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Do Your Best

Nov. 5 - "Do your best, everything you do should be first class." This was the pet phrase of Paul Rusch, an American lay missionary who lived for many years at Kiyosato in rural Yamanashi Prefecture. Ann and I recently visited the Yatsugatake County Fair and Paul Rusch Festival, where we learned about this remarkable man.

Paul Rusch standing in front of the Kiyosato Agricultural Center

He arrived in Japan from his native Kentucky in 1925 to help rebuild the Yokohama YMCA after it was destroyed in the Great Kanto Earthquake. He planned to stay for only one year, but he began teaching English at Rikkyo (St. Paul University) in Tokyo, where he became interested in youth leadership training. He also introduced American football to Japan with his college fielding Japan's first American football team.

Paul Rusch

In 1938, Paul Rusch began building a youth training facility and camp at Kiyosato. He fell in love with this location because of its view of Mt. Fuji. After the war, he returned to Kiyosato where he lived from 1945 until his death in 1979. He frequently returned to the United States, where he toured churches to tell people about his project in Japan and to raise money for agricultural extension projects, a health clinic, and a church in Kiyosato. Today, the center he founded is still used for environmental and leadership education by schools, girl and boy scouts, and other youth groups.

I met one of Paul Rusch's former students at Kiyosato. This Japanese gentleman told me that "Teacher Paul" inspired a great many students such as himself to find their purpose in life. He told me that his teacher believed that God endowed every individual with a special gift. It was the job of each individual to discover that gift and then to use it to "give back" to society. This individual told me that he has never forgotten the life lessons he learned from Teacher Paul long ago.

Until next time,

Jim

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