What would we do without her?

My Bible college once offered a three-day course in accounting, saying, “Many missionaries find themselves involved in many things they were never trained for: a nurse wants to care for the sick, yet she has to deal with the finances of the hospital.” I remember thinking, As I will work in a church, that won’t be a problem.

But in 2013 in the first year of my internship, discussing various matters during a meeting with other missionaries, it dawned upon me that many people from my team, besides their church work, do “behind the scenes” work. Among other things, they work with finance, clerical work, and accounting. Soon enough I myself was involved in the accounting of the church plant I was involved in during my internship.

In one of the meetings, a missionary from our team suggested we employ a Japanese person to do the accounting for our mission (German Alliance Mission or GAM), suggesting Hisako Nishioka. At that time, I had never met her or even heard her name. The discussion went on for a while. I heard that Hisako was a member of a church from our denomination, that she had done secretarial work for other missionaries before, and most importantly, had learned German from them. She was also fluent in English! It was decided to give it a go.

Soon Hisako came to the church on Tuesday mornings to work on accounting on the mission’s behalf. Often that was the same time that I was working on the church’s accounting. We sat in a tiny office, me working on a computer with a Japanese Excel program and not knowing much Japanese yet, counting the words to figure out the columns. Opposite me, Hisako worked with a German computer, asking me sometimes what certain words meant. We didn’t talk much, concentrating hard and working diligently on the numbers.

The first year, one missionary from our team taught Hisako many things about the accounting. This missionary is still ultimately responsible for everything, yet Hisako started doing the tedious daily work of putting in numbers, checking receipts, kilometers, etc. She also started helping with translating documents, visa application, and many other things. In short, we found more and more work she could do. Her working hours have increased over time. First she had another job at a local school, but eventually she started to work full-time for us. She took over the accounting of our retreat center Nozomi no Mura near Karuizawa in Nagano Ken as well.

Hisako said she would prefer to do work connected with the kingdom of God than other work. This is a good job for her as she is partially deaf and she can work on her own and can communicate mainly through mail and email. She is thankful that she can work for God despite her disability.

For legal reasons, we as missionaries are required to check the accounting once a year. Every year two different people are chosen for this work. The first time I did it, I was very thankful that the other person had worked in a bank before and knew what we were supposed to be doing. He explained to me how to check the bankbooks, how to find missing numbers, and where to look if you just can’t find a certain receipt. But Hisako’s work is faultless, and we are astonished each year how much effort she puts in and how exact and reliable she is in all she is doing. I’m pretty sure that I still have not understood the sheer amount of work she is doing for us. Being Japanese, yet speaking English and German fluently, she is excellent for this job.

Two years ago, our chief accountant from Germany came for a visit, and he also wanted to see the bankbooks and our accounting and also confirmed our assessment that Hisako is doing a great job. 

Last year according to tax regulations, we needed to make big changes in our payments and other things. A tax expert came in several times to explain the new system, and again Hisako proved a great help. She understood quickly what had to be done and could work with the new system. It can hardly be put into words how much she is helping the mission through her service. We are very blessed to have her working for us.