Ministry of Presence: A Community of Easter Hope

Christ is risen!

Easter Sun rose out of dark night in the semi-empty town of Haramachi, Minami Soma.  I started praying about visiting Haramachi Bible Church (HBC) on a Sunday to join their worship among those returned residents after evacuation. When Midori suggested that we should visit them on Easter Sunday, I exclaimed with joy with no hesitation or even thinking about logistic difficulties of our transportation choices (we are moving by public transportation, not driving a car).

Rev. Ishiguro, his wife, and the small but steadily growing congregation warmly welcomed us. I have visited this church a few times since the disaster five years ago, but it was my first time to join them for Sunday worship. Whenever we came to visit the Ishiguro's in the past, I could sense the deep peace flowing from their years of experience, wisdom and perseverance in leading a small independent church. 

From denominational dependence to independence, to inter-dependence

In Japan (and most Asian contexts), denominational hierarchy plays a big role in how the church exists or operates. Especially if a denomination is originated from foreign missionaries's work or is part of foreign denomination, then financial dependence can be significant when it comes to pastor's salary, housing, and other ministerial expenses if a congregation is not able to self-finance. For some years in the past before the disaster, Rev. Ishiguro had worked in a denomination but left his relatively 'comfortable position' to start this independent church by faith. 

To support his family and not to depend on church offering for his salary, he held various part time jobs from editing magazines, serving at town council, and so on. By having so many part time jobs, he got to know his community very well. Then the disaster struck and the city fell into the "stay-indoor" order or voluntary evacuation zone because of its proximity to Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant. The Ishuguros themselves were under significant pressure from their loved ones that to evacuate, but they decided to stay with the church at all costs. This meant for the church, as most members of the congregation one by one left their homes for their safety elsewhere, and this small church was left with the Ishiguros and only a couple of elderly member for more than a year. Without any denominational ties, they were all alone in the city of Minami Soma. 

However, because of their conviction and their obedience to the call to stay present where they were, they faithfully kept the door of the church open week after week, to the point that their health was being compromised. This is when other likeminded independent churches outside Fukushima started coming in contact with them. One of such churches was Seibou Christ Church in Ichikawa where my Vancouver friend, Shihoko, had worked for ten years before her family moved back to Canada (read the story of this church here). 

"I repented of my independence and stubbornness about how I thought I should serve God's church. A church can never be independent. We need to be connected with other parts of the body of Christ," said Rev. Ishiguro in his quiet deep voice with conviction last year when I visited together with Shihoko and her husband. Interdependence is a costly lesson that the disaster gave for this small church. 

"Now people are coming back to Minami Soma. Some of our church members returned and we are seeing new people showing up at the worship on Sundays." Christians who wanted to help Fukushima moved with jobs and started attending the church. Though HBC has been steadily growing for the last couple of years, still many responsibilities fall on the shoulders of the pastor and his wife who act as Sunday school teacher, sing in a choir, and serve meals for the fellowship. 

We sat down at a corner of the sanctuary for me to be able to take photos. The small sanctuary with only four long tables became full as the worship began. The reality of small church goes likes this.   

Church Administrator (left) and Ms. Ishiguro (right) present a picture story of Easter for the congregation. This is helpful for new believers. 

Special music for Easter

Rev. Ishiguro's preaching.  

Getting ready for Easter group photo.

Easter celebration with gourmet Japanese food prepared by the church members.

Today was a bitter sweet day as the church said good bye to two of their brothers that they got to know for the last couple years because their assignments at the recovery sites were completed.

Mr. Nishimura (left) and Mr. Muramoto (right)

Mr. Muramoto is from the Philippines and started coming to Fukushima as a clean-up worker in the restricted zone since 2012. His family is still in the Philippines and he comes to Fukushima for six months and goes back to the Phillipines for the other six months of the year. He is soon leaving Fukushima and not sure this time whether he'll come back in the fall or not.

Mr. Nishimura is an architect from Shizuoka (central part of Japan) who applied for a job with the ministry of disaster recovery because he wanted to serve in Fukushima. For the last three years he was involved in reconstruction of a local hospital in Odaka town, located 11 KM northwest of Fukushima Daiichi. His assignment is complete so he is due to return home next month.

Other than these two men, HBC has been receiving other Christians from elsewhere during their time in Fukushima. There are also new members who became Christians while in evacuation in Tokyo and then returned to Minamisoma.  Some of the HBC members are still in evacuation outside Fukushima.

This small church's demographic makeup has dramatically changed and is still changing. Perhaps this ministry of presence seems a passive posture, but it is most fitting for this rapidly changing and yet ever complex city of Minami Soma.

