Where are Bob & Chris in Japan January 30?

Rev Dr. Tony Everett is one of many fine professors whose classes Bob attended while a student at Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary in Columbia, South Carolina USA. Rev. Dr. Everett created an acronym from his reflections on Exodus 3:1 ff, the story of the “Burning Bush” It is WIGIAT. It stands for “Where is God in all this?” Dr. Everett teaches his students to turn aside like Moses and ask that question repeatedly as they deal with the challenges of ministry. Chris and Bob have done that repeatedly during a meaningful month in the West District of the JELC. Most of their time has been living and working at Kibo-no Ie in the area of Osaka called Kamagasaki. The slum of Kamagasaki is a startling place and Kibo-no Ie is a deep spiritual ministry in its midst. It is a ministry they wish everyone could experience. If distance were not prohibitive volunteering at Kibo-no Ie for “Night Patrol” or for another program would bring the call of servant service and the reality of the consequence o f human sin into a person’s mind like never before. Just sitting through the orientation of Akiyama Sensei and his staff is a moving experience. You may not understand the words perfectly but somehow you sense the presence of the Holy Spirit in the passion of his delivery. Orientation is just the beginning of a “Night Patrol”. The first “Night Patrol” for Bob and Chris was an experience of the misery of the cold inflicted upon men whose sentence to this life is handed down by a economic and political system that uses them up, exploits them and then views them when their bodies can no longer produce as a collective problem. Their second night patrol on January 30 was the experience of misery in a driving rain that turned even covered shopping areas of Kamagasaki into breeding grounds of sickness for the same collective problem. As they returned to Kibo-no Ie after the second night patrol , peeled off soaked clothing and water logged shoes they huddled around the heaters of a room where volunteers tried to process the experience. With the leader Akiyama Sensei facilitating, each person tried to reflect on their experience. Bob sensed that without knowing the model they were trying to answer the WIGIAT question of Rev. Dr. Tony Everett. While they were warming up and reflecting however the misery that was experienced continued out in the streets of a broken and sinful world. It continued in Kamagasaki and in slums that have different names in various parts of the world. Their experience for a night, or for the second time on "Night Patrol" was over; but what of the ones they left on the streets? There is no good way to resolve that question anymore than there is a good way to resolve the result of corporate human sin. Bob reflected that perhaps some men were comforted for a brief moment by night patrol volunteers in Kamagasaki just as their counterparts are in some other forsaken slum in this world. Yet after Bob and Chris and their fellow volunteers are warm and their night patrols are over the masses of poor and homeless remain until? Bob and Chris turned aside after "Night Patrol" January 30 as they have done many times during their month in the West District. Sometimes turning aside repeatedly however can begin to feel like turning in circles. Peace from Kamagasaki and Kibo-no Ie

Keep praying,

Zen Ben