Hitchhiking to town - James Japan

Kazuko

June, 21, 2009: Today is my 59th birthday. I went to one of my favorite traffic lights to hitchhike to downtown Niigata City to meet a friend to do some street evangelism. The first day of summer was a hot one, about 31 C. Though there was a lot of traffic waiting at the red light, everybody was ignoring me.

After about 10 minutes I heard a voice calling from a distance behind me. A lady turned the corner and drove to an adjacent road about 10 meters parallel to the road I was on. She was offering me a ride!

The lady’s name is Kazuko, 31 years old. We established an immediate rapport when she told me she went to a Christian high school in the area, Keiwa Gakuin, the same school that one of my friends sent his children. We talked about the deep things of life, love, unselfishness, giving, sharing, the paradox of hedonism etc.

Kazuko’s hobby is photography. She took my photo with an old Nikon F1 35 mm film camera.