Kizuna: Blessed Be the Ties that Bind
Strong relational ties were forged with Japanese volunteers through serving together in the aftermath of 3.11
It is no surprise that the Japanese kanji chosen for the year 2011 was kizuna (絆), which means human connections or ties. The kanji includes the ito radical (糸, thread), or that which binds us together. When everything is taken away—as it was in the aftermath of the 3.11 earthquake and tsunami—the one thing that keeps you going is the support of those who are left, the survivors, and those who came to help, the volunteers. Here, I focus on the volunteers.
The volunteers that poured into northern Japan after the 3.11 disaster came from all over the world. Over 600 volunteers from more than 35 countries came to our volunteer base. In these situations, we found ourselves experiencing kizuna, the deep bonding that can only happen when working together to overcome tragedy and help people rebuild their lives. Within this group, one set of volunteers stand out—the Japanese volunteers, or more specifically, Japanese Christians.
Japanese Christians were the perfect fit when it came to working together in the nearly insurmountable task of rebuilding the northern coast of Japan physically, emotionally, and spiritually. They offered a perspective that very few other volunteers had. First, as wonderful as the international volunteers were, for the Japanese, this was their country and their people. They were already invested. Second, in their experiences as laypeople and pastors of churches in Japan, they have always worked in overwhelming situations. Japanese Christians know what it’s like to work with little or no money to reach out to their neighbors and families for Christ, knowing that there will likely be a less than a 1% response. One volunteer not only pastored a church and ran a Christian school, he also led teams to help us monthly, often including his family. This capacity to give above and beyond anyone else’s normal level of giving was typical of most of our Japanese volunteers.
The way in which we worked with these volunteers varied. There were more formal working relationships like with our staff, which included two Japanese women, one who ran our cafés and another who did visitation. There were less formal but regular interactions with those who came more often, who we called returnee volunteers. These included the Christian baker who regularly made the 20-hour round-trip drive to deliver baked goods and an older couple who came and sang Christian enka (traditional Japanese songs supplied with new words) with the survivors. We also had regular visits from a newly-graduated seminary student who went out on visitation all day but then stayed all evening to help in the kitchen and a pastor who struggled with depression for years but still came every month with a team. There were also the one-time-only volunteers whose visits were short but equally as important. One group traveled all night to arrive early in the morning, worked all day, and then drove back that evening. These Japanese volunteers were the reason we were able to continue doing a good job, even when funds and other volunteers began to fall away.
We will never forget all the kizuna we had with the survivors of 3.11. But we feel our deepest ties are with our Japanese sisters and brothers who volunteered. This showed us what real kizuna looks like. The words to the hymn “Blessed be the Ties” seem a fitting conclusion:
Blessed be the ties that bind
our hearts in Christian, in Christian love.
So close, so close the knit, the knit,
that joins us, joins us to Him.1
1. “Blessed be the Ties,” Thomas Whitfield, The Whitfield Company Lyrics, accessed December 10, 2015. http://www.music-lyrics-gospel.com/gospel_music_lyrics/blessed_be_the_ties_6139.asp.
Photo provided by the author.