December 27, 2005

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!
2 Corinthians 5:17

Greetings from Nagasaki, Japan, at Christmas 2005!

Thank you for your continued support of Christian mission work around the world. The past year has brought troubles to many people in many places, and yet we can look forward in joy to the new work which our heavenly Father is doing and is calling us to participate in through Jesus Christ our Lord. The comfort of the Holy Spirit encourages us through dark, cold days.

In Japan, December is called “the month when teachers run,” and indeed everyone seems to be very busy finishing various tasks to meet deadlines in preparation for a new year, especially for entrance examinations and course descriptions for the new academic year that begins in April.

Of course there are also various celebrations of Christmas throughout Advent. The college Christmas chapel service again had students presenting the nativity pageant, which brings the real reason for celebrating the season closer to the students and staff. Although Christmas is not an official holiday in Japan in year, as the 25th was a Sunday more Christians were able to celebrate Christmas Day together at church. This is significant for many older people who do not have anyone at home with whom to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. Immediately after Christmas Day, the following week is then full of preparations for New Year’s, with its own traditional decorations and foods and greeting cards, which is a time of family celebration for the Japanese.

In addition to Advent, another reason December feels like a new beginning is that Kwassui Gakuin was founded on December 1 (1879) and Kwassui Women’s College and our junior-senior high school commemorate this day every year.

Every year one of our graduates is the main speaker at the ceremony, and this year Ms. Tokiko Otani talked about the importance of opening up and continuing to make efforts and finding unanticipated connections that God brings into our lives.

As we remembered our institutional beginnings, we also dedicated a memorial plaque listing the missionaries who have helped to build up Kwassui during the past 125 years, led and strengthened by the grace of God who continues to cause “living water” (the meaning of “Kwassui”) to flow into the minds and hearts of the Kwassui community, bringing salvation and new hope into lives. The ceremony began with Jacob’s words, “Surely the Lord is in this place” (Genesis 28:16), and remembering how Jacob anointed the rock he had used as a pillow, Chaplain Daiei Inoue poured frankincense on the rock used as the support for the plaque during the ceremony.

One of our graduates from about 10 years ago, Kimika, came for a visit recently. She had had a very difficult time while growing up in a Buddhist home and while she was a student surprised us with news of her conversion to Christianity, against her parents’ wishes, after an experience on the ship Doulos. She went on to become a teacher in a residential school for troubled children, and then went to the United States to study counselling. Currently she in Boston is working as a counsellor, something very difficult to do in a non-native language, but she is sustained by her strong faith in Jesus Christ as Lord.

As we proceed into the new year on our calendars, let us remember the true source of “new creation” and find fresh energy for working in God’s mission fields near and far. Your prayers and support enable the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to continue to be active in partnership with Christians around the world. We are all together as God’s children.

With love and prayers for a good new year full of wonders,

Barbara

The 2006 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 252