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The Anchor Friday, March 30, 1990
North Attleboro missioner serves in"Japan By Maria Pia Keiko Shiiya ,
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The following article is reprinted by permission from the December . 1989 issue of Columban Mission, published at St. Columbans, Nebraska. Father Martin Dubuc, who baptized the patient who is the subject of the article, is a Columban Father from North Attleboro, where he graduated from the former Sacred Heart School. Editor I first met Mrs. Chiyoko Ichinomiya about three years ago when I worked at a facility for persons with severe handicaps. She's completely bedridden and isn't even able to move any part of her body. Mrs. Ichinomiya was still working as an elementary school teacher when one day she suddenly collapsed and took ill. Her husband, a teacher at the same school, took it upon himself to look after her, as their only child lived in Tokyo, many miles away from our city of Nobeoka, on the southern island of Kyushu, Japan. It was Mr. Ichinomiya's sudden death that brought his wife to the facility where I was working. Mrs. 'Ichinomiya's body had become rigid, and she was unable to move not only her arms and legs but her neck and head as well. I had the opportunity of helping to take care of her for only one month, because even though she was only 62 years of age she was transferred to a nursing home for the elderly. Since then I have kept up my relationship with her by visiting her as often as I can. She is by far the youngest resident of Keijuen Nursing Home, but she has the most severe disability. Mrs. Ichinomiya has also lost
most of her ability to speak. At times all she can do is move her lips and I have to try to lip-read to see what she is saying; other times she can speak in a barely audible whisper. But in spite of her disability, whenever any of her friends come to visit she always' greets them with a big smile. When I first visited Mrs. Ichinomiya after she had -been transferred to the nursing home, she whispered to me, "Please read to me." Since then I always bring a book or recent article and spend some time reading to her. I also talk of the previous home where she had been, of the' weather, or about my family. It's always a oneway conversation, but she's always so glad when someone comes and spends time with her. In the course of our "conversations," I had told her that I was Catholic, and she whispered that she'd like to hear a bit more about Christianity, and that she'd like me to read to her from the Bible. One day she took me totally by surprise. She told me that she would like to be baptized. To help her in her preparation, I asked some of the other women in the parish to visit her. We all took turns reading the Scriptures to her, trying to explain them as best we could, and when we visited her as a group we'd even attempt a hymn or two. It was around the time that Mrs. Ichinomiya first spoke to me of wanting to be baptized thatColumban Fr. Martin Dubuc came to us as our new pastor. Fr. Martin joined us in visiting Mrs. Ichinomiya, reading the Bible to her, and augmenting our attempts to explain the Scriptures to her. Her desire for baptism grew stronger and
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IN THIS 1987 file photo, Father Martin Dubuc meets in Japan with fellow graduates of the former Sacred Heart School in North Attleboro. From left, Sisters of the Presentation Louis and Francis Pinsonnault, also blood sisters, both stationed at that time in Sakai City on the main island of Honshu, Japan. Father Dubuc is on the island of Kyushu.
mouth. Sometimes it takes a while, but I'm able to make out what she's been trying to tell the nurses. She often tires from trying to speak, so often we've no way of knowing what she's trying to say. Every time I visit Maria she seems to be getting thinner and thinner. She was recently hospitalized and had to be operated on, which took what little strength she did have, but she always has enough energy to greet everyone with a big smile, or to laugh at one of Fr. Martin's many jokes. Through her pain and suffering she has come to know God's love, and I'm sure that it's through her prayers that many of us are kept alive in our faith.
