This is a testimony I once shared at church before, but since I lost the original manuscript, I decided to write it again here.
Mimi-chan was a budgerigar I kept for about four or five years. People often think, “It’s just a parakeet,” but I am grateful because God teaches us many things even through such a small bird.
At my parents’ home, there were many budgerigars, and there was even a special bird house in the garden. Before Mimi-chan, I had been given two birds and kept them at home. One died of illness after only three days, and the other flew out through an open window and never came back.
Once you get used to living with a pet, it is not easy to return to living alone. So I decided that the next bird should be “healthy” and “talkative.” If he ever escaped, I thought there would be a chance he might come back if he could say his name and phone number.
To teach a budgerigar to talk, two conditions are necessary: the bird must be under three weeks old, and it must be male. However, you only find out it is male much later, when the area above the beak turns blue. So when choosing one, you have no choice but to rely entirely on intuition.
I had been told to pray about “everything,” so I prayed,
“Jesus, what should I name the budgerigar I’m going to keep?”
No answer came right away, but one day, as I was absent-mindedly riding the train home from work, the words “The name is Mimi-chan” suddenly echoed in my heart.
“What? What was that just now?” I thought.
To be honest, I had secretly wanted to name the bird Pearl-chan. When I told Sister O, who knows a lot about budgerigars,
“You know, I wanted to name it Pearl, but the name I got was Mimi-chan,”
she laughed and said,
“Oh, heidi, are you going to give a female name to a male bird?”
“I don’t really understand it myself,” I replied,
“but the name is Mimi-chan.”
After that, I went to the department store every week when new birds arrived. A junior colleague even teased me, saying,
“So, Ms. S, have you found Mimi-chan yet?”
One day, when many new budgerigars had arrived, my eyes were drawn to the one eating most energetically. Among so many birds, with no way of knowing the sex, I picked it up and said,
“This one is Mimi-chan.”
The shop staff said,
“He looks like a male.”
Our intuition was right.
I believe Mimi-chan was a comfort given to me by Jesus at a time when I was feeling very sad. He grew up healthy. Just as Christian mothers pray morning and evening for their children, I prayed for Mimi-chan as well. I did not deliberately teach him words, but since I talked to him all the time throughout the year, he gradually began to speak on his own.
“Heidi onee-chan,”
“I love you,”
“I’m going,”
“I’m home,”
“Good morning,”
“Good night,”
“Be a good boy,”
and many others.
What surprised me most was that he perfectly copied my prayers. He changed the middle part, but the opening and closing phrases were exactly the same—the intonation, the breathing, even the slight accent.
“Hallelujah, Jesus, thank You.
Please protect Mimi-chan and keep him healthy today as well…
In Jesus’ name, I thank You and pray. Amen.”
Depending on his mood, he would sometimes repeat “Amen” over and over. There were even times when I forgot to pray, and Mimi-chan started praying first, making me rush to join in—or we ended up praying together. It was quite funny.
The Bible says, “Look at the birds of the air.” Birds do not complain; they spend their days praising God. And my bird even offered prayers on his own—self-service prayer, you could say. I thought to myself, I should be like that too.
There was also a time when I felt discouraged at an English school I attended after work. Although it was supposed to be a class at my level, there were returnees who had grown up abroad. I kept thinking, Why am I so bad at this?
Then I suddenly remembered Mimi-chan and thought,
“That’s right—I can just imitate. Of course returnees can speak well.”
Come to think of it, Mr. M, the principal, a very famous simultaneous interpreter, once encouraged us by saying,
“If you want to improve, all you have to do is imitate what native speakers say.”
One day, after some time had passed, I began to wonder where the name “Mimi-chan” had come from and whether it had any special meaning. So I casually flipped through an English dictionary. My eyes stopped on the word mimic.
I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I didn’t know that word at the time.
When I read the meaning, I was astonished.
“Good at imitation; an imitator.”
“Mimi” came from mimic.
I realized again that the moment when the name “Mimi-chan” came to me had truly been from God, and I thanked God once more. Jesus had known my sadness from losing a previous bird, and my quiet desire that the next one would learn to speak. And yet—what a wonderfully unique Jesus He is!
Thanks to Mimi-chan, I was given a truly joyful season of life.
Hallelujah! Thanks be to the Lord.
