Emi – 2016 Graduate

I was born and grew up in Japan where the population is less than 1 % Christian. Though mine was a Christian home, I did not feel safe. I grew up shouldering verbal abuse, yelling and anger, and watched my family members being hurt by words. Because of my fear, I lost my voice and started believing that I didn’t matter to anybody. To combat this, I turned to performance in sports to get my parents’ attention. I also felt strong family pressure to be smart. Around this time, I got a boyfriend and internalized the cultural message, “If you are not thin, you won’t be accepted.” My diet became severe, and I became anorexic and bulimic, and struggled with self-harm, depression, and suicidal thoughts. I struggled with eating disorder behavior for almost 10 years, which consisted of binging and purging more than 10 times a day. As a result I suffered from several medical issues. I thought many times that I was going to die. Many nights when I went to sleep, my heart deeply cried out to God, “God, PLEASE HELP ME!”

When I went to college, I entered a unique program in which all students go to another country for 16 months as a missionary. I was planning to go on one of these trips, but the leaders decided not to send me that year because of the severity of my eating disorders. My mentor encouraged me to find help as soon as possible. My mentor and I prayed that God would open the door according to His will. I found Mercy Multiplied online and I somehow felt His peace inside of me among all the other options I explored. When I arrived at Mercy, I was actually excited to enter into the season of God’s healing for my life. I did not know what the freedom would look like, but I came with the faith to enter into what God would have for me.

One of the turning points for me happened during the winter break when I attended a huge worldwide mission conference. After I came back from the conference, I realized how much my eating disorder was keeping me from loving and serving God with my whole heart. Regardless of my emotions, it was interesting to see that the Lord led me to surrender it all to Him. I finally learned what “die to myself, die to my flesh” really meant. To die to my flesh, I stopped feeding my urge to purge. As a result of that and renewing my mind, I received so much freedom. Another thing that helped me was learning to be still. God revealed to me that being still meant surrendering control of my destiny and the destination of the journey we’re on together.  Yelled at and ignored by my father when I was young, I stopped using my voice and believed the lie that my voice and desires didn’t matter. While I was at Mercy, God showed me a picture of Him resurrecting my voice like He resurrected Jesus. God told me that His call is for me to speak up and speak out, that He is going to make my voice for justice and cultural changes. More than that, He wants to use my voice to change the nations. I learned that my voice matters. I found my calling.

At Mercy, I learned that it would only be God’s hands that could heal me. That was the beginning of my decision to be who I really am. Another big thing that God taught me was a healthy understanding of authority figures in my life. The third thing that I learned was how to be vulnerable with people. I came to Mercy with a picture of my heart wrapped, chained and stained with lies. As I reflected on my past, God showed the new picture of my heart—it is unwrapped and unchained.

After Mercy, I am going home to get back what the enemy stole from me there. I am going to work and then plan on doing the 16-month mission that I missed out on. After that I want to reach out to international students, as God has put compassion for many nations in me. I believe that I should reach out to international students and help them connect with world missions and worldwide impacts. I also want to translate Mercy’s Founder and President, Nancy Alcorn’s books into Japanese to introduce the real hope and truth to Japanese-speaking people. I also want to write a book about what God has shown me during my time at Mercy. I hope to marry a Christian. I also want to use dance to share God’s love beyond language barriers. I will keep sharing the Good News regardless of circumstances and cultures. I am very excited to be used and hear His voice more in my life.

My words cannot express how grateful I am to the Mercy staff and donors. I truly do thank you from the bottom of my heart. I am from Japan where there’s no place based on the truth from God like Mercy at all. It was a miracle for me that God has put me at Mercy. I know that the blessings that I received at Mercy will be multiplied not only in the U.S. but also other nations. Thank you so much for your faith and obedience to God. Your obedience has blessed more people than we can ever know.