Her exchange program in Canada led her one Sunday to a Shawville church, where her eventual host family helped her understand scripture, gifted her a Japanese Bible, and helped her find faith.

This August, the still-devout Christian returned to Bristol with her husband and three children to reunite with the family who once took her in as their own.

Yoshikata, who grew up between metropolises in southern Japan, was assigned by pure chance to tiny Shawville, population 1,500 at the time, to study at PPHS. The curious 17-year-old aspired to be a cartoonist but flew west to brush up on English and see a different culture.

After an unsuccessful stint with her first host family, Yoshikata found herself without a permanent place to stay. On the advice of a friend she attended a local church service.

“I said yes, because I never went to church at home before,” said Yoshikata. “I was just very curious.”

Less than one per cent of Japanese people identify as Christian. Yoshikata, who had never entered Christian church prior to that day, was raised on evolution, not creation.

A local couple who attended the church, Barry and Lucille Beardsley, spotted Yoshikata crying after a hymn and invited her to join them.

After hearing a bit of her story, the couple arranged to become her host family. “We just felt we wanted to help,” Lucille said.

The Beardsleys found her artistic, curious and respectful – but sometimes too polite.

“She said thank you all the time at the beginning,” said Lucille, laughing. “I told her, stop saying thank you – five times a day is enough.”

Life in a devoutly Christian household presented some challenges for the Japanese teen. There were some cultural differences – the food, the shower length, and the friendliness (and loudness) of the people.

“She found our voices loud. She found us bold,” Lucille said.

Daily devotions were also foreign, and something the teen didn’t always understand.

“At the beginning, she said, ‘You can’t make me believe,’ and my husband said, ‘No, in our house we do devotions, and if you want to sit with us and listen then it’s up to you,” Lucille recalled.

But curiosity soon took over. Yoshikata saw the kindness that the Beardsleys and the whole church community showed toward her and each other, and felt at home.

“I was so blessed and comfortable, and I trusted them.”

Yoshikata soon joined the family at church and began studying scripture, while they also helped her improve her English.

“My first day of English, I took the class for one hour. I didn’t understand anything,” said Yoshikata.

By the time she left Canada nine months later, she called herself a Christian, the Beardsleys mom and dad, and their daughter Erica her sister. They considered her part of their family.

“I felt at home. Everybody treated me like family,” she said of the Beardsleys, and by extension the church community.

A return to Canada

As Yoshikata went back to life in Japan, the faith she learned in Canada stayed with her. Over the years, she has stayed in touch with her Canadian family, to whom she credits her journey with the church.

Now married with three children, she works as a professional illustrator in Itoshima, where she is active in her church.

She wanted her family to see the town that shaped her life, and meet the people who helped her when she needed it most. So after a quarter-century away, Yoshikata returned to the Pontiac in August, husband and kids in tow, for a two-week visit with her Canadian parents.

At the Shawville Fair, her son Aki quickly made friends. “I couldn’t make as many friends when I was 17, but he’s nine and he’s got so many,” Yoshikata said, reflecting on how hard it was for her to connect with peers as an exchange student. Her daughters Miwa and Akane also made friends with other girls.

The family’s Aug. 17 flight back to Japan was delayed by the Air Canada flight attendants’ strike. In a twist of fate, they ended up at a Campbell’s Bay baseball game – perfect for Aki, a baseball fanatic who had packed his uniform in hopes of playing.

His moment didn’t come, but the family was surprised to learn that there was another Japanese player on the field that night – Litchfield’s Luc St-Jean, who had just moved to the Pontiac last year with his parents, Tim St-Jean and Ellie Ota St-Jean.

The two families quickly bonded over shared meals, pontoon boat rides and a trip to church. The boys shared a love for baseball and the outdoors. “All they did was play ball and go fishing,” said Yoshikata.

Ota St-Jean, who teaches Japanese to young Luc every week, said it was nice to see him get to practice with someone his age. As for Ota St-Jean, who currently has to go Deep River and further afield to connect with other Japanese friends, she said it was nice to spend time with someone in her language.

“I was happy to have someone to speak my native language with, and for my kids to be able to speak Japanese with other kids their age,” she said.

Faith in art

Yoshikata has turned her artistic talent into a career. She illustrates Christian children’s workbooks and was recently commissioned to draw her own book filled with puzzles, cartoons and Bible scenes.

Host mom Lucille said she is proud to know that her new daughter is using her talents to share her faith through her lifelong passion – art.

“She feels she’s a missionary by doing this,” she said, as Yoshikata agrees.

Lucille said young Ayumi’s curiosity and openness gave her family confidence that they were doing the right thing.

“She asked a lot of questions and that made us excited [ . . . ] She motivated us more into sharing the gospel.”

After a month of reunions and new friendships, the family said their bittersweet goodbyes on Monday as they left for Japan. She said the 17-year-old version of her never would have imagined a chance encounter in a small-town Canadian church would change her life so deeply.

“By spending more time, I really realized I’ve never seen people and loving people like that, and I see people here, Christian people, they are very supportive.”

Lucille said she is grateful for the twist of fate that put the pair together in that church that day, adding she had never imagined making such a lasting connection with someone from the other side of the globe.

But for her, the reason she helped a foreign exchange student all those years ago was dead simple.

“She seemed very upset, and we felt that we wanted to help.”

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