Hokkaido Study Tour

(I've been writing an entire newsletter in English every month since October so here's a little snippet from the April edition since I haven't gotten around to blogging about the Hokkaido Study Tour yet.)

Hokkaido Study Tour Presentation
When: May 15 (Fri), 19:00~
Where: Sendai Student Youth Center

This spring we had a fantastic study tour to Hokkaido from March 9-20th. This year’s study tour participants included center student council member, Mai, previous center student council member, Koriyama, and Hashimoto. Sendai Student/Youth Center director, Jeffrey, and staff, Sandy, also participated.

For the first part of the trip we spent 5 nights at Moto-Urakawa Church and participated in activities at the Bethel House community and support center for people living with psychological challenges, such as depression or schizophrenia. This was a very eye-opening experience for all of us as we interacted with Bethel members during their group meetings and helped to package konbu (kelp) sold in the Bethel store to support their activities.

Secondly, we went to Nayoro and stayed at the Douhoku Centre, a support center and meeting place for rural farmers in northern Hokkaido founded by a missionary from the United Church of Canada. The Douhoku Centre has activities similar to our center’s activities in Sendai but for bringing together rural farmers to talk about common issues as well as educate the community about food security and the importance of consuming foods that are grown locally. We had a good discussion with Douhoku Centre director, Robert Witmer, and staff, Kuriko Fujiyoshi, about ways to continue the work of centers like ours in contemporary Japan.

Mr. Miura, director of the Ainu Information Center in Rumoi, took us on a one day tour of Asahikawa to help us learn more about the history of the Ainu peoples as well as other indigenous groups in Japan. In that day we visited the Kawamura Ainu History Museum and the traditional graves of Ainu leaders. Finally, we visited 2 Sendai Student/Youth Center OB/OG living in Sapporo. This year’s study tour presentation will be on Friday May 15th at 7pm, dinner will be provided for 200 yen.

Read more here.

April SHARE

What the Center Means to Us

The last week of classes at the student center ended on a very positive note. At the end of each day we gathered all of the classes for tea and a workshop about what the student center means to us. The concept was to practice communication skills by really taking the time to listen to our fellow center members. The workshop participants included students, teachers, and even a few people who just stopped by for the day. Each of these people is an important piece in the bigger center picture and I think these workshops really helped us all to feel a greater appreciation for everyone that contributes to it.

The Student/Youth Center is a very unique place that doesn’t have very many analogs elsewhere. When explaining to people from the U.S. I’ve sometimes compared the student center to the YMCA or YWCA in the way that we teach various classes in the evenings which are open to the community. I’ve also heard students describe the center as a college circle where there are students from all different colleges participating in activities together. The center also has resources from different college, universities, church groups and NPOs, so it is a bit like a resource center where people from all these different groups can get information about events and activities in Sendai. But, this still isn’t the whole picture.

In March, we discussed this topic more at the student council retreat and tried to think about how to explain what the center is. It’s still a little difficult but slowly we’re taking what we learned from other center members in the communications skills workshops and imagining a new way to see our activities and make them more accessible to people outside this community. We hope this will be an ongoing conversation as the new school year begins.

-SKLT

April Emmaus Newsletter (エマオ通信)

What are these centers?
As I’ve been working at the Emmaus Center for the last year, I find that describing what I do each day at the Sendai Student Center is often very difficult. Most young people who come from the U.S. to work in Japan are English teachers and so my friends and family often assume that I am teaching English. Also, I’ve sometimes felt isolated from the larger community of missionaries working here in Japan because the bulk of them are pastors and teachers. So, how to explain what it is that I do here in Sendai…

This center is a very unique place that doesn’t have very many analogs elsewhere. When explaining to people from the U.S. I’ve sometimes compared the student center to the YMCA or YWCA in the way that we teach various classes in the evenings which are open to the community. I’ve also heard students describe the center as a college circle where there are students from all different colleges participating in activities together. The center has resources from different college, universities, church groups and NPOs, so it is also like a resource center where people from all these different groups can get information about all these activities in Sendai.

On the recent spring study tour to Hokkaido our group had the chance to stay at the Douhoku Center in Nayoro. The Douhoku Center was founded by missionaries from Canada to serve rural farmers in northern Hokkaido. Talking to the staff of the Douhoku Centre, Robert Witmer and Kuriko Fujiyoshi, was a great chance for me to talk to other center staff about what it is that we do. Witmer-sensei described these centers as amphibious, a place that exists in between the church and the wider community. In our daily lives we live, work, and play in a wider world filled with concerns about how we will raise our children or nourish our bodies. The church is an important place where we can nourish our spirits but often it doesn’t have the resources to serve rural farmers and young people in their daily lives where people most need the Spirit in their lives. It’s hard to explain what it is that we do at each of these centers in a practical day-to-day sense but our work is simply another side of teaching everyday in schools and preaching in churches on Sunday mornings. Although the Douhoku Centre and the Sendai Center’s activities are completely different, they share in common this amphibious nature. We live in between these two worlds and bridge the gap between them.

