A Japanese Sightseer in Israel
Once a Japanese youth, a graduate student in Tokyo, traveled to Israel just before leaving a university and starting to work in an engineering company.
It was just before the 9/11 Terror of 2001.
He arrived at Israel via Istanbul and secured an accommodation of a dormitory style in a cheap hotel in Tel Aviv (tough he later moved to a dormitory inn in Jerusalem). Then he started sight-seeing.
The reason for his decision to visit Israel so suddenly is a book written by a Japanese Catholic author. He was magically impressed with a story flavored with Christianity in which he had had no interest before reading the book. By then, he had a plenty of experiences of traveling abroad; during his days in the university he made an overseas trip many times, mostly with his friends. But this time he was alone.
He went around Jerusalem, Jericho, Masada, the Dead Sea, Gethsemane, the Mount of Olives, and so on. He occasionally happened to meet and communicate personally with a young couple from New Zealand, a medical student of Germany, young men from North Europe, in addition to a Japanese married couple and even a Japanese female student. He also encountered a sly guide and a wily taxi driver.
Though his stay around Jerusalem was almost coincident with the visit to Israel by the Pope, he did not observe any ceremonial and welcome atmosphere in the street of Jerusalem and some historic churches.
Finally he entered a restaurant before leaving the holy land. He found that a waitress there was South Korean. Indeed, he sometimes saw a few groups of South Korean Christians while he was doing sightseeing here and there. A manager of the restaurant realized that he was Japanese, and said, "I know a Japanese learning Hebrew here. If you don't mind, I can call him."
So, a strange Japanese came to the restaurant with the Bible in the hand. He said, "I am learning Hebrew here to be a priest. My mentor in Japan, who is a priest, sent me here. I am expected to master Hebrew to be a kind of scholar. As I live near here, the master calls me when a Japanese guest visits this shop as a kind of hospitality for us."
The Japanese sightseer confessed that he came to Israel because he had read a book of a certain famous Catholic author, which he had never revealed to anybody since he came to Israel. And he asked the young scholar why he was learning Hebrew only to become a priest while he graduated from the School of Divinity of a Japanese university.
During such a conversation, the young Hebrew learner from Japan said humbly that it was love of Christ that had moved him the most strongly. And when they were about to get apart, this future priest said to the traveler from the same country, "Please read the Bible sometime."
Then, the Japanese graduate student left for an airport of Tel Aviv to finally put an end to his five or six-day stay in Israel. But it would take about 18 hours to get back to Japan. He wanted something to read in jet planes. After poking around a book corner in the airport, he finally selected a book titled "The Children's Bible."
He graduated from the graduate school to start to work in an engineering company. But he spent two months, while working, to write his memory of his last traveling abroad in his university days, namely the sight-seeing trip to Israel. He eventually posted it on the Internet.
Around 2002 when the US air force was bombing Afghanistan, he was stationed in an overseas office of the company in Pakistan. He wrote something on the Internet in English about how he was opposed to the American bombing. As the US wanted to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, American military planes should not involve and kill Afghan civilians by air raids, but should use only ground troops to chase Osama, he also wrote.
I don't know if he has visited Israel again.
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Luk 9:29 And as he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and glistering.
Luk 9:30 And, behold, there talked with him two men, which were Moses and Elias:
Luk 9:31 Who appeared in glory, and spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem.