Cherishing Our Connections
Jeffrey Mensendiek serves with J.F. Oberlin University in Tokyo, Japan.
I was visiting my mother in Los Angeles for New Years this year. We had a wonderful family reunion, and I was ready to fly back to Japan the next day when the evening news reported the outbreak of wildfires in Eaton near Altadena. Soon thereafter I received word from my friend Mike Okamura who lives in Altadena that he was evacuating his home and spending the night at his parent’s place. I was glad to hear that he was safe, as I kept my eyes on the news of the fast-spreading wildfires. My flight was early the next morning. We took off from the runway in extremely strong winds. It was still dark as we flew over the San Gabriel Mountains, and down below I could see the mountains on fire and smoke everywhere. Southern California was exceedingly dry for this season. After returning to Japan, I learned that Mike’s church, the Altadena Community Church (ACC), had been burned to the ground. Several church members at Mike’s church had also lost their homes. Mike had already reached out to our partners in northeastern Japan with this news, and our partners in the Tohoku Conference of the UCCJ (Tohoku means northeastern) were deeply concerned for the people who had experienced the disaster firsthand. The ACC is one of many UCC and Disciples churches that have been sending Christmas cards to our Japanese partners who survived the triple disaster (earthquake, tsunami, nuclear disaster) of 2011. Mike has been especially faithful in that he has visited northeastern Japan several times, visited our churches and shared meals with us. He has also been involved in several cross-cultural visits in the Tohoku to bring a sense of joy and celebration even in the midst of great loss. And now it was the Japanese Christians turn to send a letter of sympathy, and to discuss what could be done to show their support in this time of great need in the US. Even as I write this letter the churches of the Tohoku Conference are gathering a collection to send to ACC for their present and future needs.
The Christmas Card Project was started in 2013 as a way for US churches to reach out globally through prayer. Each US church is assigned one or two Japanese churches to write to. I provide the US churches with basic information about the churches they are writing to, and ask them to lift these Japanese churches up in prayer during Advent. Now that the project has continued for over ten years there are Japanese churches that reciprocate with a Christmas card. This is one way that Christians on both sides of the Pacific acknowledge and participate in the ties that bind us through Christ.
At the end of February, I had the chance to travel from Tokyo to Noto Peninsula on the western coast of Japan. Noto experienced a substantial earthquake in January 2024, and then was hit with heavy rains in September which caused severe damage. Noto is a remote and rural area where most of the population are elderly. I took several students with me to help with relief work. Even in the same country of Japan there is a disparity between the city and the rural countryside, the stable areas and the areas hit by natural disasters. I was reminded again of how important it is to visit one another, and to be creative about keeping the connections alive. The local churches in the Noto area are doing great work to support their neighbors in need who are living in temporary housing and have lost so much to the natural disasters. It is up to us who live in the large metropolitan areas to be intentional about keeping the ties of solidarity alive.
It is disheartening to see the way some world leaders invest their time and energy to break, dissolve and divide the ties that bind us as one human family. Father Greg Boyle who works to rehabilitate gang members in southern California at Homeboy Ministries says, “We don’t belong to tribes, we belong in kinship.” Through the church we are invested in spreading God’s love to all. We are committed to building kinship and to witness to our common humanity. Sometimes staying connected can seem like such a small gesture. Yet, when disaster hits, those connections can make all the difference. Connections protect our dignity, and our connections bring peace, hope and love.
Jeffrey Mensendiek serves with J.F. Oberlin University in Tokyo, Japan. His appointment is made possible by your gifts to Disciples Mission Fund, Our Church’s Wider Mission, and your special gifts.