kobeintern

06/01/2026 Kobe and Takarazuka

Today, we spent good part of the afternoon driving to Takarazuka, a neighboring city to Nishinomiya where I first lived in Japan. I was born in Bangkok, Thailand in 1962, and two years later, my parents moved back to Japan with my older brother and me in tow.

The reason for the trip was to have a Eucharist for an elderl couple who were long time members of the church. Once we reached Nishinomiya, it was a long steady climb up what seemed like a mountain side of rather affluent residencies. After all Dr. Arai who we visited was a retired professor of the Old Testament! He is in his nineties! Both he and his wife were very much alert and participated in the Eucharist.

The service consisted of singing hymn (there is a portable MIDI Hymn player that you simply enter the number of the hymn, and it plays!), reading the Epistle, reciting the Psalm, the Gospel from last Sunday (Trinity Sunday), a Sermon, the Holy Communion consisting of only the bread (wafer), and the closing hymn.

To travel an hour each way to visit shut in parishioner couple and provide them with a Eucharist was something I plan to keep in mind for my future ministry. Nothing should be regarded as too much work when serving parishioners. Fr. Seyama told me he was happy when they first got a call from Dr. Arai to ask for Communion, because not many have the guts to make such a request. Perhaps I should find out who the shut-ins are, and make plans to visit them – of course, not to solicit, but ask to see if there are needs.

After the service, we segued into a “Coffee Hour” where the host family’s daughter(?) served us coffee, mandarin orange confection and a slice of castella, a ultra delicious form of pound cake. I’m sorry I didn’t take any pictures whlle I was at the Arai residence!

Speaking of food, for lunch before our travel I made myself a plate of Soba. Since I’m not sure how to make the dipping sauce (tsuke-jiru), I simply sprinkled japanese style salad dressing on the noodles. It tasted just fine! I don’t know what it is, but soba tastes so good in Japan! The side dish was blanched Komatsuna. Delicious!

Late dinner consisted of left over fried fish which I bought the day before, with Miso soup with many vegetables, mushroom, and Tofu, and grated daikon radish (daikon-oroshi) and Hyogo prefecture rice – Local rice. A rather modest dinner, but I needed to begin losing weight from over-eating snacks on the road- which was needed to stay awake during my commute to my internship church every week.