Blurry In Japan

May 1999 Kumamoto Japan. Our college band and a small group of mission students flew to Japan for a two-week church support and concert tour. Being a fan of 70’s and 80’s Samurai and Ninja movies, I was giddy to be in the heart of their actual culture. I spent the first week with a missionary family in Tokyo, sharing my testimony, helping with their church, and hanging out with some local students. The second week our missions team reconnected with our band and toured more of Japan including Kyoto the old capital (which is amazing to see in person) and stayed in a Buddhist temple one night. Our missions’ team was a funny dichotomy mix. Why? Because most of our team stood out like a sore thumb amongst the local community. I’m 6’1” and had long blond surfer hair at the time, the 4 girls with us were all cute blonds, and then there was our leader Dr. Myers; he had the opposite problem. Though not Asian, he was dark haired, humble, and well…a professor. His challenge was he’d almost vanish into the local crowd standing around our little group of American born Scandinavians. We’d get LOTS of stairs as we traveled as a group.

Being the only two males on the mission team Dr. Myers and I, with his leading, too initiative and prayed for the safety of everyone often, though I was very ignorant as to why. (Now, before you get uppity about the male comment. I know full well the ladies can pray just as well as either Dr. Myers or I, he was simply teaching me to be a protector.) I knew about spiritual warfare in theory and so prayed as he taught me, especially in the Buddhist temple, but as I said, I was quite clueless. I remember walking around the temple praying against evil spirits, not knowing what I was doing or really even why. I found myself looking into the faces of Buddha statues and spirit animals and wondering if there was really something in there I needed to pray against. Part of me wanted something to show up and at the same time I was scared it would. I'd find out a couple days later how real the spirits were.

We headed south on a bullet train to Kyushu the next island south of the main island. Dr. Myers asked if I had noticed the spiritual difference was between where we had come from and on this island. I wanted to say, “Yeah, of course!” but really, I had no clue. Once we arrived at Kumamoto, we disembarked the train and connected with our host families. Dr. Myers and I were assigned to stay with a family and their son for two or three nights before flying back to Tokyo and then home to the States. The first night we stayed with them was uneventful except for the pizza! They figured we were ready for something more American and they were right! I was SO done with the seaweed flavor that seemed to permeate nearly every meal.

The next couple days they took us sightseeing up to an active volcano, a carnival show (I think more for their young kids), a ninja/samurai museum, and a bath house (those were amazing!). The last night there we came home and had a delightful traditional meal and headed for bed. Dr. Myers stayed in their son's room, and I stayed in the tatami room, which is their prayer room, both on the second floor. I didn't think anything of sleeping in their prayer room as nothing had happened the other nights, but this night I received a visitor. I decided to leave the sliding patio door open a few inches to let the cool May air in. I slept on the floor with my head toward the sliding door. The visit started in a dream - I was lying flat on my back in the middle of a giant warehouse, totally empty except for me. I was looking down at myself from the ceiling above my head, probably 75-100 feet away and then zoomed in and saw a black shadowy/fuzzy human shaped creature on me. There were no distinct features, but it was definitely human shaped (sensed it was male). As I "entered" my body, I felt it choking me and struggled for a couple seconds before I woke up to find it was really on me, choking me. I remember being terrified, pinned by what looked like the same shadow figure from my dream and still not being able to breathe. I attempted to say “Jesus”, but I couldn’t get his name out initially. I think it took me 3 or 4 more tries before I was able to say “Jesus”. After I did, its grip loosened. I remember it took a couple more times of calling out to Jesus’s name before it completely left me. Once it did, I caught my breath and continued to pray and as I did, I got a picture of what had happened. I still remember this part very clearly, like God showed me a video replay of what led up to the attack. The evil spirit passed by the balcony, saw the open door, looked in and saw me. I was in his territory, and he wanted me gone. I stayed flat on the ground in my sleeping bag and continued to pray until I fell back to sleep.

The story continues…

I got up the next morning thinking about what had happened and debated if I was going to tell Dr. Myers. He remembers me saying, “I need to tell you something after we leave.” at breakfast, I remember saying it in the car ride to the airport. Either way, I told him what happened and that’s when he said, “I wasn’t going to say anything but…” He went on to tell me how in the morning he woke up at the door of his room opening and then heard footsteps walking around him. He figured it was the son grabbing something out of his room for school, but when he looked around, there was nothing there. He knows he closed the door tight with a click but the door opened with a click and something walked in. That’s what I remember from his part of the story. I’m sure there are more details, but you’ll have to wait until Dr. Myers adds his version of the story.

The last thing about this story that I found fascinating happened just this summer and was the spark that encouraged me to write to you. Before leaving Japan, Dr. Myers spoke about the incident to one of the missionaries there that he knew, and that missionary said that this kind of a spirit suffocating someone is common in Japan. Then, back in the States a few years later, Dr. Myers told the story in his SLD class, and after this particular class, one of the Hmong students told him that they (SE Asian folks) know the spirit that attacked me well and that attack is common. Over the years he heard that from a number of the Hmong students. I was taken back a bit when he shared that information, but I was encouraged as well. I knew what happened to me was true but held a little doubt about it until this student confirmed what Dr. Myers and I had experienced.

So, there you have it, Blurry in Japan.

If you have a Blurry story, please share it and if you have any questions, please ask it!

AI image of the spirit that attacked me