looked. She couldn’t imagine anyone being happy, because her life was so full of trouble. She wanted to give me her phone number and asked for mine. I carelessly gave her our house number plus my cell number.
Just then, the shop opened for business. Each of us entered the shop and took care of the necessary business, and then I left soon. She called my cell phone after she left the shop. She called it again and again. I realized that it would not be good for her to call our house with my husband having so many important phone calls coming in, so I prayed as I had never prayed before. I said, “Dear Father, I was not careful about giving her the numbers that I did. It was okay for my cell, but, Lord, You know she cannot repeatedly call the house. This will not be good. I don’t know how, but, Lord, somehow please remove our house phone number out of her memo book. Thank You, Lord.”
She asked me to please come and visit her home a week later. I had never been to that area, so I completely relied on the Lord to direct me and watch over me. When I arrived, she came out and greeted me with such excitement. She led me into the house and introduced me to her mother, who seemed like a sweet and very polite woman. She was very quiet, unlike her daughter.
I was seated on the sofa and the lady, who I will call Y-san, just talked and talked to me. She wanted to tell me about her life and brought pictures to show me. She kept saying how happy she was that I had come. He mother stayed in the kitchen working on dishes and preparing tea for us. I had carried a bilingual New Testament with me to give her. I simply talked with her about Jesus’ love and how He loved her. I asked her if I could pray for her and she happily agreed. When I finished she told her mom to come into the living room. She wanted me to also pray for her mom, which I did. Her mother bowed and thanked me.
Due to our traveling schedule at the time, I was not able to visit her often. She always appreciated each time I did go. It was amazing to me how I could not endure being in so much tobacco smoke. God completely protected me each time. She smoked five or six packs a day. It was constant. Her mom didn’t like it, but it seemed that her mom couldn’t say or do anything to change the situation.
Y-san had a small son in first grade. He was very cute. Her husband was gone everyday to work, so her mom took care of most everything. Her mom appeared to enjoy taking the son to the store with her and he seemed to be loved much. Y-san was very proud of her son.
A few years later, when my friend and I went to visit her, her mother was not there. She was in the hospital. As we began to express concern about her mother, Y-san immediately burst out with much anger, “Why are you saying that? I am happy she is sick. I hope she dies. I hate her!!!” I sat there shocked! My friend was also shocked. Why would Y-san say such things about her mom?
I quietly began trying to talk with her about her mom. Finally, the deep anger flowed out telling how her (innocent-looking) mom had abused her so badly when she was young. I couldn’t imagine her precious mom doing such a thing. She then told one incident of her mom picking up a bowl of hot ramen soup and pouring it directly onto Y-san’s head. My heart hurt for Y-san. I then began to realize where this anger and rage had perhaps started.
Right after that visit, I lost contact with her, because I was traveling with my husband in such busy schedules. It had been almost three years since I had last seen Y-san, and I was sure that she had probably been put into a hospital or had passed away.
My friend, Ruth Ann, had met her only once several years before. We were driving in that city and I mentioned Y-san to Ruth Ann. I said, “You know, I am sure that Y-san no longer lives in that house. It looks completely empty and there has been no contact with her. After her mother passed away, I’m sure her husband had her placed in a mental facility so he doesn’t have to take care of her. I have no idea where she would be if she is still alive.”
A few weeks after our discussion, my friend called me and asked me to guess whom she received a phone call from. I couldn’t imagine. She said, “Y-san.” I was very surprised. Y-san wanted to meet with us and asked if we would come to her house. She said that she wanted to become a Christian and wanted us to pray for her.
Ruth Ann and I got together and went to visit Y-san. This was once a beautiful Japanese yard. 
To my surprise, the condition of the yard and house had changed drastically. I realized that her mom was gone and now it appeared she was left to be alone most of the time.
We talked with her and prayed with her. We explained what it means to accept Jesus into your heart. We took some song books and sang some hymns with her. She enjoyed that so much. We explained about water baptism and she wanted to be baptized. We set the time to go again and I baptized her in her deep bath tub. She was so happy.
Her physical condition had worsened so the doctors had kept her heavily medicated. Her husband has kept a box of beer and boxes of cigarettes for her to live on daily. We learned that the son was getting ready to enter high school and he normally did not return home but would just stay out at friends’ or anywhere, to keep from coming into that house. The husband always continues to say he is on a trip or that he can’t come home because of work, then sleeps somewhere else.
She has been living most of the time on a thin pad for a bed in her living room. Her only friend is a TV and her cell phone. She can’t cook for herself. A couple ladies from an agency go two times a week to clean up the dishes and do a few things. I am not real sure what they can do, because the house is beyond being identifiable. This picture was after the ladies spent all day working in the kitchen.
