Global Ministries

Stephen Cutting, Program Director of Asian Rural Institute

Martha Mensendiek, Global Ministries missionary at Doshisha University, Kyoto

Martha Mensendiek, Global Ministries missionary at Doshisha University, Kyoto

I bring you Christmas greetings from the church in Japan. We have entered the advent season, and each church is preparing to welcome the Christ-child into their midst. For churches in our Northeastern Conference, that means a celebration on December 20th, Sunday morning, and December 24th, Christmas Eve. Many of our churches have less than ten people who gather regularly on Sunday. But, on this day we can hope that our numbers will be doubled. Christmas is well known by the wider public, and there are people who are open to coming on "special days."

After my home assignment in the United States, I am now back in Japan and catching up on things here. First I want to thank all of you who warmly welcomed me into your churches and homes.

The International Working Committee (IWC) of the Inter-religious Conference on Article 9 of the Japanese Peace Constitution warmly invites the Common Global Ministries Board of the UCC/CCDC to send one or more representatives to the Second Inter-religious Conference on Article 9 and Peace in East Asia which will be held November 30 to December 4, 2009 at Academy House, Seoul, Korea. The plan to hold the second conference this year was finalized at the follow-up meeting of the International Working Committee in October 2008. At the same meeting recommendations and proposals made by the first conference were re-examined and implemented.

I stand before a classroom full of 180 college seniors at Miyagi Gakuin Women’s College in Sendai, Japan. They are in my Christian Studies class because it is required.

I remember back in my college days in Pennsylvania reading the poetry of Gary Snyder, who had a heart for the native peoples of the Americas. His poetry was spiritual in the way it respected nature and the native peoples. I was touched deeply, both because of the way it filled me with a sense of awe toward nature, and because it helped me to reflect on Western “civilization” and the sometimes blatant abuses inflicted upon nature and human kind. One recurring theme in Snyder’s poetry is summed up in these words; “Walk gently on the earth!”

Greetings from Japan! The news at the dawn of this New Year were all too bleak – the effects of the failing economy in the US and beyond, and the violence in the Middle East. Japan too has had its share of despair in recent months. Japan is now experiencing poverty among its own population like it has not seen since the post war period. A rise in unemployment and the number of homeless and working poor are reaching unprecedented levels. So much so, that the government provided emergency shelter in one of its buildings so that the homeless could spend the New Year at least with a roof over their heads.