December 7. Leonard Coote. On this date in 1942, Leonard founded International Bible College in San Antonio, Texas. It was meant to be a companion to the bible college he had launched in Japan.
In 1965, Leonard wrote a book, whose impressive title shows what Leonard was all about: Impossibilities become challenges: A record of God’s faithfulness, in saving, baptizing with the Holy Spirit, leading out into missionary work and supplying of daily needs.
That was quite a title, but then again, Leonard had quite a God.
Are you fighting against the very thing God wants you to do? Are you willing to be a failure?
When Leonard committed to work in Japan for five years, he was a young man. And soon after he made that pledge, he came heart-to-heart with Jesus Christ. Leonard said, “Joy flooded my being as I realized I was now a child of God. Everything was different. The very leaves on the trees the next morning had a different tint …”
Coote said God had told him: “Japan and Pentecost until Jesus comes,” so Leonard trained Japanese believers in Scripture and evangelism. And he stayed in Japan, and he founded Ikoma Bible College.
Coote’s tent revival—held right next to the brothels in Koryiama—had been on the verge of success, but the revival stirred opposition. Seems the area’s entrepreneurs were losing revenue, and they blamed it on the untoward influence of all that inspiring preaching. So the police left the brothels alone and shut down the revival.
They dragged Leonard into the police station, questioned him—a lot. They accused him of training communists, and they threatened to deport him. When he appealed, the officer phoned his superior, and as Leonard spoke, the Japanese policeman, telephone in hand, reported the exact opposite of everything Leonard said.
Bewildered, Leonard left the station and plodded back to the bible college. He climbed the 120 steps to his small house at the top of campus. Sweat beaded his upper lip.
The next day Leonard taught as usual. But a few days later, a policeman barged into his classroom and ordered Ikoma Bible College shut down. Soon name-calling placards littered Ikoma. They called Leonard pig and dog. The police told him not to teach about Jesus in the Nara region.
Then financial-support letters stopped coming. Debts climbed. For three months, the missionaries and students ate only rice, though their bodies craved milk, fish, and vegetables. Determined to share Christ, they moved to Osaka. And again, the revival tent filled. People wanted to know about Jesus. Leonard whispered to a student, “It is either revival or persecution.”
After the service, ruffians jumped Leonard, took him down a dark street, and beat him. On the second night, they beat him again. On the third night, they grabbed him in front of the crowd. As they marched Leonard into the darkness, one hit him in the face. Another kicked him in the back. “We’ll be here until morning unless you apologize for preaching!” the leader said.
Leonard, too weak and scared to stand, sunk to the ground. The men threatened to kill him.
But suddenly Leonard felt impressed to get up. God somehow gave him the strength to get to his feet, to move, to push ahead, and to break through the persecutors’ legs. And he ran.
Another believer grabbed his arm and led him, pulled him to safety. They turned and shouted victory. And the thugs scattered.
Things settled down, but one evening Mary Anna, Leonard’s fourth child, was joyfully singing choruses in the living room. Suddenly she vomited. Her body shook with spasms. Everyone prayed, and Leonard held Mary Anna in his arms all night. Just before daybreak Mary Anna died. The community suspected she had been poisoned.
Leonard struggled through grief, set-backs, and problems until one morning he climbed to an upper room in the lifeless college and flung himself on the floor. “I have come to the end of everything, I have sought your face, prayed, fasted, and in spite of every circumstance believed. But I cannot go an inch further!”
“Coote, are you willing to be a failure?” said a Voice.
“A failure?” thought Leonard. “Why that is the very thing I have been fighting against.”
“Coote, are you willing to be a failure?”
God wasn’t asking him to fail, but to be willing to let God be in charge—even if He allowed deportation, debt, closing the school—or death.
“Yes, Lord, I am willing. The responsibility is thine, not mine.” Peace enveloped Leonard.
“So Jesus said, ‘When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me. The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him’” (John 8:28–29 NIV).
Leonard left the room singing.
That day $100 arrived from Britain. Then God led Leonard to contact the British Council about the college. The Governor of Nara sent an apology for how the local police had treated Leonard. With it came permits to reopen the school.
What part of God’s job do you take as your own? Are you fighting against the very thing God wants you to do? Are you willing to be a failure?
Based on an interview with John Cathcart, grandson of Leonard W. Coote
Anderson, Allen and Edmond Tang. Asian and Pentecostal: The Charismatic Face of Christianity in Asia.Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock, 2011.
Coote, Leonard W. Impossibilities Become Challenges. 5th ed. San Antonio, Texas: Church Alive! Press, 1991. Chapters 18 and 19.
Story read by Chuck Stecker