Between the 18th and the 24th of November, a group of staff from KIC went on a trip to North America. The group included Rev. Shinji Yamada, Director of KIC, Rev. Masafumi Kimoto an intern of KIC and Rev. Shinji Kawasaki, Deputy Director of the Outreach Department at the Konkokyo Head office.

The itinerary included visits to the Vancouver Church in Canada and churches in Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco in the USA. The group had discussions with ministers and members of the Churches as well as an administrative meeting with office staff of the KCNA was held at the San Francisco Church.

The main topics of the meetings were: “What kind of problems we are facing concerning the situation of world outreach activities?” and “How we have to improve: and what trials do we need?”.

The group also eagerly mentioned about the necessity of outreach materials and publications in English as well as the importance of the outreach vehicles such as animation and music of Konkokyo, cultivating human resources, and so forth.

At the conclusion of the meetings, we shared the common wish that all of us would do our best to promote world outreach, keep in touch more tightly with Headquarters, KIC in Japan and KCNA. Thus, the trip was very beneficial to all involved.