Our true land is the Kingdom of our Lord in Heaven.

Father Michael of the Tsuchiura Catholic Church and members of Friends of Ushiku visited this morning the Ushiku Detention House of Japanese Immigration Bureau.

I show you here a photo of the reception and administration building of the House :

Our brothers and sisters are detained in eighteen blocks, some of which are vacant for the moment.

Now there is an indication showing a passage leading to the House. When Father Michael visited the House for the first time more than fifteen years ago, there was no such indication, so that he couldn't find this passage. It is relatively recently that they settled this blue plate.

I tried to take photos of sinisterly high walls of detention buildings, but I couldn't because they forbid us to come near to the walls.

All the windows of the detention buildings are opacified with whitish film, so that our brothers and sisters can see neither the blue sky  nor surrounding trees. Please imagine that. It's really suffocating. 

Today Father Michael talked with two of our brothers, and I saw also two of them.

I was glad to have heard that one of the two I met today would be released provisionally tomorow after his detention of one year and five months.

But we can't be too happy because he is forbidden to work in Japan so that he can't have a really independent life in this country.

The other brother I talked with today came to Japan to escape from life threatenning persecution in his mother country. He explained his dangerous situation to immigration officers in Narita. And they arrested him to transfer him to Ushiku.

That's the sad Japanese manner to receive people persecuted in their own country and expelled therefrom. There is no hospitality at all.

We must know that we are all transient being in this world. Our true land is the Kingdom of our Lord in Heaven. There are many place enough for all of us, for our Lord says : "In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you ? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be" (Jn 14,2-3).

Waiting for that momemt of Parousia, we should share this narrow world with all of our brothers and sisters.

May the Lord give us the heart that enables us to love each other.

Luc