People

Some of the people I met are:

Philip, Dave, and Paul Broman - three brothers who ended up in Japan after the war. They are all around 80 years old now, but still have a heart for getting the gospel out. If I remember correctly, Paul married a Japanese woman, Dave married an American, and Philip never married.

Nathan - a son of one of the 3 Broman brothers who came to Japan in the 50's. When I first spoke to him on the phone Sunday night about possibly coming to visit, he offered to pay half of my round trip ticket, so about $90. He helped introduce me to folks and seems to be one of the main leaders. They don't have titles...most things are decided by consensus of the elders.

James - he was my interpreter for a lot of the time. He spent a lot of time making signs that they put up all around Japan. He also let me have some tracts I could give out.

Tomono - also known as Tom, he was probably in his 70's. His parents were Japanese who moved to Hawaii before the war. After the war, he moved back to Japan. He still drives one of the vans and drives all around spreading the gospel. He has a small kitchen in the van and sleeps in the van as well. When I say 'van'...this isn't an RV or big van...it is actually smaller than most 'minivans' in the US. Here he is in his van reading in Romans. He was waiting for a tail light to be fixed so he could hit the road.



Janet - an American who has been teaching English at the school for about 4 years. She left her kids and grandkids in California to come to Japan and teach. She let me sit in on a couple of classes...the kids are precious.

I briefly met other folks from India, Brazil, Cambodia, Korea, Taiwan, and other southeast Asian countries. Which country doesn't belong in the list above? If you said Brazil, you are correct. :) After the war, many Japanese were welcomed to Brazil to start a new life since things were destroyed and food was scarce in Japan. There is a fairly large Japanese (or formerly Japanese) community there from what I hear.

There are other folks who I chatted with for a long time who I don't remember their names. My next post will (hopefully) be some of the stories and observations while I was there. Time to take a shower and head to McDonald's for breakfast. :)

--David