December 2007

To our Friends and Supporters:

Temple in Nara in late autumn, 2007.

Christmas greetings from Japan! Things are perking right along in our new location, and we’re getting used to life here in the Kansai area. There is so much to see and do nearby, with lots of cultural sites, such as Kyoto and Nara, close by. Autumn in Japan is very beautiful, as Tim’s picture taken in Nara on December 1 attests to. 

Those of you on the email list have already received a pdf of the first issue of Crowned With Thorns as an email attachment. For those of you who didn't receive the email and would like to view it, it’s on our PC(USA) home page and on my Web site. We plan to have a Buraku Liberation Center Web site up and running in a month or two, and so it will be on there then. If you would like to begin receiving a hard copy of Crowned with Thorns (which we will publish three or four times per year), please send us a note and we’ll add you to the list.

Juji’s work at the Shin’ai Home officially began in November. At present, she goes in only two days a week to counsel with elderly residents. The need for this kind of counseling is apparent and clearly welcomed. As the most appropriate schedule is worked out, keeping in mind her physical limitations and medical needs, we expect that she will be involved similarly in other institutions as well.

On Sundays, we have been visiting different churches in the area and will continue to do this for the foreseeable future. As we are each assigned to different ministries located in adjacent districts (equivalent to “conferences” in the UMC and “presbyteries” in the PC(USA)), we are being installed as district missionaries separately. Tim is being officially installed as “cooperating missionary” for the Osaka District this Sunday, and Juji will be installed at the next Hyogo District assembly in May. The various ministries each of us will be involved in within each district (and beyond) will be worked out over time, but Tim will no doubt be helping out churches, as he did in Ibaraki, when the pastor has to be away or becomes ill and is unable to preach. There are also several “mission schools” (universities begun by missionaries and still closely affiliated with the Japanese church) in the area, and so we expect ministry opportunities to be available there as well.

This Christmas will be a bit different from what we’ve been used to for the past 21 years in Tsukuba, as we will not be so busy putting up Christmas lights, preparing a grand international Christmas dinner, “Open House,” etc.  We are glad to hear, however, that these traditions, which we began in Tsukuba, are being continued, as those involved over the years have said that they enjoyed these traditions so much that they have pledged themselves to continue them.

We pray that you too will be blessed by the Christmas traditions you have in your families and churches, and that this Christmas season and the New Year to come in 2008 will be good to you.

The 2007 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 249