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June 25, 2001
Summer greetings from Nagasaki,
Thank you for your prayerful support throughout the year.
In current temperatures of about ninety degrees (F), it is hard
to recall that we had an unusual snowy day for graduation in March
this year.
First-semester classes continue here at Kwassui Women’s
College until the end of rainy season in mid-July, followed by
two weeks of regular course examinations. This semester has been
a lot of work for all the teachers of English because of additional
classes. Although some departments have encountered decreasing
enrollment as the population of traditional college-age students
continues to become smaller in Japan, the English department in
the college grew beyond expectation this spring. Other extra classes
resulted from one full-time and one part-time Japanese staff member
stopping teaching for personal reasons. There is also an American
teacher leaving mid-year.
This spring has also been especially busy because Kwassui is
trying to strengthen its international exchange opportunities.
We received six students and two professors from our sister colleges,
Ohio Wesleyan University and Randolph-Macon Woman’s College,
for a week-long experience to learn about Nagasaki through lectures,
sightseeing, and personal interchange in our dormitory or home-stay
arrangements. Partly in result, six Kwassui students will be going
to these sister colleges for two weeks this September. Our dean
of religion, Mr. Inoue, and I will get to be their two escorts.
We look forward to seeing life on American Christian college campuses
related to the United Methodist Church, particularly because Kwassui
was established by a Methodist missionary over 120 years ago.
Moreover, from July 19 I will be accompanying Kwassui President
Nonomura to the United States, where we will meet with various
college administrators, especially at Rocky Mountain College (in
Montana), the University of Evansville (Indiana), and Hamline
University (in Minnesota). When he returns to Japan, I plan to
go to the sharing conference of the PC(USA) in Louisville at the
start of my interpretation assignment. During most of August I
expect to be based in Michigan (contact address: c/o K.A. Myers,
10591 Potter Road, Bear Lake, MI 49614). I am not staying in Santa
Fe this time because of my mother’s death this March. I was
blessed to be able to spend time with her at year-end.
At the moment, time in America still seems far away. Even weekends
here are full. Whenever Kwassui has an academic conference on
a Sunday, it begins with a chapel service, and today I was the
speaker for a group of about forty people of various backgrounds.
Then came weekly Bible class at church, with one regular student,
and worship with a congregation of almost twenty people. I lead
two other Bible studies at the college and help with one at the
dormitory every week. It is a joy to share these times with interested
students.
Summer is also the season when Japan focuses especially on peace
issues. In Okinawa, the memorial for those who died in battle
commemorates the victims from all the nationalities involved.
Hiroshima is the most well-known Japanese site from the end of
World War II, but it is also important to think about Nagasaki.
When the city was reopened to Western trade in 1859, it quickly
became a major economic force, particularly for shipbuilding.
The largest church in the East was completed in 1914 in Urakami,
which was a suburb of Nagasaki at that time. There were clouds
over Kokura in the north of Kyushu on the 9th of August 1945,
and the pilot was unable to find his bombing target. Then a momentary
gap in the clouds appeared over the Mitsubishi arms works, and
this became the target. The atomic bomb was released and in fact
exploded over Urakami, almost directly above the enormous cathedral.
Today the epicenter of the atomic blast is marked by a simple
black marble column set in a park, and nearby a small section
of a wall of the cathedral has been rebuilt. With the total destruction
of every building in the area, the ground level has been raised
at least ten feet, but a small section has been excavated and
the charred remains of pots and roof tiles can be seen. Nearby
is the Peace Park, which contains a large collection of statues,
mainly donated by cities from all parts of the world expressing
a wish for peace. The A-bomb Museum gives a moving impression
of what happened in 1945, but also goes on to trace the arms race
since that time and the worldwide growth of the peace movement.
People in Nagasaki want to choose life, but Japan is still searching
for the way to live in the modern world. Let us all pray that
people around the world will increasingly turn to the Author and
Giver of life, Jesus Christ our Lord.
May God bless you, now and always, as you try to follow the leading
of the Holy Spirit. Thank you for sharing together in God’s
mission.
Shalom!
Barbara Easton
The 2001 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 185
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