Vol.XV #3

September, 2001

NSKK NEWSLETTERNIPPON SEI KO KAI Provincial Office
65 Yarai-cho, Shinjuku-ku,
Tokyo 162-0805 JAPANEditor : E. Hajime Suzuki
Tel. +81-3-5228-3171

Fax +81-3-5228-3175

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,
Rumoi Christ Church in the Hokkaido Diocese is commemorating the centennial
anniversary of its foundation. Rumoi is a small port town, located in the northern part ofHokkaido. In summer 1901, a British missionary, Rev. Niven George Cecil, started
missionary work in this place, after a long journey from Otaru by sea across the Sea ofJapan, as no railway was available then. Since then the Anglican Faith has been
unceasingly maintained.

In the Church Register, 600 names have been registered.

In this Rumoi Christ Church, there is a “Treasure” of the Church, which has beensuccessively cherished and carefully preserved by the Church members. They are 312“hanging pictures” which are based on Bible stories. All the pictures have a size of
83cm by 60cm.

The pictures include “Three Kings led by the Star”, “The Birth ofJesus Christ”, “Five Loaves and Two Fish”, “The Sermon on the Mount”,“JesusHeals Many People”, “Jesus Walks on the Water”, “Jesus Entering Jerusalem”, “Jesus
Washes His Disciples Feet”, “Jesus Eats the Passover Meal”, “The Arrest of Jesus”,“Pilate Questions Jesus”, “The Angel Stands by the Tomb”, “The Resurrection of Jesus”,“The Ascension of Jesus”, etc., and thus the Life of Jesus was illustrated in detail,intelligibly and beautifully. They should certainly be seen as the “Treasure” of thischurch.
In commemorating the Centenary of its foundation and initiation of the mission, Rumoi
Church published a heliotype pictorial record, “Life of Jesus illustrated by the HangingPictures”, selected 31 pieces from the “Treasure”, and distributed it to the churchmembers and all concerned people in order to share the pleasure of the Centennial of theFoundation of the Church.
The Hanging Pictures of the Christ were produced more than 100 years ago, one of theseries of European Hanging Pictures, which were the fruits ripened from the era of theChristian Faith in Europe. Nobody knows when and by whom these pictures werebrought into Rumoi Church, but there is no doubt that a certain CMS missionary
brought these pictures during the early stage of NSKK.
It is a matter of great regret that some of the pictures, including the most dramatic sceneof Christ’s Crucifixion, were damaged due to frequent use of the pictures during these
100 years of time. Nevertheless, we would like to express and to share our great
pleasure that in the 21st Century when audiovisual machines are in the height ofdevelopment, “A Set of Hanging Pictures of the Period of Christian Faith in Europe”
which were produced by human hands over 100 years ago, have been brought back tolife in such a small church of NSKK in the northern port town of Hokkaido.

E. Hajime Suzuki

Leprosy and the Mission of NSKK
Relief activity for leprosy patients in Japan was started by Miss Hannah Riddel, a CMS
missionary who had been sent to Kumamoto. Before then, almost nothing had been
done, either on a public or a private basis, for leprosy patients. In those days, leprosy
being regarded as a fatal disease, the patients, fearing to give trouble to their families,
used to leave their homes and wandered about Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines,living by begging. Miss Riddel was so moved to see the miserable condition of theleprosy patients that she retired as a CMS missionary and established Kaishun Byoin in
Kumamoto at her own expense in 1895, which became the first sanitarium for leprosy inJapan. The principle of her sanitarium was to preserve their lives, give medicaltreatment, and also to restore their humanity based on Christianity.

Moreover, she sent

devoted Christian former patients who had recovered from the disease to other areas
where there were more patients in order to help them.
Miss M.H.Cornwall-Leigh was a USPG missionary who was also moved by theencounter with some patients and started leprosy relief activity in Kusatsu, a place
where hot springs were well known to be effective for skin diseases, so that many
leprosy patients came to live around the area, called Yunosawa district. In 1916, Miss
Leigh founded Kusatsu St. Barnabas Home with her own patients. In the meantime, theJapanese government started a severe quarantine policy for leprosy to strengthen thewar regime, and consolidated the private institutions into public (national) sanitariums.
Consequently, those Christian based institutions were forced to close in 1941. However,chapels for the Christian patients were provided to guarantee their religious lives. Since
World War II ended, NSKK has been sending care-taker priests for worship and forministry to the patients. Although the percentage of the Christian population in Japan is1%, and Anglicans are only 0.05%, in leprosy sanitariums, the Christians are more than30%, Anglicans 10%. This is the fruit of the hard work of the two missionaries.
Even though leprosy became a curable disease owing to medical progress, and thequarantine policy was no longer needed, the government did not abolish the Leprosy
Prevention Law until 1996. On May 23rd 2001, the government decided not to appeal
against a court ruling holding the government and Diet responsible for the needlessquarantine policy, and expressed deep regrets and apologies to the former patients.
At our General Synod in 1996, NSKK resolved to approve the abolition of the Leprosy
Prevention Law, and confessed that our church had not protested against thegovernment policy and asked for forgiveness from all the former patients.
Hansen's disease in Japan has come to an end now. The average age of the former
patients is over 70. In NSKK, we have determined to join a solidarity movement for
restoring their human rights, and to continue our mission and ministry work till the last
breath of the last patient.

