I was also elected to the Executive of the District at the Annual Meeting held in April. This was totally unexpected and means regular trips to Sapporo several times a year, but enables me to see the work of the District from a different perspective. The Hokkai District is known throughout the Kyodan for the way in which it supports small outlying churches in areas of decreasing population and it is a privilege for me to participate in the work of the District in this way. Keiko continues her work in the District on the executive of the Women's Organization. She is still involved in the puppet group which will soon enter its fifteenth year and remains as popular and in demand as ever.
Japan continues to experience troubled times.
So many myths of the harmonious, peaceful, safe Japan have been smashed recently. There is a new movement to revise history to read that the annexation of Korea by Japan in 1910 was a good thing and that the massacre in Nanking in 1937 never happened. In spite of all these troubles Japan is a rich and diverse culture with much to teach us in the West. And in Japan there are those who place their hope in Christ and the gospel of Christ. As always, in closing, I would ask that you remember the small number of Christians here who, while rooted firmly in the soil and culture of Japan, seek to be faithful to Christ and to speak words of truth and grace while witnessing to the gospel of Christ in this land.