Meet Japan: The MechanicKatie Cornick - 12 Mar 2012

 The world stood with Japan as our televisions and newspapers told a story in numbers; 8.9-magnitude earthquake, 500mph tsunami, 15,000+ dead, 125,000 homes destroyed, £100bn damage. The figures were shocking, but showed broad brushstrokes that miss the detail of a much more intimate story in Japan. This is painted by the millions of individual stories of people who are left trying to figure out what life looks like after such a terrible disaster. These are what the media miss; these are the million untold stories. 
Katie Cornick, with a team from 24-7, have spent this last year working with the relief teams in Japan, spending time with actual people who in a process of rebuilding their lives. We asked her to share some of these encounters; they manage to capture the tragedy and hope of an individual that gets so easily missed by the media. We will be releasing them over the next 3 days so make sure you catch all 3 because, just as with people, each is wonderfully unique but equally beautiful.

Part 1 of the 'Meet Japan' blog trilogy

She is the first Christian I ever met. Others have come to talk about Jesus, but it is a different Jesus. She is the first follower of Jesus I’ve met.

Masaru explained to Wendy and I that other groups had come to talk to him about Jesus, Jehovah’s Witnesses stop by his shop but he religiously tells them he cannot be one of them. He is a Buddhist, or better put, he is Japanese. Throughout our conversation Masaru intertwined the words Buddhist and Japanese as though they were direct synonyms. In many ways they are. “It’s better to have two or three gods”, Masaru told us.

I know there is one true God. He is forgiving, like a father. He is kind and loving, but I cannot come close to him. He is too big.

As we went on talking with Masaru we giggled and clapped over his seemingly near grip on the God of the Bible. Moments of clear understanding were clouded with a polytheistic worldview and juxtaposed  against a strict belief that he could not become a Christian because he wasn’t American.

Before becoming a mechanic Masaru was a shut-in, a hikikomori, someone who has lost hope in the economy, in relationships and in the future and locked himself in his room, unwilling to face life. A deeply rooted belief in reincarnation convinced Masaru that there was no reason to participate in this life. He might as well waste away in his room because he would just die and do it again. Without purpose Masaru lived in a dark and lonely world. A committed friend rescued Masaru out of hopelessness and told him that reincarnation was not true. When you hear Masaru tell the story you can feel the presence of God and sense the Holy Spirit’s pursuit of this man. “My mind was changed and I thought differently. I started going through my thoughts one by one and deciding what was true and what was false. After a long time I came to the conclusion that all of life boils down to love. I want to experience love.” In a beautiful and riveting retelling of his story Masaru explained to us that only love remains. Everything else will fail, but love will never fail...

Tomorrow the story continues as we get to know Matsuri's father and through him we begin to discover Japan.