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APR 2 6 RECD
Dear Friends,
I am writing this letter at Easter time. We at Kitami Mennonite Church pray that the same joy and encouragement in our Risen Lord we find within our little fellowship may also be yours.
Since last fall our fellowship has been enriched by the regular attendance of two neighborhood women, both baptized Christians who used to attend another nearby church that moved across the city. Shibakawa San and Sawaguchi San have become enough a part of us by now that they have agreed to join in the rotation system for worship leading and speaking.
But just as their participation expands our circle, we are experiencing the loss of the Kida family, suddenly transferred to Wakkanai, the northernmost city in Japan. They had lived in Engaru, a town an hour away, so had only been able to worship with us about once a month, but still we feel their departure keenly.
Tanaka San, another neighborhood woman, not yet a Christian, has been coming off and on since March, even attending mid-week meetings, but she also still feels obligated to the church across the city where she first started attending, so she vacillates as to which church she should attend. She says she has never before found such warm fellowship as she has with us. Why not stay? But thus is the strong pull of obligations in Japan. We will continue to stay in touch with her by sending our monthly bulletins and to welcome her when she does attend our meetings.
One Sunday afternoon a month I teach an English conversation class at the church. The junior and senior high school students who attend all graduated in March and have now become high school and university students or have joined the work force. They all attended Sunday morning worship on March 18, a special service to celebrate their graduation, but otherwise their commitment or interest does not yet extend to ordinary Sunday morning attendance. Church members Yuichi Kawatsu and Moshio Shibakawa also participate in the class, as much for our goal of involving these students in our church as for the English itself. From March, Kawatsu San has been leading a short lesson in Japanese at the start of the class to give them some Christian content in addition to the story we read from the Bible story book, God Keeps His Promise, at the end of the class.
In March I gave two speeches, one in Kitami as part of a winter laborers seminar put on by the city laborers center, and the other in the city of Mombetsu as part of their annual people's university series. Once again these occasions allowed me to make important connections even though public speaking is not my forte or my favorite task. The man in charge of the Kitami speech arrangements was full of questions about the Mennonite church, Christian denominations in general, and Christianity, and urged me, "Go ahead and take this chance to talk about Christianity in your speech."
The speech was on male-female equality and provided a natural opening for talking about the ideal of equality within the Christian church. Following my speech a young woman from the audience came up to ask more questions. We exchanged addresses so we can get together again in the future.
Shunko Cho 3-10-10-41 Kitami 090 Japan April 1990
At Mombetsu the young woman who was to introduce me turned out to be from Kitami, so in chatting we quickly discovered that she grew up next door to my tea ceremony teacher. The Mombetsu speech also allowed me to reconnect with some friends of Steve and Karen Moshier Shenk from their Kushiro days. Akiko Satoh saw my name in the publicity and called to ask if I would like to stay overnight with them—the first contact with them in about ten years. My northeast Hokkaido world is becoming smaller and smaller as I make these kinds of connections.
As part of the things I like to keep track of, I am keeping a tally of what hymns we sing at Kitami Mennonite Church. I was surprised to discover that the most often sung hymn in 1989 was "Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us." In second place was "Worship the Lord in the Beauty of Holiness." Think of us in Kitami whenever you sing those hymns.
Remember in your prayers Shibakawa San and Sawaguchi San, who have joined our fellowship, and the Kiaa family, who must find new fellowship. Pray for Tanaka San in her search for faith. Pray for the students of the church English conversation class that they will become interested in more than just English. And of course pray for me that I may have joy and strength for both the routine and the non-routine aspects of my work.
Peace,
Mary Beyler
Of course I was horrified to hear about the Hesston tornado. I have lived half a lifetime away from Hesston, but something like this makes me realize how important Hesston still is to me. Dave Osborne happened to visit Kitami at the end of March and brought along a video and details, so I could stop imagining where the tornado had passed through and who had been hit. Before that I had very little news until letters started arriving from family and friends. I enclose the one little article that a friend found in a Japanese paper.

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