I arrived in Japan on September 19, 1956. After two years of language study in Tokyo and some short assignments, I was sent as an assistant pastor to lkeda on September I , 1962. Father Leonard SIMONS, who was pastor then, got a new assignment for Kochi on September 20, 1964; I became pastor in lkeda, and except for two brief periods with an assistant I continued there alone until my transfer to Nakamura in 1988.
lkeda is a rural town, situated at a bend in the Yoshino river that runs from the south of Shikoku due north, and then due east to Tokushima City. Except for the narrow river valley the whole territory of lkeda is mountainous. The parish reaches much further and is equally all mountains.
From the beginning we started our apostolic work by visiting schools and setting up English teaching and children's groups. This took most of our time. Still, I had set as a goal to visit every corner of the parish, and on a day of apostolic work I took an early bus, up the mountains, to the end of the line and from there I walked back distributing religious leaflets, until I returned with the last bus. In Nakamura I used the same method, maybe somewhat slower.
Although desk-work was not my cup of tea I have spent several years as a teacher at different institutes. Not including the teaching in connection with my parish activities, I have taught Spanish at the Institute of Our Lady in Kochi(Seibo Gakuen), then from 1975 until 1984 1 taught at the Shikoku Christian College in Zentsuji, first French, Iater also German and Spanish. With the end of the school year of 1983-84 1 quit teaching at the College.
Shortly thereafter I was requested by our Bishop to take care of a beginning Christian Community, south of Takamatsu, in Ryonancho, and say Mass for the Dominican Contemplative Sisters in Konancho, all the while still being in charge of lkeda. An agreement was reached between the Bishop and the Oblate Provincial, and from March 1985 on I spent half of the week in Ryonancho and the other half in lkeda.
A new kind of apostolate presented itself quite unexpectedly in the area covered by the lkeda parish. From 1980 on we have had regular Filipina entertainers living in lkeda, but in 1987, 6 Filipina brides have come to live with their Japanese husbands in the mountains south of lkeda, still within the parish boundaries. I have been quite busy helping them and the town officials to set things straight. The brides and their husbands had no common language, nor any understanding of each others customs. I had a lot of translating and explaining to do. Things worked out well, and I gained the gratitude and the confidence of those expatriate girls. From then on many more Filipina women, married to Japanese men, have come to stay within the parish boundaries, to the south as well as to the east of the church. After I moved to Nakamura I found the situation much the same and there also I could be of good help, which those ladies really appreciated.
Gerard Stevens, OMI
Because of his health, Fr. Stevens had to give up living alone in Nakamura and was assigned to Akaoka in a larger community. He was asked to take care of those Filipina ladies for whom he had been a real father. He divided his time between Nakamura, Akaoka and Ikeda visiting those persons who knew him so well, and looking up the new arrivals, assisting them with his advice, his teaching and the spiritual help they desired as Christians. His sudden and unexpected death on may 10, 1996, caused them deep sorrow, and they still sorely miss him, as we all do. I am sure he helps them, and us, from on high.