Ministry of Presence

April 12, 2018 - Naraha town 

“What skills do you have?”

That was the question repeatedly asked to the sisters who wanted to rent a house and start a community in Fukushima back in 2015. After a long and hard year of waiting, through a connection made at a local parish, the three nuns could get a rental house and register themselves at the local town office in Naraha at the end of 2015. “Why did you move here?” was the question asked by the town office clerk who received the forms filled by elderly sisters.

The Sisters of Visitation is a Catholic order in Japan that was established in 1915 with a mission to visit and offer hope to those who are in pain or suffering. Four sisters from Kamakura convent near Tokyo went to Miyagi soon after the 3/11 earthquake and tsunami in 2011. Three years later when the situation settled, they didn’t want to go back to Kamakura. They started searching where in Fukushima they might continue to serve. When they heard the restricted zone (20 km evacuation zone from the Daiichi nuclear power plant) would soon start opening up, they explored the possibility of establishing their community somewhere along the coastal lines of Fukushima. But the door did not open for them quickly.

“We do not have any skills. We are not useful people. We are catholic sisters.”

Realty agencies and civil servicemen, whoever they met, all alike not only gave them a weird look at their grey religious habits, but gave them cold unwelcoming answers. They did not possess useful skills for recovery in this post-disaster almost-empty town.

The sisters started going out to temporary housing complexes in ordinary clothes, not in their religious habits, to serve evacuees with tea and snacks, and simply to be with people who lost their homes and families. Their friendly smiles, and peaceful presence, which was present week after week, month after month earned the trust and opened the doors to the hearts of hurting people. Gradually they made friends, and people started recognizing them on streets near their community house, in their habit. And now some people even started visiting the sisters at their house.

“We are here to visit people and offer friendship. But most importantly, we are here to pray. Pray for hurting people and pray also for the suffering creation. We pray for reconciliation of all things.” Says Sister Fujiwara with a big smile. She may seem useless in unbelieving eyes, but possesses a smile that no human skill can force to break in another human being’s face. She does not have money or power to sign a big real estate contract, but offers inner peace from the Creator God that no money can buy. 

Sister Teru Fujiwara

Sister Akiko Okawa explaining their farming as away of self-reliance

Seven years after the disaster, most foreign NGOs have left and foreign mission support has long gone in the forgotten land of Fukushima. But this small community of four sisters continue to visit their suffering neighbours with the hope and joy of Christ.

Sister Fujiwara, Sister Juvencia from East Timor, sister Yuko Matsusaka and Sister Akiko Okawa
standing in front of their community house (left to right)