In the summer of 1961 Barbara and I went to Japan with a group of students from the Wesley Foundation Methodist Student Center at the University of California in Berkeley, California. This was a joint international work project with a similar companion group of Japanese Christian students from the Kansei Gakuin University in Tokyo.

One of our joint projects was constructing a brick bakery building for a residential care facility operated by a Japanese affiliate of a Christian religious order whose parent body was in Germany. The Japanese nuns received their training in Germany at the motherhouse and were referred to as Japanese Schwesters, or nuns. Very interesting.

The women cared for in this facility were refugee women, some of whom had been “comfort women” for the Japanese Army during WWII, some had been sold by their families into slavery because they couldn’t afford to care for them, most were mentally retarded and severely handicapped, and some were prostitutes placed there for care by the Japanese government. Christian social service programs were highly regulated by the government, and this program was granted a permit to operate only if they would take the most severe cases, something they agreed to do. This would be the women’s home for life.

The Japanese nuns lovingly provided a home for the women, including as part of their care social programs, educational studies, and a schedule of work around taking in laundry from the surrounding neighborhoods that provided training and a small source of income for the group home. The projected bakery would eventually add baking bread as additional training for the women as well as another source of income for the care program.

In constructing the building, we started from scratch with a simple block design and completed about three quarters of the building by the time we had to leave. In addition to providing manual labor for the building project, we ate meals with the staff and women and our counterpart Japanese students.

One lazy afternoon a group of us gathered on a grass-filled vacant lot for a special event. Involved would be some of us American students, some of the Japanese students, and the women and Japanese nuns and the director of the group home. This afternoon as it would turn out was the sleeper best experience of our entire trip.

The director was the only one who spoke English among the Japanese, and he explained that we were going to play a game of baseball. He had organized things well, and it felt as though things just sort of flowed and everything fell nicely into place. What immediately struck me was the simple and rapid manner in which teams were decided and the batting order determined.

The director had everyone pair off and in a quick game of rock-paper-scissors the two teams were set, the winners on one team the vanquished on the other. We then paired off in our respective teams and again in a series of rapid rock-paper-scissors turns the batting order for each team was set. This took all of a handful of seconds, and happened so quickly I was merely swept along and didn’t understand in the moment how it was exactly accomplished. However, on thinking of what had just occurred, I realized the genius of the method. This beat having to “elect” two captains who then proceeded with the painful process of choosing team members as we Americans typically do. This was short and sweet, and no one was left to be chosen last! How fascinatingly brilliant!

That afternoon we played a most creatively modified game of baseball. You would have recognized it but it was different. We made allowances for the skill levels, particularly of the women residents and Japanese nuns, most of whom knew nothing of the game. For some of the women their disabilities made for difficulties in wielding the bat and connecting with a moving object, the ball, even when tossed in easy lobs from very close. It mattered little that it took sometimes eight swings to get a hit but the results always brought a beaming smile to the batter and cheers from everyone on the field on both teams. Giving directions initially was needed to help get a runner to first base, and much pointing and gestures to slip safely into second base. On defense the teams worked hard at having trouble fumbling the ball just so runners could advance, much to the delight of all players. We didn’t keep score because it didn’t really matter, something else was happening, something more profound than numbers on a scorecard.

The most valuable though surprising thing, and the thing that made this day so special, none of the women residents or Japanese nuns spoke English, and none of us American students, including yours truly, spoke Japanese. Yet the game was a fun and moving encounter between these two unlikely groups of players, and for me a most memorable experience.

Who would have thought you could choose sides, set the batting order, and play a game together without speaking a common language. Well, that day we all spoke the language of baseball, and yes, unabashedly the language of love.

Of all my memories of this trip to Japan this game was the most memorable, just beating out our visit to Hiroshima on the anniversary date of August 6^th, but that is yet another story.