In Japan where 1% of the
population is Christian, we quickly realized that the focus was
on being a Christian presence in the community and the movement
of the Spirit was not hampered by concern for numbers in the
pews. These experiences left us imagining new ways of becoming
more welcoming to people and supportive of small congregations
back home. We also came to realize how much we have to learn
from the work that our overseas personnel and Christian brothers
and sisters are doing in Japan as we now face the challenges of
depopulation and decreasing church attendance.
The work of the United Church of
Christ in Northern Hokkaido
is also supportive of
the efforts of the Ainu people as they form partnerships and
offer friendship and respect. The Ainu are the indigenous people
of Hokkaido who are struggling to reclaim their language,
history, culture and rights. The church district supports the
Ainu Peoples
Resource Centre and one of the ministers we met devotes
half his time to working with the Ainu people. They see helping
to educate people about the Ainu history and way of life,
putting an end to all discrimination and restoring Ainu rights
as part of living out God’s love and the congregation fully
supports their minister in this work. The experiences of the
Ainu people have many parallels to the experiences of First
Nations people in Canada and we found ourselves further
reflecting upon ways to be a supportive presence and build
deeper relationships of trust and reconciliation in the
locations that we live in.
Another highlight of our trip
was spending time at the Dohoku Centre where Rob Witmer and his
partner Keiko serve as Overseas Personnel. We saw Rob and Keiko,
along with co-worker Kuriko Fujiyoshi
focusing their work on offering support to farm families
through weekly visits and Three Love Seminars (a movement
focusing on loving God, Humanity and the Soil which provides
farm families with opportunities to talk about issues, offer
support and assistance to each other and connects people to a
very important social network) as well as operating an English
School, visiting churches regularly, organizing peace gatherings
and reaching out to provide meals for people living in a
neighborhood Psychiatric Centre. The staff’s intentionality in
moving out from the center to offer support and build
connections with the broader community left us reflecting upon
another model for our own ministry.
During our time in Japan it also
became clear how much the work to maintain Japan’s peace
constitution was at the centre of the hearts and minds of the
people we met. Posters promoting love without war were visible
on the classroom walls at the English School in Nayoro; groups
of school children greeted us with the sign of peace; we
attended prayer meetings petitioning for peace and we met a
group of adults at a Peace Meeting who were part of a network
concentrating their efforts on maintaining Japan as a peaceful
country. We returned home with a renewed sense of responsibility
as Canadian citizens to pray; to speak out to our government,
to maintain Canada's peacekeeping role" and to live with the
intentionality of keeping a peaceful world.
