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Testimony of My Life and Ministry
By Curtis Tsuzaki Salvation I formally received Christ in 1979. I was a sophomore at Iolani high school and became involved in a group called Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA). One day someone in that group took me aside and shared with me a tract called The Four Spiritual Laws. I decided right there to say the prayer to receive Christ. After that I started to attend a Bible study and then I became a member of a small discipleship group led by the member of a local church. Through this group (the members of which I still keep in contact today) I learned about the basics of Christianity. After high school I continued to be active in Christian groups such as Campus Crusade for Christ and The Navigators. I was thinking of going on staff with the Navigators when I was at the University of Oregon when my father committed suicide in 1984. This event changed all my plans up to that point in my life. I graduated as soon as I could and returned to Hawaii in 1985 to take care of my brother, who was still in high school. Father’s death I think that my father’s death made me realize how short life was and I was no longer afraid to die myself. I was also determined not to waste my life and live a life that was mediocre. I somehow believed that God wanted me to devote my life to something special, although at that time I didn’t know what it was. I remember that year following my father’s death that I grew really close to God, that I used to spend hours just seeking after Him, reading His Word, praying and crying; it was the only way I could get through that difficult time. I also started to develop compassion for those who were hurting. Something in me changed and I seemed to become more mature in my thinking and bolder and have more of a desire to help others. Missionary in Japan Besides my father’s death the event that really had an impact on my life was going to Japan in 1989. After I returned to Hawaii from Oregon, I eventually became interested in Japan, through the Japanese I met while taking classes at UH and through a group of Christians who had started an outreach to a Japanese college in Hawaii. One of my best friends, Takeshi Hasegawa became a Christian through that outreach and eventually moved back to Japan. The second thing that got me interested in Japan was meeting my wife to be, Maki, in 1988, while on a summer mission. After many months of mulling it over, seeking God and asking counsel from my Christian friends, I finally decided to move to Japan in the 1989 as a missionary English teacher. The first few years in Japan were really tough. I lived alone in a small one-bedroom apartment in a big city. One of my biggest challenges was the language. I could neither speak nor read or write Japanese, even though I appeared to everyone around me to be Japanese. I began to realize that people thought that I was retarded and treated me harshly. The retarded and handicapped are normally not treated very well in Japan except in churches and institutions. I eventually did make friends in church, however, and Maki and I continued to date until we got married in 1991. While in Japan I began to notice many things. For one, Japan is a very spiritual and superstitious country. Although they appear to be very educated and refined, the Japanese hold to many superstitions, such as, holding religious festivals, heeding certain dates on the calendar, adhering to certain rituals and getting their fortune told by local fortune tellers. There are even non-Christian faith healers. In Japan I sensed a lot of spiritual oppression that I don’t experience here in Hawaii. I feel that in Japan my faith really grew because I was so helpless and I had to rely on God for even the simplest things every day. It was in Japan that I witnessed the most miracles in answers to prayer: healings, casting out of demons and material provision. Our daughter Christine was a miracle herself in that my wife was unable to conceive in the beginning. It was in Japan also that I began to get a better sense of my life calling—to help the needy. After the service at one Japanese church, the guest speaker approached me directly after the service and gave me a cryptic message in English (even though he was Japanese): He said, “You are at the beautiful gate (Acts 3). Just as Peter and John healed the lame beggar, you will be a comfort to a people.” At the time I didn’t know what he was talking about. First Call to Minister to the Homeless In Japan I witnessed for the first time what it was like to live in humble circumstances. I had grown up as a middle-class American and went to a prestigious high school and then to college. I had never really been exposed to anything different from that. But I realized that Japan on the whole has a much lower standard of living than America and most people live in very small apartments that serve both as living and sleeping quarters. My wife and my first apartment were about the size of a small studio, average for a family of three. Further, I was a missionary, and not making very much money to support a family; we could barely make it month to month. I learned to live with less and to appreciate even the smallest things. It was at that time that I also began to notice the needy. It began with a few strangers that I met at the train stations and on the trains. I found myself greeting them and exchanging a few words. Although I wasn’t quite ready yet, I began to consider inviting those I met on the street back to our apartment. My wife likewise would always make a little extra food in case I brought someone home. Even though she was secretly hoping I wouldn’t! The year we left Japan in 1996 to return to Hawaii, while taking a long walk along a riverbank, I noticed a few little shacks assembled out of vinyl tarp in the brush along the bank. At this time there were very few homeless in Japan. Now there are several thousands living in public parks and elsewhere. When I returned to Japan for a visit a few years ago, I found a small tent city in a park I used to visit when I was living in Japan. Back in Hawaii The first few months after coming back to Hawaii were difficult. I had been in Japan seven years. I had gotten married, had a child and had run an English school for four years. I left behind many friends and my wife’s family. It was like having to start over. I had no job, no ministry and no immediate plans. I got a secular job working for a Japanese company in Waikiki and devoted myself to it. However, I felt like I was running from God and my marriage suffered. In order to save my marriage and get my life back on track, I went to a Promise Keepers meeting in Washington D.C. and spent time with two of my Christian friends from high school. There I recommitted my life to Christ and also gave my marriage to Him. That same year, I decided to go to Bible School. We had recently bought a business from a friend which would give us the income to send me to school. So I began classes at International College in the Fall of 1997. One of my first classes was a class studying the Book of Jeremiah. One of the requirements of the class was to write a term paper about one of the main themes of the book. I happened to choose the theme of “loving your neighbor” where it talks about how one of God’s requirements for the Israelites was to take care of the needy. About the same time, I was beginning to notice some homeless people in Kailua town where we were living. As I passed by them, I began to feel convicted and