December 10, 2006

Merry Christmas and happy New Year from Japan!

Generally, I don’t like writing letters. I prefer the individual touch and the personal voice of the telephone to give a genuine sense about what is going on in the mission field. However, when there are so many people who are wondering what is going on, an alternative method of communication must be used. I am working on a Web site where I can put pictures and blog bites and weekly messages about the work of God. However, this must wait until I have more free time after the end of the semester.

I am a long-term volunteer missionary with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). I am paid and employed by Kinjo Gakuin University, a women’s university of around 5,000 tudents in Nagoya, Japan. The university was founded as a school for girls in 1889 by missionary Annie Randolph of the southern Presbyterian mission board. There were five girls in the original class. The school now consists of a kindergarten, junior and senior high schools, as well as the university. The kindergarten is coeducational, but the others are for girls and women only. This provides a great advantage for them in their education.

I am a full professor, though not tenured, as I do not possess a doctorate. However, the school’s commitment to having missionaries on staff generally assures us that we will be here as long as the school is providing education for young ladies.

Many people ask, “Why does the church have missionaries in Japan?” The need to send missionaries to China, Asia, Africa, and Central and South America—this they understand. But why send people to a country that seems more technologically advanced than the United States? It is true that most of us in Japan are not toiling in a small village trying to bring hope to people who are barely managing to survive. We don’t find ourselves working in an environment where we are trying to give a voice to a disadvantaged people. (Japan has both of these, believe it or not.) But just because Japan is technologically advanced does not mean that the people have no spiritual hunger. In fact it is quite the opposite.

As in the United States, many people ask if this is all there is. Is there nothing more to life than just possessing goods, having a job, rearing a family, and fitting into a niche in a highly structured society? Most assume the ultimate evolutionary consequence wins out, that is, that there’s really nothing beyond this life. Yet most of the Japanese I know aren’t at all comfortable with the evolutionary outcome as it’s taught in schools. Being a tiny little bolt in a long line of machines that endlessly roll down the assembly line, does not create a sense of personal meaning and purpose. The main religions here in Japan, Buddhism and Shinto, try to provide a sense of the “beyond,” with ancestral awareness of their struggles and a hope of some everlasting peace in a rather vague, almost misty paradise. But, I really do believe the intelligent Japanese are not convinced of an after-life. Like so many of us who need to see to believe, they only see the cremated remains and the granite stone that will sit above.

So why do we have missionaries like myself in Japan? Life is more than the goods we collect and the stages we reach in life. There is an ultimate purpose and meaning for every life. I believe in the creation of life by God, not by evolution. I even believe in a literal six-day creation that happened not so long ago. It is met by derision from “educated” people, but when I have the rare chance to propose it, students do not scoff at the idea. “Why do you believe this? Can you prove it? Is there scientific evidence at all?” Of course, few are convinced and easily dismiss my views.

But I have planted a positive seed of doubt. A God with mighty power who has done the impossible and claims to have created every human being with love, care, concern, and eternal vision can reach into even the coldest heart. This is the supreme message of Christmas. The light of God has penetrated the darkness. As missionaries, should we not reflect this light? Even a dim shadowy light can reveal amazing things in a world that is becoming darker by the day.

In Japan, as elsewhere, it is the personal relationship and real concern that make all the difference. My students and the members of my English Bible class are not so interested in theories or religious teachings as they are in the individual relationship with the teacher. For my Christian students, their relationship with Jesus is vitally important. I will continue these letters in the coming years to tell you about mission in Japan, and the lives that are touched by missionaries.

Bill Geppert