Ruth Ann and I went one day to replace her thin bedding with a newer, fresh futon which wasn’t full of mold and urine. No, it wouldn’t stay fresh, but at least it would be awhile before it would be full of mold like the older one.
In the living room, there was no longer a sofa or even a chair. In this picture perhaps you can see the upright piano. There are only old thin floor cushions which are full of stains, food and mold. Cockroaches are literally everywhere. On the floor table, under it, on the floor, on any food, drink or item on the table, they roam. You just hope when you leave, none will accompany you home. You can see where her futon was before the newer one was placed on the floor under the window. Ruth Ann worked so hard changing all of the bedding.
Did we rebuke her for smoking and drinking, knowing that she had been baptized? No. We knew that God loves her and He knows she is a prisoner in her own house. Many homeless people live better than she does. One night she had walked outside and fell, cracking the back of her head which bled through the night. She was finally found the next morning by someone walking by, and then she was rushed to the hospital, needing 100 stitches in the back of her head.
Where is her husband? This is his bedroom.
Where is the son? This is his bedroom. 
Is she abused or rejected? Who cares if she lives or dies? We can’t imagine what abuse has gone on in her life. The Word says that God loves the afflicted and down trodden. He sees her heart. He knows if she really made the choice to choose Him to be her Savior. When we visit her, we feel we are going each time to simply love her and let her know we care. I am not posting a picture of her to respect her privacy.
Through the years, women who have been victims in domestic violence situations have had no where to go for help. In the past if a husband was beating his wife, and she called authorities, once they arrived and saw it was domestic trouble, they would leave. In recent years, women have been working to bring help to these women.
In learning her real story, we found out this is her second husband. She showed me the pictures of her first wedding and of her baby daughter. She was so proud of her daughter. She continued to tell me while her tears flowed that one day her husband took the daughter and divorced her. Her heart ached for many years for her daughter but she was not allowed to see her.
Her life was such a mess from the abuse from her mother, then from her first husband and losing her daughter. I am not sure what problem there had been with the mafia, but she had received many threats. I don’t know how she met this husband, but she was so happy with her darling son, even though her heart still ached for her daughter.
How can a mother give birth to such an innocent tiny baby, and then her? How can a mother watch her own child be abused by the child’s father or by any other man? You begin to wonder what abuse took place in that mother’s life? To be an abuser, Y-san’s mother had been abused. To allow abuse, she had trauma with no one to help her.
It is very interesting how a mother seems paralyzed when abuse comes to her child, because all of her own pain is re-lived. When a mother rejects her daughter it is because she herself was abused. .
Family members live in what is called a house, but with such abuse, they might as well be sleeping outside because they are actually “homeless”. That house is not a “home”. It is only a cold, lifeless structure with no love, peace or joy. It is certainly not a place to go for any kind of help or healing. Such houses breed more and more hate, rage, abuse and homelessness.
Y-san’s house was once a beautiful dwelling, but it is almost impossible to walk into. Each room is filled and overflowing with trash and paper. The upright piano in the living room is not identifiable because everything is on it or in front of it. In the husband’s bedroom, the floor is covered wall-to-wall with many inches of papers and trash. The son’s room is like the dad’s room. When the ladies come two times a week to help, they can hardly walk in the front door entrance, which is not shown.
Anger and abuse are deadly. Their victims change from tears and pain to become stronger abusers to their own children and others. As the cycle goes on to the next generation, the anger and abuse only strengthens. Finally, when a society becomes filled with abusive people living with no feelings or love for others, it is one of violence and destruction.
What kind of house are you a product of? What kind of house are you building? To be homeless is not dependent upon a building structure, but it is dependent upon love and belonging. Multitudes are without a roof over their heads, but a helping hand, a smile, a loving and caring heart will begin to bring life where there was no hope of life. Look for the “homeless” who are prisoners in their dwelling places from abuse and violence. Don’t be fooled by the outward appearance of the building structure or even their personal appearances.
During the past few years, we no longer look at the modern buildings, the advanced technology and the beauty in society, but instead, we look to see the one who is silently crying for someone to please come help set them free from their victimized lives. Why do so many people commit suicide daily? They have no where to go for help. Their dwellings are places of homelessness - void of love and care. A society dies when people have no hope and no one to care. Human beings were not designed to be robots or to live without each other. Who lives behind your neighbor’s door?
Sharon D. Corbett
"Reaching One Among MIllions"
"Reaching One Among MIllions"
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