Japanese Version

IN SAN ANTONIO, TX

There's a college called International Bible College.  It stands on a hill looking down the city of San Antonio.  The school looks like a very small high school which might be found in a very rural area, say, somewhere in South Dakota.  It is so small that, if "International Bible College" were not written on the wall of the school building, no one would think of it as a college.

As I looked around, however, standing in the center of the campus, I felt as if I were standing in the center of the world. In every direction I looked, I saw between the buildings the horizon far beyond the city limits and the woods extending into the neverlands surrounding them. As I turned around, a street sign saying "FAITH" came into view, and I thought to myself that perhaps the college had been built before the neighborhood was developed as a residential area and that the houses across the street might very well be the houses for faculty members of the college. It was then that a couple of pretty girl students walked out of what looked like a dormitory and said "Hello" to me.

"May I help you?"  said one of them.  "No, thanks.  I've come to see the school which sent out so many evangelists over to Japan.  This school was founded by Brother Coote, I understand?" I said.  Then the eyes of the girls brightened up.

"Yes. Are you from Japan?"

"Yes.  I'm visiting a missionary who made a lot of contributions to our church. He is also a graduate of this school."

"What's his name? We may know him."

"Well, he is rather old, and you probably don't know him, but his name is Brother Claude Thompson." I said. But to my surprise, they both said, "Brother Thompson! We know him very well. We are members of the same church."

There is another IBC in Japan. It is called Ikoma Bible College.  Brother Watanabe, the pastor of my own mother church, Tsushima Gospel Church, and Brother Murakami, who substituted Benny Hin  at the 100th anniversary of the Pentecostal and Holy Spirit movements held in Osaka the other day, and many others come from the school.

     When I learned that both IBCs were founded by Brother Coote I though that the one in America must be the older but Brother Thompson says otherwise.

Ikoma was the first of the two. But as Japan went to war with China, pressure upon the missionaries in Japan built up until finally there didn't seem any room for them there, Brother Coote moved to San Antonio, TX, and opened the school.

There are said to have been  quite a few missionaries that came to Japan from this college. What motivated all these people is obvious: Brother Coote, who was principal of the school  before, during and after the war, told the students how they must have the burden of evangelizing Japan.  So says Brother Thompson.

Brother Thompson, who had received the Holy Ghost at the age of 14, had long aspired to be a missionary in Africa, but Brother Coote, who ardently talked about his own experiences of revival in Japan, writing on the blackboard the two Japanese alphabet systems, which he hoped would motivate the students further to go to Japan, successfully changed the course of Brother Thompson's life.

And even today, the tradition still goes here: many young souls that have been led by the Holy Ghost to dream of evangelizing the world gather here to get ready to spread the good news throughout the world.

On the wall of Destiny Church, originally founded by Brother Coote as Emmanuel Church on Pine Street in San Antonio, Tx, which is now pastored by Brother David Bell, a grandson of the founder, are the pictures of more than forty members of the church who are currently doing the Lord's work overseas.  And to this writer, it is a testimony enough to the simple truth that the tradition is sustained by Revival, that is, nothing but the work of the Holy Spirit.

(By "Mickey" Kuromiya  on September 30, 2001,  on aboard UA809 bound for KIX from SFO)