Celebrating Easter in Tsukuba, Japan

It is always a joyful event to be back among friends and colleagues in Japan. The joy is magnified even more when the occasion to meet them is the day of our Lord's Resurrection.

Most Filipinos look forward to Sunday. This is one day within the week when they can go to church, meet their friends, and most importantly, meet the Lord. Many of our OFWs are so busy, though, that a number of them are unable to go to Church at all. There are also those who really do their best to be in church on time for the Lord's birth and the Lord's Resurrection.

Easter this year was most memorable for us as the Lord blessed us with a trip to Japan and the opportunity to be with Fr. Michael Coleman and our friends at the Tsukuba Catholic Church. It was touching to hear Fr. Michael talk about his great love to be with the Lord and his reminder to everyone that if we really do love to be with the Lord, we need to strive to find the time to be with Him more often, more frequently and that He deserves the highest priority, more than work or anything else in this human world.

It was lovely to see Joey and Ning Ibarra still lead the choir, with their eldest son, now practicing to be the future conductor. The newest member of their family looks at the singers with very attentive eyes, his way of telling everyone that like his father, mother and brother, he, too, likes music even as he is still an infant!

We were much surprised to find out, after the mass, that the pretty new member of the church choir was the infant that guitarist-scholar Ronald and his wife have carried in their arms years back.

And oh, how the other children have grown up! The students of our migrant school are now formally in Japanese schools, those in pre-school, now in elementary, those in elementary, now in high school. The children rushed out, after mass, to claim their Easter eggs prepared for them by volunteers of the church!

Even as it was Easter, volunteers were still requested to stay after mass to help clean the church, which is scheduled every 3rd Sunday of the month for foreign parishioners. We are not sure if the practice of having an international breakfast, where everyone is encouraged to share and bring food to the church, has been continued. We soon found out, though, that Filipinos in Tsukuba have continued the practice to join up together to take breakfast somewhere after mass.

After warmly meeting and greeting friends of various nationalities at the Church's entrance, then, it was time to join up for breakfast with the rest of the Filipino community.

The Filipino students were noticeably lively, with their tales and intonations coming from various provinces of the Philippines. You could easily pick out the Visayans from among the non-visayans in the group!

There were also the Filipino workers with their families, more subdued and serious about their discussion about their work and situation in Tsukuba. Their children, however, were all over the place, enjoying each others' rare once-a-week reunion as well as the delicious food and drinks of the fast-food restaurant.

After breakfast, the bigger group will now go about their own ways. Some will still be together to spend the rest of the day perhaps window shopping or doing their grocery. Some will go back to their private homes and rooms where they will probably watch TV, do email, call up home, do their laundry, study, rest or sleep. Most will have their quiet private moments to remember to thank the Lord for His saving us all, through His Cross. They will look forward to the next Sunday and the next, until it is again Christmas, and Easter, for many of them, hopefully, in the near future, home in the Philippines with the rest of their family members.