Human being

It was a long time ago now—but you don't forget some things, even after many years. It was a long time ago that I lived and worked as a missionary in Japan. I was a stranger there. Although I worked very hard to know and to be known, to learn Japanese, to understand, there were also many other forces that made that difficult. In some ways, I would always be a stranger.

I worked at a Lutheran boy's school, junior and senior high school—and I walked home from school every day to my two-room apartment. (One person should only need one room, in Japanese terms, but because I was a Westerner, the school thought it wise for me to have two rooms rather than one.)

Every day I walked past a dress shop—all of the dresses there were too expensive for me, but, even so, I used to stop in on the way home. I would look at the dresses and talk to the woman who worked at the store. Sometimes she would make me tea. It was that time of the day for tea, usually.