The Niigata Khabarovsk Catholic Friendship Group met this afternoon at 2 pm in Niigata Diocesan Center for 1st time this year as myself and Fr.Sakamoto are preparing for a visit of the Catholic Bishop of Irkutsk from 22 June to 29. Member of the group consists of those who have joined the previous two visits we made to Khabarovsk last year. Fr.Tadashi Machida of Terao Church is a leader of the group with 3 other lay members. The group discussed the next step to deepen our friendship between 2 church communities in Russia and Japan. Since our diocese can not afford to support other church financially, we are not talking about monetary assistance as such at this moment. Rather we want to continue to make regular visit to Khabarovsk and also invite them to visit us. Fr.Marcelo, the parish priest of Khabarovsk had shared his idea while he was in Niigata few weeks ago. He suggested that we should regularly share our own news between 2 communities to deepen understanding and probably next year during summer time, we may organise a camp for youth in Khabarovsk for both communities. Of course, money matters. It is not so cheap to fly and stay in Russia. Also language is another difficulty. Well, we will try our best to overcome these difficulties and support each other as brothers and sisters in the same faith in Christ.
The group is planning to organise this year's visit of Khabarovsk, probably in October. It would be a flying visit of Friday to Monday tour. Fr.Machida will publish the information soon to invite anyone in the church communities who are interested in to contact him to join the trip.
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