I do not speak Japanese and Rev. Ishiguro doesn't speak English or Korean, so our communication is very limited without Midori's help, but I can feel the presence of the Spirit working in this community. The quiet smile of Rev. Ishiguro speaks more than a thousand words.

  

Minami Soma - Dark in the Tomb on Holy Saturday

One of the most common scenes in Fukushima nowadays is this - black turf bags full of radiation contaminated top soil removed from ground. Last year when Ken Warren, a professional horticulturalist, visited Fukushima, he said to us, "It takes 250 years to recover an inch of top soil." (read the full story here). 

This is a temporary solution for agricultural land which Fukushima was best known for until the day of disaster 5 years ago - for its quality rice, juicy stone fruits, and fresh vegetables. But all of these are now wrapped in the big question in the air: "How long? How long will it take to recover all of this?"

Yet, other questions continue to rise on top of these unanswered questions.  

What about the water contamination?

How long will it take to clean all the radiation contaminated mountains and forests?

Every time I come to Fukushima I see the scars and wounds on the face of the earth, and hear this deep groaning of creation. It seems like the darkness of the tomb where Jesus was laid continues forever without any hope of Easter, just like the very first Easter when the grieving disciples hopelessly sat in the upper room without knowing what to do with their lives.

However, I come to the joy of Easter time and again, whenever I see small signs of resilience and hard labour of the people of Fukushima. People started returning and started getting their hands dirty again in whatever ways they could.

Midori and I took a bus to come to Minami Soma, the city worst affected by the disaster. This city is located within 25KM radius from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Many people evacuated, both mandatory and voluntary, soon after the disaster. Five years after the disaster some returned but the overall population is reduced by more than 10%.

Green-house farming is the safest way of growing produce here in Minami Soma. 

Well maintained home gardens are a good sign of people returning. 

The streets are still empty due to a complex set of reasons. To name a few, the lack of functioning infrastructure, close proximity to Sendai, one of the major cities in northern part of Japan (people moved north to Sendai area instead of choosing temporary evacuation), and the higher levels of radiation found in the interior areas of Minami Soma compared to other cities in Fukushima. 

Night view of the town centre. 

Another way to tell whether people have returned or not is the lights at night. Dark streets and residential buildings show the people of this wounded city are wandering somewhere else, waiting for the signs of hope to return home.

Lord, we are waiting in the darkness.

A Prayer for Burnout Pastors and Leaders in Fukushima on Good Friday

For the last five years pastors and Christian leaders in Fukushima have worked selflessly for Fukushima. Many of them haven't had any chance for vacation.  I've been hearing their honest cries this time. Their quiet yearning to be healed and to be whole again. Burnout and overwork is now the silent tsunami swallowing God's people one by one.

On this Good Friday (back home in Vancouver) and Holy Saturday (here in Japan) I offer this prayer for those burnout pastors and workers to whose stories I have the privilege to listen.

“Prayer When You Have Nothing Left to Give”

By Diana Macalintal

Lord, I have nothing left to give.

I’m exhausted and worn out.

Yet so many still ask for more.

Grant me that last ounce of strength 

that sustained you on the cross 

and allowed you to give 

one last word of forgiveness, 

that I may be gentle 

with others and with myself.

And when that too is spent, 

help me stay present even in my emptiness, 

and let my presence be 

the first and last gift I have to give.

Amen.

The Work of Your Hands, page 39.

(Thanks to Father John Predmore, S.J. who sent me this poem through his blog, 

Ignatian Spirituality: Set the World Ablaze). 

From One Generation to Another: A quiet, slow way of God's transformation in community (1)

I first met Rev. Otao five years ago at the Fukushima Future Forum, July 2011, then second time when Jonathan came to spend an afternoon with a group of pastors in Koriyama in September, 2012. What stuck in my memory of meeting him among twenty some people in that afternoon was his strong emphasis on the unity and collaboration among local churches in Koriyama that began to form to respond to the triple disaster. "Please pray for us that Satan will not destroy this new unity in Christ." Four years passed and my memory faded already.

When he met us at the train station as Midori and I came to visit his church, the gentle smile on his face refreshed my memory. Koriyama Bible Baptist Church is located in Miharu town, outside Koriyama, on one of many hills of central Fukushima. Snowcapped mountains merged into the sky in the distant background of Miharu town, where Rev. Otao and his wife have been serving for the past fourteen years.

"What were the last five years like since the disaster? What is the most important thing you learned during this time?" I asked Rev. Otao, in his early seventies, serving a small congregation faced with many challenges.

"Unity." Again without hesitation he answered. Love Koriyama C-Net (church network) consists of local churches across denominations in the Koriyama area. Protestant pastors from across the spectrum of theological convictions meet once a month (still today) to pray and fellowship. Anglicans, the United Church of Christ in Japan, Pentecostals, Baptists and so on.

