Eleven years after the murder of his wife by a stranger, retired Nanakuli Intermediate and High School teacher Bryan Yamashita has written a self-published book that he hopes will restore the faith of people who suffer their own tragedies.
“After I wrote it, I realized there are two things I want the book to accomplish,” Yamashita said. “No. 1, that God is real. And No. 2, that God is good.”
Full disclosure: I interviewed Yamashita several times for the old Honolulu Advertiser after the murder of his wife, Asa Yamashita, a beloved teacher at Waianae High School who was fatally stabbed in 2009 while eating saimin on a bench at Ewa Town Center as she waited for her husband to pick her up.
Bryan Yamashita refers to one of those interviews in chapter 11 of his book, entitled “Faith/Hanging By a Thread/A True Story About Tragedy, Forgiveness, and Restoration.”
Yamashita dedicated the book to Asa, whom he calls “a child and woman of God, who loved God above all.”
She was small enough to wear girl’s clothes, but had a giant heart and helped strengthen her husband’s faith. They adopted two girls from China and had a happy life in Ewa Beach until Asa’s murder on Feb. 27, 2009.
Long before he met Asa, Yamashita grew up with plenty of challenges.
Yamashita, now 61, was born in Hilo with a congenital birth defect that left him with no arm below his left elbow. At one point, Yamashita was the poster child for Easter Seals of Hawaii.
He grew up with a metal prosthetic hook donated by Shriner’s Hospital and became a scrappy wrestler and lineman on the Kalani High School wrestling and football teams who played with a chip on his shoulder.
“Faith/Hanging By a Thread” spends much of its focus on Asa’s death and the emotional aftermath.
It comprises 34 short chapters, with titles such as “Do I Need to Forgive God?” “Forgiveness” and “The Meaning of Sacrifice.”
In the final 11 chapters — under a section called “Restoration and Hope” — Yamashita writes about life after Asa, in which he meets his future wife and begins to rebuild his family.
The book is full of “hard questions for Christians, such as ‘Why do good people die?’ ” Yamashita said. “It has helped people deal with their own trials. It doesn’t have to be a loved one who is murdered. It just could be the loss of a loved one. No one escapes that.”
In the first week after receiving the book, Yamashita handed out several copies and said the response “has been remarkable and very positive. I’m so grateful.”
Although it’s currently available on Amazon, the book is only planned to be sold locally at Logos Bookstore of Hawaii in Kakaako.
He selected Logos because Asa worked as a book buyer at the former location on Fort Street Mall before she became a teacher.
“I want to honor her memory by having the book only bought at that store,” Yamashita said.
“Faith/Hanging by a Thread”
>> Available at: Logos Bookstore of Hawaii, 760 Halekauwila St., 596-8890
>> Cost: $10