Chernobylstill radiates, says New Jersey visitor WASHINGTON (CNS)-Chernobyl's nuclear power plant is still "shooting out radiation daily;" according to a New Jersey woman who earlier this year accompanied 98 tons of supplies flown to the Ukraine. The cargo included $371,000 worth of medicines from the New York-based Catholic Medical Mission Board. Nadia Matkiwsky of Short Hills, N.J., a spokeswoman for the Children of Chernobyl Relief Fund Foundation, told Catholic News Service the situation in Chernobyl is still "desperate." In April 1986 a reactor meltdown at the plant spewed nuclear fallout over a wide swatch of the Ukraine, parts of Czechosloyakia, Poland, Scandinavia and the Soviet Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia ' and Estonia. Mrs. Matkiwsky and five others connected with the relief fund left New York's Kennedy International airport in a huge Soviet Anton 124 military cargo plane with medical and food suplies. She spent a week in the Ukraine. The Catholic Medical Mission Board helped provide aid for more than 2 million Ukrainian, Russian, Byelorussian and Jewish children suffering from leukemia, sarcoma, thyroid cancers and other conditions related to radiation poisoning. In addition to dried milk, making up nearly half the shipment, supplies included vitamins, dispos'able syringes, antibiotics, other medicines and two ultrasound diagnostic machines. Taras Hunczak of Chatham, N.J., a history professor at Rutgers University and fund chairman, and Matkiwsky, who'is chief of surgery at Union Hospital in New Jersey and fund vice chairman, returned with 6-month-old Maria Kavasiuk and her father, Vasilij, 37. Maria's mother was not permitted to leave '
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stronger, and on Christmas Day surrounded by her newfound friends from the church, Fr. Martin baptized Mrs.lchinomiya, giving her the baptismal name of Maria. I was one of the happiest ones there because Fr. Martin asked me to be Maria's godmother. It often pains me, seeing Maria unable to move and speak to those around her. But remembering her face when she was baptized makes me realize that God's love is active in this world. Some days when I visit her one of the nurses will tell me that Maria has been trying to tell something to them, but that they can't make it out. I proceed to remove the rail from the side of her bed, and put my earright up to her
DETROIT (CNS) - Detroit Auxiliary Bishop Moses B. Anderson has an added name and title -Kwasi, Aduanahene of Antoa, tribal chief. Bishop Anderso.n, one of 13 U.S. black bishops, received the title during a recent trip to Ghana, where he traces his ancestry. The ceremony, called an "enstoolment" for the stool on which the chief sits, was "bigger than Mardi Gras in New Orleans," said Bishop Anderson.
the country, Mrs. Matkiwsky said. The baby is in the early stages of leukemia. Doctors believe her father, a composer and conductor forced to work 91 days in the Chernobyl clean-up, has suffered radiafion damage to his reproductive system. That may have resulted in the death of another daughter, who was 16 months old when she died of leukemia. He also suffered eye damage. Officials at the Catholic mission board said in announcing the donations of medicine that "an alarming increase in birth defects has been reported." "Genetic mutations are being observed in plants and animals," the statement said, "and experts predict that the horrible effect of the Chernobyl accident will plague the area for many years to come." Malnutrition is rampant because of contamination of the local food it said. The incidence of women - suffering toxemia during pregnancy and of premature and still births is also occurring at a disproportionately high rate, it added. Dr. and Mrs. Matkiwsky are members of St. John the Baptist Ukrainian Catholic Church in a Newark suburb. Once in Kiev, they were greeted by mothers and their children, said Mrs. Matkiwsky, who called it "the most moving moment in my ' life." While in the Ukraine, Mrs. Matkiwsky saw the "dead zone" around the reactor from a distance of about two kilimeters, or 1.2 miles. She said the party went with a convoy of trucks that took'some of the supplies to Lvov for use in western Ukraine where many children and families have been resettled. There was "no food" because of the persistence of the radiation and there was a shortage of water because it was being used to cool a Chernobyl reactor back in use. The plant, which is still producing dangerous radiation, she said, is being used to transmit energy to Poland and the West, but the electricity generated was not being used in the Ukraine. She credited "glasnost," or openness, and "perestroika," restructuring, with making Ukrainian officials only recently receptive to aid. The fund was begun after a visit last October from a Ukrainian deputy who asked for help. For more information, contact Children of Chernobyl Relief Fund Foundation, 272 Old Short Hills Road, Short Hills. N.J. 07078.