Family

Gotta tell ya'll what happened today. Couldn't have dreamed this would be possible.

To start with, the place where we're living for this month in Japan is on the Izu Peninsula only about 40 miles south of Ito, where I spent the summer of 1971 -- 38 years ago -- living with a host family. Apart from the fact that the house we're in was the only one listed on vrbo.com in all of Japan, the fact that it was near Ito was, frankly, one of the attractions for me -- in addition to the fact that it is a really beautiful part of the country.

I hoped that at some point during our time here we would go to Ito, and I would try to find the house where I lived. I had lost touch with the family only a couple of years after I was here. I had visions of knocking on the door, and Eriko would answer. She was my bratty ten-year-old host sister, who would be 48 now. I didn't imagine that her father would still be living. His health seemed quite poor way back then.

Well, it also just happens that the only Sei Ko Kai Church (that's Japan's Anglican Church) within a hundred miles of here is in Ito. So, this morning I took the train to Ito, and got a cab to Izu St. Mary's Church. I got there about 45 minutes before the service, but had a chance to introduce myself to a man who was probably a warden, who then took me next door to the rectory to meet the priest. I explained my connection both to Ito and to the Episcopal Church in the US.

The service began, and there were about twenty people total. I was able to follow the service pretty well, and sing the hymns. We had Eucharist -- my first time ever to be in a Sei Ko Kai service in Japan.

After the service, the priest made the announcements for the day, then introduced me. He gave me the mike to speak to the congregation. I explained in the best Japanese I could muster that Ito held a very special place in my heart, and that 38 years ago I had been an exchange student here in the home of a family named Shimomura. I told them that in spite of severl trips to Japan since then, this was my first time back to Ito, and that I was hoping to find the home where I lived. I even told them the address. I also told them that I'm a priest, and offered greetings from their brothers and sisters at Christ Church in Andover.

They welcomed me very warmly and invited me to stay for the lunch that followed, which I of course was happy to accept.

After I finished speaking, a man came up to me and told me his wife was a Shimomura. I then spoke to her and told her my host father was named Kintaro, at which point she told me he was her brother.

Now you have to understand a few things here. First of all, this is a city of roughly 100,000 people. Two, there are only 20 people in this church. Three, I had no idea that any Shimomura relatives were Christians, much less Sei Ko Kai.

It turns out that this sister used to live in Tokyo, and I had stayed in her home with her two sons about my age (my Japanese cousins Ryota and Eita). She and her husband moved back to Ito in their retirement.

Well, this was just the beginning of a wonderful afternoon. After the lunch with the congregation, during which I had a phone conversation

Kintaro and Sachiko Shimomura

with Eita (who, thankfully, speaks perfect English), they took me by the place where the Shimomura house had been. It has been torn down and is now a vacant lot. I never would have found it on my own. Then they took me to the home of her brother, Kintaro, and his wife, Sachiko (my okaasan), where we had a reunion more joyous than I could have imagined! Other relatives came, too, another sister and the mother of two other cousins, Aki and Shingo. We talked for over an hour catching up on all that has happened in our lives. Kintaro, my otoosan, looks in better health than 38 years ago, I'm happy to say. And I had nearly forgotten what a wonderful, cheerful, and absolutely lovely person Sachiko was.

Amazing how a relatively fleeting experience (only two months in the life of a sixteen year old kid so long ago) can leave such a lasting imprint on our lives. We picked up where we had left off all those years ago, and you would have thought we really were family from all the people and events we talked about.

I guess we kind of are!

I'm putting this on the blog now, but ill add some pictures once Carolyn arrives tomorrow with the plug adapter that will finally allow me to use my laptop for this. I'm getting tired of pecking out one letter at a time on my phone!

More later!

Jeff