At the Minority Youth Forum, Sophie Fitzgerald could feel God moving through her and the other participants in order to understand the minority issues happening in Miyakojima, Japan.
As a young woman in my 20s who has lived and grown up in the United Church, I have always felt God’s call to spread God’s love and peace in any way that I can. Being involved with many organizations and missions with the church, I’ve had the privilege to do this many times in many provinces across Canada but never internationally, until this past March where God called me to travel to Miyakojima island.
At the beginning of the year I prayed heavily over what I wanted God to pursue in my life in the new year. One of those things was amplifying the voices of people who feel like their voice isn’t being heard. God heard my prayer and answered that when I received an e-mail about the possibility of attending a Youth Forum in Miyakojima, Japan. Not only did this trip to the other side of the world become a life changing experience but it would also start an incredible shift in the way I felt God’s presence move in ways I have never felt before. As soon as Ashley, my co-traveller, and I stepped foot off the airplane in Miyakojima, I felt the presence of God instantly and knew God was looking over me and would be moving through me and the other participants of the youth conference in order to understand the minority issues that are happening in Miyakojima.
The first morning I woke up in Miyakojima I was still jet-lagged and decided to get up, make a coffee, go out on the terrace of the guest house of the church, and spend time doing devotionals and reading my Bible. I was reading Psalm 34:14, which says, “Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.” This instantly became the verse that I held close to my heart the rest of the trip. Because in the midst of all the evil happening in the world with war and injustice, we need to turn to our God the Creator and seek peace. But we cannot just seek peace in situations—we need to pursue peace every single day. To always strive for change, to always strive to be the people that God has called us to be, to seek peace in a world of war and hatred and pursue it.
God’s presence was very evident to me that morning, and also through discussions with the people of the local church as they told us their stories on how they found the church and God and why they continue to attend. Each story was unique to each individual, but they all shared the same feeling of that sense of community.
One story that stood out to me was from a woman named Tokunaga Masako. Ms. Tokunaga had to move when she was 10 years old due to the Second World War, while her late husband lived through the atomic bomb on Nagasaki. She expressed how scared she was in those moments and how she often cried herself to sleep, and how she wants to live out the remainder of her life in peace but feels as though that won’t happen with the increased military forces on the island.
That sense of community that was brought by God, we are all God’s children, and we were all brought by God to sit in this church to discuss issues that are very important to each of us. His presence was also felt heavily in the conversations between the other youth participants and me.
On a tour of the island, we saw exactly what the Japanese military is doing to Miyakojima. We saw how they are taking the beautiful beaches and using them as training camps, putting up missile bunkers in the middle of town next to peoples’ homes and so much more. We sat and talked about how our generation can help the people of Miyakojima have peace once again, and how peace cannot be created with military and military weapons. Throughout these conversations and visits to these sites you could feel an overwhelming presence of our Creator, and was saddened when coming to the terms that everything beautiful that God created was being destroyed and will be destroyed if war does occur.
We all need to come together to be a community, a community of God’s children striving to seek peace in the world. All people of compassion, wisdom, and belief need to come together in order to take care of one another, and to take care of our beautiful world that the Creator made. Systems of injustice can only be resolved with community and partnership with one another. I am blessed that I get to bring the partnership and stories of the people of Miyakojima island back to my island of Newfoundland.
—Sophie Fitzgerald, 21, is a member of Gower Street United Church in St. John’s, Newfoundland. Sophie and Ashley Keeping, 18, of Port-aux-Basques, Newfoundland, and the National Indigenous Council attended the Minority Youth Forum in Japan hosted by the Center for Minority Issues and Mission, an ecumenical initiative of churches in Japan, supported by The United Church of Canada.
Sophie and Ashley are eager to share their experiences. Please contact to connect with speakers. Does this blog pique your interest to participate in people-to-people opportunities with global partners? We invite you to find out more at the People in Partnership webpage or by e-mailing us.
The views contained within these blogs are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of The United Church of Canada.