STONEWALK JAPAN 2005
Day 20

Today is day 20 and things continue to go very well for us. Daily I am reminded why we are on this journey. In the 20th century, tens and tens of millions of people, mostly civilians died in war or were injured or became refugees. To what benefit? National boundaries changed and changed again.

Almost every day on our walk someone tells their story about the human cost of war or in a prayer at the stone-perhaps by a Hibakusha who was a child in 1945 and suffered and lived through the A-bombing while family and friends died. This memorial stone to civilians killed in war has great meaning for the many Japanese people who have joined us daily and the reasons for our walk have greater and greater significance for me.

Stonewalkers from the US include Andrea LeBlanc, Derrill Bodley & Yoko Kawashimi Watkins. Derrill lost his 20 year old daughter and Andrea lost her husband on 9/11. Yoko was a refugee in 1945 at age 11. With her mother, sister and brother she barely escaped death and starvation as they slowly and precariously made their way from North Korea homeward to Japan. Her story is the story of refugees everywhere-millions and millions in the world. Yoko has told her story in a moving book ”Far From the Bamboo Grove” which is used as a text in many Jr. High and HS classrooms. To read Yoko's story is to come face to face with the terrible human cost of war.

War is not the answer. We must wake each other up to work for peace in whatever way we choose.