# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1956_S410
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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410 MISSIONS,

like Tokyo.

Rev. Strege also visited a deaf couple. He conversed with
them in Japanese, they reading his lips. He is of the conviction
that a missionary to the deaf in Japan will have to know Japanese
to be effective. The deaf man is one of the leaders of a Deaf
Organization in Tokyo. There are about 600 members in the over-
all organization throughout Tokyo. A national meeting of the
deaf is held once a year in spring.

He visited the services of the one church in Tokyo. Twenty-
two deaf were present, mostly young people. Rey. Ishida, the
pastor, was absent because of a trip. A Miss Lois Kramer was
in charge of the services. She has been working with Japanese
deaf for 38 years. Services are conducted entirely by lip-reading.

The deaf man, mentioned above, says that in larger groups signing
is: necessary.

After the service he met a.Lutheran deaf young man from
Kyushu, Kumamoto, where he attended school for deaf and is
now enrolled in the Seminary of the ULC in Japan, a first-year
student, who intends to return to Kyushu as pastor to the deaf.

Miss Kramer invited Rey. Strege w her home. She was happy
to hear that our church is interested in going into deaf work here.
She said that other groups she knows of have no definite plans
beyond what is going on there now. She also informed him that
a teacher of the Deaf School is now studying at Central Institute

in Sapporo, Hokkaido, under the leadership of two deaf women.
Then he again visited the Christian Deaf School in Tokyo and
had a very interesting morning. The largest Prefectural School
for the Deaf in Tokyo has 420 students. He had a cordial reception.

Pastor Strege’s Personal Opinion

“I feel that there is a great opportunity for working with the
deaf in Japan. Very little is being done in an evangelistic way

one group of people who cannot be reached in this way. (Under-
lined by us. Blind, crippled, sick can be reached by the Lutheran

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