LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 2004, Page 106

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108

CONVENTION BIBLE STUDIES

Elmer was a mentor, a spiritual father, and a good
friend. He served with distinction in Japan for just over 30
years. And he knew everyone!
About a month after Jackie and I arrived in January of
1962, we settled in a second-floor flat of a grand old nineteenth-century Japanese house in Tokyo, owned by the
Tomizawa family. Early one morning, around seven, there
was a knock at our door. Answering it, there stood a young
Japanese man who spoke English well enough for us to understand. He introduced himself as a friend of the Lutheran
missionaries, especially Pastor Bergt. He wondered if he
could have some breakfast and a few yen to carry him
through the day.
He came up to our kitchen and indicated he would like
some salad and eggs. Jackie cut up the lettuce and asked
what he would like on it, and he said, “I like like that.”
Plain. Then, “How would you like your eggs cooked?” “No
cooked, just in bowl please.” He drank the eggs down, sprinkled lavishly with delectable Japanese-style soy sauce, “OSho-yu.” He ate the lettuce, said “Thank-you.” And then,
“Any money do you have?” So I gave him a few yen-bucks,
and off he went.
“Pastor Bergt,” I said by telephone, “do you know so
and so?”
“Oh, yes, he is a scalawag! He goes to all the missionaries and gets food and money, and he is smart and
goes to the new ones right away before anyone tells
them about him. How much did he get from you?’ And
he laughed.
Then he said, “You know, Tom, many have written
him off as a troublemaker. He has been in jail, you
know, and a lot of the folks just send him away. But I
don’t. Every time he comes to my house I put him to
work, then I feed him and make him sit down and listen to the Word of Jesus. I give him tracts and a few
yen and send him off. For as long as he is breathing, I
always think that there is hope for him. The Lord is
keeping him alive, perhaps so that the Word will eventually turn his heart.”
Translate that into this:
That everyone with whom we have contact, if they
are breathing (and if you are not sure, then use the mirror trick and see if it clouds up), if they are still breathing, then just maybe the Lord is keeping them alive so
that they can hear the Good News of the Gospel from
you and me.

Pastor and Mrs. Bergt left Japan in the mid-1980s and
returned here to their beloved St. Louis. We visited with
them from time-to-time in the home they bought, which
happened to be the former residence of the Pastor Melendez
family, the speaker for the Spanish Lutheran Hour of those
days. And Elmer told us this story.
When Elmer and Elvira were preparing to return from
Japan to America, a leading Japanese newspaper did a feature article about him. He had lived in and loved Japan for
decades, and he had become quite well-known for various
important things he had done in Japan during his tenure.
The Japanese people knew he loved them, and one Japanese pastor who loved Pastor B said, “We didn’t always understand every word he spoke, but we always understood
his heart!”
The time for packing and moving came. Crates and
boxes were waiting for the moving van, leaving as they
were the next day for America. The doorbell rang. Pastor
2004 Convention Proceedings

Bergt answered it, curious to see a black Mercedes limousine parked in front of his home, and then surprised at the
visage of a distinguished Japanese gentlemen dressed in elegant formal clothing, obviously a man of means and distinction.
After the politeness of an initial formal greeting between
two heretofore strangers, the Japanese gentleman retrieved
his pocket wallet, and from it a folded paper brochure, aged
and yellow.
Then he said, “Beruhito Sensei, Reverend Bergt, I am
honored to meet you. I read of your departure from Japan
in the Yomiuri Shimbun, and as I read it I was overcome
with joy when I realized who you are. I have known of you
for more than thirty years, and now I meet you. I am honored.”
The gentleman unfolded the paper and it was indeed a
tract in the Japanese language with Elumer Beruhito’s
name stamped on it. Elmer related to me that the tract told
of Jesus, and the way of salvation, in seven steps or less!
In 1952, thirty and some years earlier, the doorway visitor was a student, confused, looking for his way, an atheist
or an agnostic simply because he didn’t know anything else.
The young man boarded the streetcar in Tokyo on that fateful day, a day recorded in heaven, and there on the hard
bench was Elmer’s tract. He read it, mildly intrigued, put it
in his pocket, got it out again, was interested enough then
to ask someone else about it. The someone else was a Christian. The man was snagged by the Gospel and baptized in
the Kyodan Church. In this Kyodan Christian Church, the
gentlemen grew in the faith, and through the years became
an influential leader in the same and a worthy supporter
of the work of the Gospel in Japan and other parts of the
world.
It started with that “critical event” which dear Elmer
initiated by placing a plain, old tract on a streetcar bench in
Tokyo in the early fifties. It will come to glorious fruition
when you and I will be able to meet that gentleman, too, in
the halls of heaven. We will probably find him chatting
with Elmer. You will recognize Elmer as the enthusiastic
man speaking Japanese like a Perry County German! And
Elvira will be there too, asking me or someone else, “What
did Elmer say?” for Elvira didn’t have the chance to learn
much Japanese, even after thirty years.
She had another ministry which revolved around
hospitality, a gift of the Spirit which did not require
words, but delicacies like double crust lemon pies and
ice cream folded into whipped cream with chocolate
syrup and then refrozen, or a Thanksgiving turkey dinner for American and Japanese friends that somehow
tasted even better there than here.

Great saints of God, these mentors, our spiritual father
and mother, Elmer and Elvira, who are gathered at the
throne doing things yet still so important and beautiful.
They praise and give thanks to God, and if they are able to
do this, they are hoping that we will carry on the tradition
they were so good at during their earthly pilgrimage.