Annual Report--2006

A Quarter Year in the Land of the Rising Sun

A long time ago, in a nation far, far away, there was a girl named Pamela. She was a college student. But that time has long passed, and she landed in Japan under cloudy skies one fair September the thirteenth. Three months passed. Therein, she was subjected to the study of a strange and foreign tongue. Her senseis were patient and glowed with happiness and praise at the progression of their students, but Pamela, though brave and true, remained quite ignorant of the native tongue. She now could, however, participate boldly and valiantly in such activities as telling threatening train conductors that she had used the wrong train pass, and her language skills withheld their most fearsome attacks and the transaction was completed.

She did venture out of school into a place of native worship, and with those of almond eyes did raise her voice to the most high. She did not understand the words, but their hearts sang to Him together. They learned to speak in smiles and to serve each other when words failed them. Time passed, and they learned a few words, and their friendship became deeper. Hand in hand, they retold the story of that time, two thousand years past, when that which is too joyous to fully understand happened and He who is Most High was swaddled by human hands. The fair church folk wrapped Pamela's shoulders in an embroidered cloth and placed a graduation cap atop her head, marking her as one of the three wise ones in the story they told. She raised her voice in the strange tongue with the other two, and they proclaimed the mystery and gifted a small babe with the brightest gold, sweet smelling frankincense, and bitter myrrh.

And Pamela did continue to move among the people of the Land of the Rising Sun. She wandered the narrow aisles of the food markets and felt a child again, unable to identify those foods which had sustained her stomach through all the days of her youth. For the calligraphy was foreign to her. But each return trip to the food market increased in ease, until she could venture to the market and home again without even the smallest frustration.

She tried to live as light, and among a people clothed in clothing all of black, those working in bitter labor and with faces sometimes without hope, she donned a cloak of bright orange as a symbol of that light and hope which comes from life with Him who is awesome and great. She heard the cries of the hopeless who thought to throw their lives before a great beast of metal and she shed tears for them and lifted them to the arms of the Loving Father. And through the lifting up, she did feel hope for those in chains, and she walked in the light that is Hope.

And she continued to move among the people as a stranger. She saw them with a stranger's eyes. She heard tales of the most ancient days of the brave Japanese, she heard of honor and of shame, and they told her the tales of those who had risked being pounded down by proclaiming the name of the Messiah. Like any stranger, her ways often fell into error. But Pamela lived her mistakes in laughter. And the people of the Land of the Rising Sun were kind and forgiving of her faults. In both an eternity and no time at all, the first year of her time in that land came to an end. She walked the streets as the bells tolled the midnight of the first New Year, and she knew that it was good. For the Land of the Rising Sun had brought change inside of her. A stranger she would remain, but a stranger now at home in Japan.