would buy an extra loaf of bread or small food item when I went to the supermarket and leave it next to them. One day a friend and I encountered a homeless person near Chinatown who asked for some money to buy food. My friend gave him his sandwich. That Thanksgiving I put together a small plate of food that I had made from leftovers from a family gathering and left it where a homeless man was living in Kailua. Ministry to the Homeless Begins Then, in summer of 1998, while taking a summer school class at the college, I met a person, Vernon Clarke, who encouraged me to begin ministry to the homeless. He was auditing a class, and unbeknownst to me, he also had been developing a heart for the needy. We became friends and started to meet together for fellowship and prayer. He mentioned a place called Aala Park, which I never had heard of before, which was near his workplace and which he would go from time to time. At that time there were many homeless that were living there in little dwellings they had constructed from shopping carts and tarps, not unlike those homeless I had come across in Japan. There was a lot of drug activity at the park and the police were called there daily. After weeks of praying and sharing together, we decided to go and reach out to the people in Aala Park. This sort of ministry was still very new to me, so to get my feet wet, we decided to go to Waikiki and pass out tracts to the tourists. On one of our outings we came across a guy who was completely inebriated, holding a rum bottle in his hand and was harassing a young woman who had an infant with her. We went over to help the woman when the man started swearing at us and cursing God. When we said that “Jesus loves you.” suddenly he stopped and looked at us. It reminded me of the lame beggar in Acts I had mentioned earlier. We grabbed the man and started to pray for him; I prayed first, and then Vernon prayed that Jesus would save the man. When Vernon uttered his prayer the man began to weep and cry out. Right on the spot, he gave his life to Christ and instantly was changed. He suddenly became very happy and threw away his rum bottle, even though it was still half full. Ecstatic with joy, he followed us and we offered to take him out to dinner. Although he was dirty and disheveled, we took him to Sizzlers where he made quite a scene, hugging us, talking incessantly and greeting everybody he saw. We enjoyed a nice meal (although he was drawing a lot of attention from the other diners) and found out only his first name, Chico and that he was from Chicago. After we ate, we took him to where he was staying in Kalihi and never saw or heard from him again. But we know that he was a sign from God to start our new ministry and so in the fall of 1998, we started a ministry to the homeless in Aala Park. Corvette Center Ministries is Born We first started the ministry to the homeless in Aala Park by bringing out about ten zip packs and handing them out to whoever was there. The following week it was some Korean food for about 20 people and eventually we were distributing about 100 foam trays of Chinese food to a long line of hungry people in the park. At first it was only me, Vernon and one or two more guys, and before long we were getting help from several homeless people as well; we would also include a short message and prayer after we distributed the food; about ten people would stay after the meal to pray together. At the end of 1998, however, the food was costing too much and there seemed no end to the number of people who would come. That was before they renovated Aala Park, so a lot of homeless used to hang out there. Vernon once commented that it was like feeding pigeons in the park; they come when they are hungry but take off as soon as the food runs out. So we decided that it was time for us to take whatever loyal followers we had and start a Bible study. At first we met once a week; we would go over to the IHS and Aala Park and bus them to the Corvette Center body shop. When we came to pick up the homeless, the IHS staff would ask us where we were taking them and we would tell them, “Corvette Center.” So they started to call us the “Corvette Center People.” The Mission of Corvette Center Ministries aka CCM Corvette Center Ministries became a church and in 2000 was registered as a 501(c) 3 non-profit organization. In 2004, it moved its base to the Leeward Coast. Its mission was and still is “to end homelessness in Hawaii by producing lasting change in individuals and communities through the gospel of Jesus Christ.” The main focus of CCM is the homeless. However helping the homeless will ultimately involve many other different areas, such as, drugs and alcohol, children, the sick and those that are or have been incarcerated. The Bible tells us that we need to look out for the “widow, the orphan and the alien.” Jesus says that when you help the hungry, the stranger, the sick and the prisoner, you help me (Matthew 25) The mission of ending homelessness will not be accomplished by any one ministry or organization, but will require the cooperation and participation of many ministries, non-profits and government agencies working together for a common goal. There are a lot of groups out there who are trying to help the homeless. Many of them are doing the same things, such as, feeding the homeless in the parks and on the beaches, sharing their goods with them and praying with them. These kind of outreaches are ongoing in various parts of Oahu, and especially during the holiday season, they give the homeless a little hope and courage to improve their lives. But ultimately they will not get the homeless to exit the beaches and parks. That is why the vision of Corvette Center Ministries is about “lasting change.” You can feed a homeless person every week. You can share necessities with them. This is good and it might temporarily make their situation easier. But somewhere along the line you are going to have to help them get out of their circumstances and bring them to a point that they can take care of themselves. The Key to the Mission The key to this mission is the gospel of Jesus Christ. We believe that no lasting change will occur apart from that. In order for there to be change in someone’s life, there has to be change in that person’s heart. I used to know several people in the downtown homeless shelter that had been staying there for at least three years. These individuals had no desire to get off the street or out of the shelter and into housing. Many of them were on some kind of medication for depression or a psychological problem; because of their social security, they would have been able to finance a small apartment. Some of them were getting food stamps and/or welfare. The problem for many of them was not the money, but the will. They were comfortable in their present situation and they did not have the courage to make a change. One rewarding thing for me is after some of them started going to church, gotten off drugs and involved with some kind of ministry helping others, they did find a way off the streets, out of the shelters and into housing. What gave them that courage to change their lives was their faith in Jesus Christ. As we pursue our work to fulfill our mission, we must never forget that everything we do is through the power of God and for his kingdom. It must never be humanistic or socialistic. The power of God and desire to work for his kingdom is what brought me to this ministry. And it is what allows it to continue to today. Pastor Curtis Tsuzaki |
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