Across the Pacific, and Asia, with Love

May 2006 was a special time for my wife June and me. We made our first visit back to Japan, where we had lived from 1966 to 2004. One of the many special events that month was the release of a new book planned and published by Japanese friends in our honor. It was a wonderful tribute.

Across the Pacific with Love

Kimura Koichi was a former seminary student of mine and my successor as pastor of Fukuoka International Church. After our retirement as missionaries in Japan for 38 years, it was his idea to produce a sort of bilingual Festschrift for me. It was financed largely by a very beneficent church member.

Fourteen Japanese colleagues, former students, friends, and scholarly acquaintances wrote essays for the book. One was by Murasaka Masatoshi (Japanese names are written with the family name first), my long-time friend and colleague at Seinan Gakuin.

Murasaka-sensei’s essay was titled “A Man Who Crossed the Pacific Ocean with Love.” The title of the book, Across the Pacific with Love, was adapted from the title of that essay.

In addition to Kimura-sensei, two of my good friends served as co-editors: Yamanaka Sakiyo, a professor at Seinan Gakuin University with whom I had worked closely in the Department of Religious Activities, and Kanamaru Eiko, one of my outstanding former students.

The book was completely bilingual. The Japanese part, printed from right to left, was 201 pages long and the English part was 182 pages. The essays were all written in Japanese. Several Japanese friends translated them into English, which was polished up by some ex-pat American friends.

The first two essays in the book were by the last two people on my chronological list of “top ten” influential personal acquaintances: Kaneko Sumio, our former pastor and friend since 1968, and Otsuka Kumiko, also our friend since 1968 and for several years my Japanese teacher and translator, office assistant, and advisor.

There are also essays by Hoshuyama Teruto, a university student of mine in 1974 who became a leader of the Toishikai, a discussion group I had started a couple of years earlier, and by Fukuoka Kikuko, who in 1985 was the first person I baptized as pastor of Fukuoka International Church.

I wish I could tell you more about these friends and the others who kindly wrote essays for Across the Pacific with Love.

Across Asia with Love

In May 2016, June and I made our last trip to Japan. That visit was one anticipated for decades. Long before retiring from Seinan Gakuin, I had said several times that if at all possible, I would come back for the centennial celebration in 2016. I was delighted we were able to do that.

Here is a picture of former Toishikai members that June and I had a delightful time with during our visit in Fukuoka. Next to me on the right is Hoshuyama-san, whom I mentioned above. 

During that time in Japan, I posted a blog article about Seinan Gakuin’s centennial Founder’s Day ceremonies on May 14. It was largely about Nakamura Tetsu, the featured speaker at that festive occasion.

Nakamura-sensei was a 1962 Seinan Gakuin Junior High School graduate, who years later after finishing medical school spent decades as a doctor and humanitarian aid worker in and around Peshawar, Pakistan, and then mostly across the border in Afghanistan.

As June and I had gone across the Pacific with love for the people of Japan, Nakamura-sensei flew across Asia with love for the people of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Tragically, Nakamura-sensei was killed by terrorists in December 2019. Earlier this year, Afghanistan issued a postage stamp honoring him. (Click here to see a short video clip about that.)

Nakamura-sensei became a Christian largely because prior to June and me, other missionaries had also gone across the Pacific with love, taught at Seinan Gakuin and witnessed to Christ’s love there.

Please join me in prayer for Seinan Gakuin as on this Saturday it celebrates its 105th Founder’s Day. 

Mrs. Fukuoka of Fukuoka, Fukuoka

Fukuoka is written with two kanji (Chinese characters): fuku that means good fortune and oka that means hill. So literally Fukuoka means the hill of good fortune. (Most Japanese names have one kanji that refers to something in nature; for example, the shima in Hiroshima means island and the saki in Nagasaki means cape.)

Fukuoka is a well-known name in Japan, mainly because it is the name of one of the nation’s 47 prefectures as well as the name of one of the major cities in the country.

For 36 years June and I lived in Fukuoka City, Japan. It is the major city of Fukuoka Prefecture, which has a population of just over 5,000,000 (just about the same as Colorado). According to Fukuoka’s English website, “The Prefecture offers excellent living and education environments, which help residents to live a relaxed life.” (There are 39 colleges and universities in the Prefecture.)

Fukuoka City is the seventh most populous city in Japan with a population now near 1,500,000. Yet in 2012 Monocle, the global affairs magazine, ranked Fukuoka as the 12th of the world’s most livable cities. The modern city was formed in 1889, with the merger of the former cities of Hakata and Fukuoka. (To this day, Hakata Station is the city’s main train station.)

There are also people whose family name is Fukuoka. One such person is Mrs. Kikuko Fukuoka, a friend who arrived at Kansas City International airport last night and who will be spending the weekend with us. It is a special joy for June and me to welcome Mrs. Fukuoka as a house guest. We have known her for many years, and she has a special meaning for our missionary career.

On Easter Sunday in 1980, we started what became the Fukuoka International Church (FIC). At first, the small congregation met in our missionary residence. After moving to rented facilities with more space and easier access, more people began attending. One of those was Mrs. Fukuoka.

Gradually, Mrs. Fukuoka, who had lived for a time in the United States, became more and more interested in, and gained more understanding of, the Christian faith. Subsequently, she made a profession of faith, and I had the privilege of baptizing her on Easter Sunday in 1985. It was a special time for her but also for the congregation. She was the first person to receive baptism after the beginning of FIC.

Mrs. Fukuoka was four years old at the conclusion of World War II, and her family lived in China (as did many Japanese during the war years). Having to go back to a devastated country after the end of the war was extremely difficult for those families. Some Japanese parents thought the best thing for their children was to leave them in China to be raised by Chinese families there.

It was an emotional time for Mrs. Fukuoka back in the 1990s, when a number of Japanese who had been left in China at the end of the war came to visit Japan for the first time (or the first time as adults). She shared with us how she could easily have been one of those people who had been left behind.

During the 20 years we were together in the Fukuoka International Church, Mrs. Fukuoka was a faithful church member. Maybe partly because of her own experiences in the 1940s, she has regularly been a compassionate friend to many people needing comfort and encouragement during difficult times.

June and I are happy this weekend once again to be with our friend, Mrs. Fukuoka of Fukuoka, Fukuoka.