Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Japanese Students Respond to the Journey of Repentance


At a high school near Hiroshima, Marc Milsten, a Pacific Lutheran University graduate and local Washintonian, teaches English to a group of Japanese junior high school students. To help them understand one perspective of Americans, his students have been reading a recent Tacoma News Tribune article about none other than the Journey of Repentance. The Tacoma News Tribune, upon hearing this, wrote another article outlining their reaction; that they were “moved – even surprised – American’s would travel to Japan for this purpose.”

One student, Monami, wrote that “I think those people in Tacoma are wonderful and modest because they will visit Japan to ask forgiveness although it was Japan that started the war. Japan should visit your country and apologize first. In any war, both countries have to be responsible for the results. I think this visit will be a good chance to forgive each other and make a better relationship.”

Thank you to Marc for beginning this dialogue in your school, thank you to Steve Maynard of the Tacoma News Tribune for continuing it here in Tacoma.

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