CTS Has Close Ties with Japan

Members of the faculty at Calvin Theological Seminary are offering praise and thanksgiving that Japanese students, missionaries and pastors whom they know are generally fine, although facing mounting challenges, following the massive March 11 earthquake and subsequent tsunami, says Richard Sytsma, a former missionary to Japan and dean of students at CTS.

Connections between the seminary and Japan run deep. Several Japanese students have studied and two are still studying at CTS. Some of the former students are now pastors in the "Great 'Quake" zone.

"It is hard to imagine what the people, both the earthquake victims and relief workers from organizations such as the Reformed Church in Japan, are having to face every day," he says.

News reports, for example, have indicated highly-toxic plutonium from a damaged nuclear power plant in Japan's tsunami disaster zone is seeping into the soil outside.

"People in Japan are living on the edge, wondering what will come next," says Sytsma, who grew up in Japan as the son of Christian Reformed World Mission missionaries and then returned after his seminary studies to serve as a missionary himself, along with his wife, in Japan.

Sytsma and his wife have not visited all of the towns and communities along the 300-mile stretch of shoreline severely impacted by the disaster. But they "have been in the area where the earthquake and tsunami took place many times, the last time in June of last year, when we visited my-daughter-in law's parents in Sendai," he says.

In an email to members of the CTS staff and students, Sytsma has provided a look at how people he knows and those with whom the seminary is connected are faring.

Sytsma's daughter-in-law and graduate of CTS, Hiroko Koriyama Sytsma, has reported that her parents, grandmother and extended family members, who live in Sendai, the major city closest to the epicenter of the March 11 earthquake, were all spared.

"Hiroko's parents and surrounding neighbors struggle with a shortage of food and fuel, but people are getting by — building a community and sharing what they have," says Sytsma.

The families of the current CTS students, Hitomi Urushizaki and Reita Yazawa, do not live in the region most affected by the earthquake and, so far, are doing fine.

Sytsma has been paying close attention to any information about the Reformed Church in Japan that has been sent his way. As a missionary, Sytsma worked closely with the RCJ.

He has learned that Rev. Takashi Yoshida, a Ph.D. candidate at CTS and the Sendai Reformed Church pastor, is alive and heading an ecumenical relief group that provides food, shelter and other necessities to the people of the hard-hit city of Sendai.

Yoshida is also moderator of the RCJ General Assembly, which represents the churches of the RCJ. His church building suffered some damage, but is structurally intact. The homes of some members of the church also suffered damage, some of it very severe.

Rev. Keisuke Yoshioka, pastor of Canaan Reformed Church in Sendai, reports that he opened his still-intact church, allowing it to serve as a shelter for people who lost their homes until they were able to find more suitable living quarters.  "All the earthquake victims who camped out in the church have now moved to other places," says Sytsma.

With Yoshioka, there is also a CTS connection. Yoshioka has been invited by CTS and will arrive in a few months to spend some time as a research scholar to work on two advanced degrees.  Meanwhile, Ishinomaki Reformed Church, one of the 16 churches in the Northeastern Presbytery of the RCJ was irreparably damaged. The pastor is living in a shelter, says Sytsma.

The pastor of Fukushima Reformed Church, the church closest to the nuclear reactors, and his family have evacuated to the pastor's son-in-laws' home in Shizuoka Prefecture.

Sytsma says liquefaction problems face RCJ churches near Tokyo Bay. The Inage Kaigan Reformed Church and the Shin Urayasu Reformed Church, pastored by CTS graduate Takayuki Ashida, are built on land reclaimed from the Tokyo Bay.

When the earthquake hit, the ground split and water from the bay rushed to the surface. Due to the liquefaction, the plumbing, drainage, and sewage systems of Shin Urayasu Church (including the Ashida residence), says Sytsma, are in disarray, "a total mess. The sinks, toilets, showers are unusable."

The Ashidas, like their neighbors on Tokyo Bay, have needed to use city-provided port-a-potties, bottled drinking water, and bath facilities.

But Rev. Ashida, his daughter, Kana, and his son Toru, who just returned home after a 10-week stay with the Sytsmas in Grand Rapids, have left the area and are now in Northeast Japan helping the RCJ church people there.

In a difficult undertaking, the RCJ General Assembly and Presbytery Diaconal Committees are working to organize volunteer relief efforts, furnish shelters for victims, send money, food, and supplies to Northeast Japan.

On this topic, Sytsma expressed his gratitude for Christian Reformed World Missions and the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee, both of which are helping in the relief effort in various ways.

Sytsma says all of the damage and uncertainty created by the largest recorded earthquake in Japan's history is an opportunity for Christian witness.

"Japanese Christians and missionaries report sincere gratitude on the part of suffering people for the efforts of the Christian churches to distribute food, water, and needed resources. They also report an increased interest in the gospel," he says.