The Rev. Naoki Kimura
Secretary, Mission and Ministry

Revised Hymnal coming soon
In 1994, after some years of preliminary study and experimental work, the Commission
for the hymnbook of NSKK was authorized to start its work by the General Synod. Thepresent hymnbook, titled Hymns Ancient and Modern, published in 1959, is a result of
several revisions in the past since the missionary time. Thanks be to God, missionaries
who arrived in Japan first in 1859 worked very hard to put English hymnbooks andprayer books into Japanese for the use of our Japanese church. The 1959 Hymnbook is
one of the outcomes of their toil and hardship. The year 1959 was marked also by theauthorization of the post-war revision of our Book of Common Prayer. Both of thesebooks were written in traditional language and forms. But as a result of a growing desire
among people in the church for more understandable and contemporary use of words,
the General Synod, after almost two decades of work, ratified the 1990 Book ofCommon Prayer in contemporary language, and then created a commission to revise
hymnbook that might go along with the new prayer book.
At the outset of undertaking the revision, the commission looked into the present
hymnbook and decided which hymns might be included in the new one and which had
to be eliminated. Some principles, after a lengthy discussion, were adopted as a groundrule of the selection process, which later applied in selecting hymns from otherhymnbooks in use worldwide, such as Hymns of the Chinese Church, Hymnal 82, theNew English Hymnal, Hymnbook of the Korean Church, Taize Hymns, Iona Hymns,
and numerous other hymnbooks.
The first principle that we had in our minds is that our new proposed hymnbook shall bea liturgical one, not just a collection of songs we love. By ‘Liturgical’, we mean that thehymns we choose must be intended to be used in a celebration of services of publicworship, and they are to be a communal expression of our faith, joy, gladness andthanksgiving. We wish that our new hymnbook be an expression of the faith of ourhistorical church, even going back to Christian hymns of the early church.
We have tried to include more original hymns made just for this proposed hymnal,
soliciting words and music from people in the pews as a way of enabling our Japanese
expression to be realized in the new hymnbook. And the words are intended to be more
understandable to our young ones. As is the same everywhere, traditional and poetic
expressions are very difficult to understand for many. We wish those words to be sungwith a clear understanding of their meaning, although we are having a very hard time tomake the words more contemporary, because in the Japanese language a contemporary
use of words needs many more syllables than writing in a poetic traditional way.
Translation of new hymns also has this difficulty. However, we have been able topublish a book for trial use with some 180 hymns. This little hymnbook will, we hope,encourage us and our fellow church people to see a final result in the next five years.
The Rev. Bartholomew Kentaro Takeuchi
Hymnal Revision Committee

SUPPORT FOR HIV/AIDS PREVENTIONNSKK member Monica Hisano is a woman long committed to working on the issues ofgender and consumerism in the women’s movement and has attended several
international gatherings.

During one of them she faced strong criticism from aparticipant against Japanese men who had joined package tours mainly aimed atprostitution and as a Japanese women she felt anger and guilt.
Some years after her encounter she became familiar with the serious pandemic of
HIV/AIDS in Thailand through a TV program in Japan.

Through it she learned thatprostitution was legal and in the country poor families would sell their daughters fortheir survival.

Prostitution is one of the main means of transmitting the virus andmany young parents are unconsciously virus carriers and so their babies are born withthe virus.

Another serious consequence is the increase in orphans because anti-virus

medicine is impossible to acquire for people in developing countries, even in Thailand
where the GNP per capita is $5,456.

It is a tragedy to see that young girls among theorphans are sold to be sex workers.
After long consideration about what she could do to apologize for the Japanese males’
crime to fellow women overseas, Hisano decided to commit herself to support theprevention of HIV/AIDS in Thailand.

She planned to donate a meaningful amount ofmoney as a scholarship for girls in Thailand to be given without any specification of thesubject to be studied, but she thought it would be superb if it related to health/medicalwork.
This good will idea was presented to her diocesan bishop, who is also the Primate ofNSKK, and came to the Provincial Office General Secretary who has a friend from hisyouth , Dr. Michael Ishida, who is working in Thailand for the prevention of HIV/AIDS
sent by the Japan International Cooperative Agency.
In July, the General Secretary and Hisano’s Rector, The Rev. John S. Sato, visitedThailand in the northern area around Phayao District where the HIV prevalence ishighest in the country and also the working ground of Dr. Ishida.

There are manydifferent minority groups in the area and they have been following their traditional wayof life and many children have no chance to attend school.

Also there are several

NGOs operating in this area who have competence to provide the administration of ascholarship.

After visiting several of these agencies with Dr. Ishida, it was decided

that the Bangkok YMCA Foundation project would be the facilitator for the Monica
Hisano Scholarship Fund.
1.

Consequently, the Fund has been set up as follows:

The Monica Hisano Scholarship is founded as a token of the strong concern of Ms.
Monica Hisano for young women in Thailand.

2.

This scholarship is principally provided to young girls who are from the area of thePhayao Center at Dok Kham Tai.

3.

The Provincial Office of Nippon Sei Ko Kai (Anglican Communion in Japan) willassume the managerial role for the scholarship.

4.

The scholarship provides 350 US$ per year per high school student for three years
and 60,000 TBT per year per nursing college student for four years.

5.

The amount of money required to cover tuition and spending money for 10 highschool students and 3 nursing college students is kept in the account of NSKK
Provincial Office.

6.

The provisions of the scholarship start at the beginning of the school term inOctober.

7.

NSKK Provincial Office will send money at the request of Bangkok YMCA
Foundation. The request should include the name of the recipient of thescholarship.

8.

Bangkok YMCA Foundation will give a report of the status quo of the scholarship
to NSKK Provincial Office in the end of each school year.

NSKK approved the special fund for the Monica Hisano Scholarship in its accounts andis publicizing it widely to invite donations.
(Samuel I. Koshiishi)
NSKK would convey the heartfelt condolence to the victims of the horrible events on
September 11, their families and friends. May God’s guidance and help be with sisters
and brothers of the Episcopal Church USA, especially those who have been involved inworks of the relief and the reconstruction at the Ground Zero.