Meet the Family: Manami Aoki (Japan)
At 62 years old, Manami Aoki calls Okinawa, Japan her home. She has been married to her husband, Shu, for many years, and together they have experienced God’s faithfulness through seasons of both hardship and blessing.
Manami looks back on her story and sees the clear hand of God shaping her life—often through difficulty. “Like the lives of Moses and Joseph, the Lord will test and train a person to use him or her later,” she reflects. “We may not find its meaning during that period of time, but there will come a time when we understand. When we find the meaning, we cannot help but be grateful for what the Lord has given us.”
For Manami, those years of testing came during junior high and high school. She remembers that season as one of the hardest of her life. She rebelled against her teachers and parents, her grades plummeted, and she lost confidence in herself. “I had no place to belong,” she recalls. “But God was on my side.”
Years later, she can now see how the Lord was preparing her. Today, Manami serves as a teacher at Okinawa Christian School International—a role she has faithfully held for twenty years. Her own struggles have given her deep compassion for her students. “There are many students who are suffering from various problems and heartache,” she says. “I want to tell these students that they will be okay because God is with them. I can understand them with my heart (not just my head), because I have experienced it myself. The experience that God gave me was for the sake of who I am now. I now realize those experiences were very precious to me.”
A verse that has carried Manami through life is God’s declaration in Isaiah 43:4:
“Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you.”
Looking to the next generation, Manami offers both a word of encouragement and warning. “While today’s society offers many conveniences, it comes at the mercy of a wide variety of information—and the world’s way of thinking is moving in a direction opposite to God’s desire,” she shares. “In such a society, it is very difficult to grow into a person who is pleasing to God. That’s why I think it’s so important to have a strong Christian identity.”
From a young girl who struggled to find her place to a teacher who now pours God’s love into her students, Manami’s life is a testimony to God’s redeeming work. What once felt like wasted years have become the very foundation of her ministry—a reminder that nothing is wasted in God’s hands.
