Kenji Goto: faithful witness
I similar ideas, and (as y'all might have gathered if y'all take read this blog at all) find them fascinating and motivating. But the well-nigh significant changes in my life accept usually come not because of ideas, merely because of the examples of others. When I notice a notion concretely expressed in the life and practise of another person, that'south when I can see how information technology could modify my life.
And this final week I take been incredibly moved by the example of Kenji Goto. Goto studied at Hosei, a private university in Tokyo, after which he worked for a media production company. in 1996 he set up his own business, Independent Press, and it was the post-obit year that he became a Christian. His organized religion appears to have shaped not just his personal life, but also his arroyo to his work. He never liked to be described as a war correspondent; although he often faced dandy danger, venturing into state of war zones that other reporters refused to enter, he did and then to report not on the fighting, but on those who were vulnerable and suffering, particularly children. He reported on the blood diamonds and child soldiers in Sierra Leone, on the victims of the atrocities in Rwanda, on victims of AIDS in Estonia, and the plight of children (particularly girls) in Afghanistan. Equally well every bit producing video fabric for broadcast in Nihon, he also published five books.
Henry Tricks, a reporter forThe Economist , knew Goto when he was based in Tokyo, and wrote him a moving tribute prior to his execution:
It is difficult to reconcile the soft-spoken, gentle man, who once paled in a bowling alley because the sound of the assurance reminded him of bombs dropping on Iraq, with the paradigm of a hardened war contributor. But he covers wars with a difference. Instead of focusing on who is winning or losing, he tells the stories of ordinary people, especially children, who are forced to suffer conflict and the horrors surrounding them. It is their resilience that inspires him, he says. When you ask how he reaches the unsafe places he reports from, he says he follows the footsteps of normal people getting on with their lives. They show him the way.
Yet it wasn't just his professional commitment which impressed people—it was likewise his personal manner, his intendance and his warmth.
"I want to cuddle with the people. That'south the best way to limited my approach," Goto, 47, said virtually his piece of work. "By cuddling with them, I can talk with the people. I can hear their views — their hurting and their hopes."
He told the stories of children suffering violence, hunger and nightmares…In a testament to his charm and integrity, people responded with an outpouring of support to try to win his release…Those who knew Goto said he was a gentle and honest man.
It was this mixture of professional delivery, personal courage, and warm humanity which led him to Syrian arab republic and his captivity. He wanted, first, to document the suffering of the people of Syrian arab republic, to motivate the wider world to support them. Before he went there, he made a short video in which he talks about the danger he will confront there.
If anything happens to me, do not blame the people of Syria. They take already suffered for three years.
Simply he was peculiarly motivated by the plight of a fellow Japanese Haruna Yukawa. Yukawa appeared to be a troubled loner, who wanted to set upwardly business as a military contractor, merely was clearly out of his depth.
"He was hapless and didn't know what he was doing. He needed someone with feel to help him," Goto, 47, toldReuters in Tokyo in August.
When Yukawa was abducted, Goto felt obliged to do what he could to get him out of trouble. He thought that he would exist treated differently from Western correspondents, in the light of Nippon's pacifist commitment which meant they had stayed out of the armed services conflict. Just he was once again realistic about the dangers he faced.
"I need to go in that location at least once and encounter my fixers and ask them what the electric current situation is. I demand to talk to them face to face up. I recollect that's necessary," Goto said, referring to locals who work freelance for strange correspondents, setting up meetings and helping with the language.
"I have seen horrible places and accept risked my life, but I know that somehow God volition e'er salve me," he said in a May commodity for the Japanese publication Christian Today . But he told the same publication that he never risked anything unsafe, citing a passage in the Bible, "Practice non put the Lord your God to the test."
Information technology is difficult to make sense of this tragedy in the light of Goto's religion. But it is articulate that he had no hesitation in 'laying down his life for that of his friend' (John 10. ) Goto joins a short but illustrious listing of notable Japanese Christians.
Sadly, part of the legacy of Goto's decease could exist to increase Japanese militarism. Christians in Japan are a modest minority, consisting of only 1% of the population, and they universally support the current pacifist opinion. According to Atsuyoshi Fujiwara, a professor of theology at Seigakuin University and founding pastor at Covenant of Grace Church in Tokyo:
Christians are strongly confronting the Abe regime as being militarily oriented and nationalistic. When you think about the opinions of Christians in Japan, you tin almost assume that they are generally more anti-nationalistic, more non-violence-oriented than the public. Christians should exist peace-making, yet we need to exist wise as serpents and give alternatives to the Abe government.
And notwithstanding, in dissimilarity to this, he leaves a powerful personal legacy amid all who knew him personally and professionally. His wife Rinko made this argument:
My family unit and I are devastated by the news of Kenji's decease. He was not just my loving hubby and male parent to our two cute children, merely a son, brother and friend to many effectually the world…. I remain extremely proud of my husband who reported the plight of people in conflict areas like Republic of iraq, Somalia and Syria? Information technology was his passion to highlight the furnishings on ordinary people, especially through the eyes of children, and to inform the remainder of the states of the tragedies of war.
In the book of Revelation, uniquely in the New Testament, Jesus is described equally the 'faithful and true witness' (Rev i.5, 3.14), and this is embedded in the text by repeating his proper noun 14 times, the product of 7 (meaning 'complete') and ii (signifying 'witness' from Deut 17.6). The give-and-take 'saints' (lit 'holy [ones]) also occurs 14 times; nosotros are to follow Jesus' instance in being faithful witnesses, fifty-fifty to the point of 'non loving our lives so much equally to shrink from expiry' (Rev 12.11). In exactly this sense, Kenji Goto has been, in life and expiry, a true witness, amartusafter his Lord's example.
And any legacy he leaves us, the concluding word on his life will exist the i he hears from the Lord Jesus himself when he meets him face to confront: 'Well washed, proficient and faithful servant' (Matt 25.21)
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