Sandy


「センター」って何？

青年学生センターで働いていて困っていることが一つあります。それは、友人などに自分のしている仕事をなかなか説明できないことです。アメリカから日本に来ている若い人のほとんどは学校などで英語を教えています。ですから、多くの友人や親戚は私が日本で英語の教師をしていると考えています。また、日本で出会う宣教師たちの多くも教師であったり牧師であったり。自分と似たような境遇にいる人と会うことがないことで寂しく思うこともあります。仙台で自分のやっていることを人にどうやって説明したらよいのでしょう？

実にこのセンターは特殊な場であり、他に類のない場所と言えます。知人に青年学生センターを説明するときよく、ＹＭＣＡやＹＷＣＡのように夕方にいろんなプログラムを提供して地域に開かれている場所だと説明します。また、センターに集まる若い人たちからは、ここはいろんな大学から人が集まって何かを一緒にするサークルのようなところだ、という説明を聞いたことがあります。センターは様々な大学、短大、教会、ＮＧＯなどとつながりを持っているので、いろんな情報が集まってそれぞれの団体がこの仙台という街で何が起こっているのかを知る接点になっているとも言えます。

この３月に北海道名寄市にある道北センターに泊まることができました。このセンターは昔カナダの宣教師によってはじめられたもので、農村の人々を応援することを目的としています。そこで働くウィットマー宣教師や藤吉栗子さんとお話をする機会を通して、「私たちはセンターで何をしているのか」について共に考えることができました。ウィットマー先生はセンターとは教会と地域社会との間にある存在、水陸両生(amphibious)であるという言葉を使いました。私たちが日常的に生きている社会の中にはいろんな関心事が飛び交い、子育てから自分の健康にいたるまで様々です。既存の教会は自分自身の魂を潤す大切な場でありますが、農村の人たちや一般の青年たちを具体的に励ましたり応援したりするほど力はありません。そのような中で、センターの働きは学校での勉強、教会での礼拝と並んで社会の人々に霊的な励ましを与えているところです。道北センターも青年学生センターもそれぞれに違う働きをしていますが、でも、この水陸両生的性質においては似ています。センターは二つの世界の間にあり、二つをつなぐ懸け橋なのです。　　　　　　
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
サンドラ･久美子・リー・武井（サンディー）　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
（翻訳：ジェフリー・主事）

April Sycamore Tree

Dear Sycamore Family,
I am writing this article a little bit early because I will be traveling from March 9-20th in Hokkaido for the Sendai Student/Youth Center annual study tour. Every year the Sendai Student/Youth Center sponsors a study/exposure trip to Southeast Asia or other parts of Japan during the school holidays in the spring. Past trips have been to Nepal, Bangladesh, Malaysia, and India. Last year, I also participated in the study tour to Okinawa where we learned about U.S. militarization and the history of the native people of Okinawa. Okinawa is a small chain of islands off the southern coast of Japan and Hokkaido is the large island off the northern coast so I will be lucky to have visited both extremes of Japan.

In Hokkaido, our first stop will be a place called the Bethel House in Urakawa in southern Hokkaido. Many years ago, a Red Cross doctor created a counseling group for patients with psychological challenges such as schizophrenia, addiction and depression. In 1984, some members of this group gathered and decided to create a community where they would live together and share their common experiences. In 1993, members of the Bethel House (べてるの家) began to buy sea products like seaweeds and kelps to sell at church bazaars in order to support their activities.

Second, we will visit the Dohoku Center (道北センター) in Nayoro in northern Hokkaido. Like the Sendai Student/Youth Center, this center was founded by a missionary from the United Church of Canada in partnership with the United Church of Christ-Japan (UCC-J). It’s a meeting place for neighboring rural farmers. Activities frequently include work with nearby Ainu communities. While we are in Nayoro, we will also visit Ainu sites and learn about Ainu culture lead by the director of the Ainu Information Center (アイヌ情報センター).

Of course, there will also be time to eat delicious Hokkaido seafood, visit the famous Asahikawa Zoo, and spend time getting to know our fellow travel members. Students who have attended these study tours in the past have said that it had been one of the most memorable experiences of their lives. Not only did the study tour give them the opportunity to get to know their fellow student center members but also to learn about a place in a much deeper way that they would as tourists.

More when I return!

SKLT
Global Missions Intern (GMI) and
Assistant to the Director
Sendai Student/Youth Center in Sendai, Japan