"And now my prayer has been answered. I can't ask for more."

After the disaster some families with young children in the church left Koriyama, and that means they left this particular local church. He and his wife have been working alone for the shrinking congregation, while in collaboration with other churches in the wider region until last June. Ken Nishiono joined as an Associate Pastor last year with a solid four years of working experience in various areas in Fukushima.

Ken graduated from Kansai Bible Institute in the western part of Japan on March 10, 2011, just one day before the disaster. He came back to his hometown, Saitama, and started working with CRASH JAPAN right away. At the Fukushima Youth Forum in 2012, he met his future wife and then moved to work in Iwaki with Global Mission Centre where they later married. I met Ken's wife first a couple years ago at GMC's cafe that she ran.

After working in Iwaki for two years, the young couple accepted this new invitation to serve a local congregation in Koriyama. While most young people move away from Fukushima, especially after having children, this young couple moved to Miharu with their new born baby and are now expecting their second child.

During his four years of working as a relief worker right after his seminary training, he struggled with his vocational calling. "Why all of my work is serving people by my hands' action only with little opportunity to preach the gospel?" After he experienced burnout a couple times along the way, God continued to provide him with mentors who would listen to his struggles and offer guidance.

"Then I began to see God's big perspective that [relief work] was a real ministry and very special time of serving people and working with many churches. Now I understand that it was a precious gift."

Rev. Otao and his wife couldn't stop praising their new co-worker, co-pastor and his dedication and passion for the ministry within this small church. Looking proudly at his  associate whose age is only the half of his, "I have a co-worker," said Otao with the greatest smile in his face I've seen.

Ken was intervieweed by a Christian media in Yokohama last year as a great example to many struggling Japanese youth today. Here's the story: http://the4points.jp/story/kennishiono/ 

5th year of En Route to Fukushima - the Way of Suffering and the Way of Hope

"I am not a blogger - let's start with that." 
This was the first sentence I wrote when I created this blog on April 15, 2011. Then, knowing my impatience and tendency to bring things to tight closure, I added something that sounded like a disclaimer for any future discontinuity.

I intend to stop this blog shortly after Easter when I leave Fukushima to return to my home in Vancouver, Canada. If my Japanese friends and I perceive the need to continue after Easter, I may. But at the moment, I envision that this blog will have a short web life expectancy.

Five years later, I proved myself wrong!

Today I am writing the 95th entry of this blog here in Koriyama on the first day of my eighth trip to Fukushima. The world has changed dramatically in these short five years.

South Sudan became an independent nation and North Korea's former leader, Kim Jung-Il died in December in the in the same year of the Tohoku disaster. Israel and Hamas war broke out in 2012 (and again in 2013) and Russia's military intervention began in Ukraine in 2013. ISIS became the most frequent user of cyber-media by any state-level organized group. The refugee crisis in the Mediterranean region now officially outnumbers the number of refugees during and after WWII.

Has the world become a worse place? Even just today, there were bombing attacks in Belgium. It for sure feels so by the sound of media covering the news concerning these big issues.

I am here in Fukushima on a ten-day journey, however, not to repeat big, loud, news at a micro level, nor even trying to deny any of the tragic facts of the Fukushima triple disaster and consequences. But I am here to find people and places where signs of hope appear in the midst of suffering -- to listen to stories of people on the road to hope via dolorosa.

During this Holy Week and Easter Week, my friend and translator, Midori and I will visit the cities and travel through towns that show in the map below. Here’s the brief itinerary shows where each place is located and (see the map and related story on CNN’s report). 

I realize this is the exact same route we took to visit the local churches just weeks after the disaster. I am curious to hear what these five years have taught these resilient people of Fukushima.

Koriyama (March 22-24)

We will be visiting Grace Garden Chapel & meeting with the leaders of Fukushima Christian Network. 

Fukushima City (March 25)

Fukushima City is the capitol of Fukushima Prefecture, but due to emigration of local population since the 311 disaster and influx of recovery workers into coastal areas, this city is no longer a major hub in Fukushima. We will be visiting a local church.

Minami Soma (March 26-27)

This city is located directly north of Daiichi Nuclear Plant within the 20-30 KM evacuation zone. We will be joining Haramachi Bible Church for Easter worship and fellowship. Midori and I will travel south via the recently recovered train and bus systems on Highway no. 6 along the Coastal line of Fukushima (except for the area surrounding the Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant). 

Iwaki (March 28-31)

As the hub of relocation, resettlement and radiation clean-up work, Iwaki has been going through major changes. We will visit Nakoso Christ Church, Global Mission Chapel and Fukushima Daiichi Baptist Church.