Hiromi Takahashi feels the needs of Japan, and above all knows the suffering that permeates the country.

Originally from Hokkaido, Japan, she tried several jobs after her husband died ten years into their marriage, and eventually began to pray for direction — especially about going to graduate school. Last December, Takahashi became ill and was struck with the thought that she wouldn’t want to waste the rest of her life — another 40 or so more years. She wanted to live a meaningful life. Takahashi said that God led her to Biola.

Takahashi is currently a graduate student and wants to teach English. But above all, she plans to implement her understanding of suffering in her teaching.

Takahashi has lived in Japan almost all of her life and has observed the suffering that drapes itself across the whole of Japan. Three forms of suffering stand out to her: “ro-ro-kaigo,” economic problems and child abuse. And out of those three, she feels the weight of “ro-ro-kaigo” the most.

“Ro-ro-kaigo” is a Japanese phrase that means “aging husbands caring for aging wives.” Often in Japan an old couple lives on their own without any support from their adult children. Takahashi pointed out that it would be a difficult job for an old man to carry his old wife down from the bed to the bathroom or change her clothes and feed her. A husband may be suffering from health problems as well, but if his wife’s condition is worse than his, he has no choice but to take care of his wife.

Takahashi has a friend who is in her 50s who is now living with her parents in Sapporo, Hokkaido. Although her friend has her own family in Honshu, she has moved back to live with her parents in Hokkaido because her father is suffering Alzheimer’s disease, and her mother has had kidney surgery and is currently without any kidneys. Takahashi’s friend said that she will have to stay with her parents until they die. As the firstborn of the family with a diabetic younger brother, Takahashi’s friend has been given this duty to care for her parents.

Takahashi has also begun to feel this burden as she feels responsible to care for her late husband’s parents. This burden is felt all across Japan. In extreme cases, people will kill themselves because of the stress of taking care of the elderly. Yukiko Shimizu, a former pop singer in Japan, was found dead in front of her father’s grave this past April. According to “The Japan Times,” Shimizu committed suicide due to stress and depression that came from taking care of her mother who suffers from dementia, diabetes, blindness and the inability to walk.

Takahashi has also seen suffering from the downward economic spiral and its extreme effects on the lives of those affected. She said that there aren’t enough jobs, particularly if one has reached a certain age. Takahashi said that the economic problem is very heavy.

“Everybody talks about hopelessness — despair.” She continued on to say that if she wasn’t a Christian, she would think about even killing herself because of this dark hopelessness. On the other hand, Takahashi has hope.

“To me it’s like seeing people in the darkness trying to reach for something, but they don’t know what they should be reaching for,” Takahashi said. “But in the darkness, the stars shine brightly. I want to believe that this darkness that my country is in right now will be a great opportunity for the people to see the light of Jesus Christ.”

Child abuse is a common story of suffering in Japan. Television constantly shows cases of child abuse — mothers who kill their children in the bathtub or beat them until they are dead, parents who leave their children outside in the cold or simply neglect them. Takahashi said that the parents will often work together to abuse their children. The neighbors of these broken families have difficulty reaching out to them because they often do not have any ties to the local communities in which they live.

Megumi Nakahashi, a half Scottish, half Japanese junior transfer student at Biola, said that bullying is another form of suffering often found in Japan, and that people will often commit suicide due to the stress of being bullied.

“There’s not much help in Japan,” Nakahashi said. “There’s no place you can run to.”
Nakahashi explained that students who are suffering have a warped mentality and may stab others to draw attention to their hurts. Nakahashi pointed out that “even though they [Japanese people] have everything, their souls are not really fed.”

Hiromi Takahashi explained that her desire is to use English education in Japan to connect to the hearts of the Japanese people. She feels that her insight on human suffering can have a great impact on her interaction with future students and hopes that her future students will bring needs into the classroom that she can meet.

But Takahashi is not alone in feeling the call to use teaching as a way to ease the suffering of people. Dr. Deborah Taylor, director of teacher education for the School of Education at Biola, is passionate about the influence of sensitivity to suffering in the field of education. Taylor tells her aspiring teachers about the Kauai Longitudinal Study, a study on resilience, because it emphasizes the significance of just one person caring for another.

“They [her students who are aspiring teachers] could be the one person that a child believes in their lifetime really cared about them and really believed in them and advocated for them.” Taylor also said that someone who experiences suffering will tend to find empathy, and that empathy is one of the most important characteristics of a teacher in relating to students.

Ivan Chung, director of International Student Services, has traveled overseas many times and witnessed various forms of suffering. He insists on the need to try to understand other people’s sufferings more in order to understand Christ and to understand our humanity more.

As Christians we are called to be attentive and sensitive to others because they may have personal stories of suffering, and through suffering we can come to know Christ better. You might be the one person in someone else’s life who empathizes with and cares for them when they need it the most.

“Jesus was a suffering servant of God,” Chung said. “And so I know that He is a man acquainted with grief – man of sorrows – he understands the worst of the worst.”