Dr. Paul Rusch, the Pioneering Father of Kiyosato
Dr. Paul Rusch (Paul Frederick Rusch 1897-1979) was born in 1897 in Fairmaunt, Indiana, grown in Louisville, Kentucky, in the United States. Paul Rusch, at his young age in 1925 (the 14th year of the Taisho era), had been scheduled to go to Jerusalem as the staff of YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Association), but he was requested by YMCA to go to Japan to rebuild the YMCA Halls in Tokyo and Yokohama that were torn down due to the Great Kanto Earthquake. Paul Rusch followed this request because he was a very curious man. His decision as a result destined the rest of his life, but there was no way at that time that he could know about his own destiny. He was 27 years old then and this was the beginning of his relation with Japan.
In May 1925 he arrived in Japan and what first came in sight was the Yokohama harbor in devastation due to the earthquake. Paul Rusch made up his mind to leave Japan when the reconstruction of YMCA Halls was on it’s way in 1926, but he continued to stay in Japan as a teaching missionary for Rikkyo University after he was persuaded strongly by his fellows.
Do your best, and it must be first class
In 1927 Paul Rusch established a branch of the Brotherhood of St. Andrew (BSA) in Japan, and the next year he left for the US to raise a fund for St. Luke’s International Hospital, destroyed in the earthquake. As the secretary of Dr. Rudolf B. Teusler, director of the hospital, Paul Rusch helped and collected about US$3 million to complete the hospital. This effective fund-raising campaign led by Dr. Teusler turned out to be a very useful experience for Paul Rusch so that it helped him when he constructed Kiyosato Farm Village Center. In addition, while Paul Rusch spent four years collecting funds in the US, he relied on the words he often heard from Dr. Teusler, "Do your best, and it must be first class," and these words became a motto throughout his life. If he would fail in carrying out any work to be of the first class, people tended not to accept it as a role model, so he came to believe that to show people a role model of the first class was a mission by Christian preachers.
Father of American Football
Paul Rusch played a major role not only in the propagation of the Christianity but also in the promotion of sports. He succeeded in the US expedition of the baseball team of Rikkyo University before the WW II. Furthermore, it was Paul Rusch that introduced the American football to Japan for the first time. As a result, the Japan American Football Association gave Paul Rusch the highest honorary title of "the Father of American Football" in December 1961.
Kiyosato; All started from here.
In the meantime, the BSA in the US came up with a plan to construct a training campground for young missionary leaders in Japan as part of their activities. That is a facility to educate the youth in the location surrounded by natural environment in order to foster leadership of the individuals.
Paul Rusch chose Kiyosato as a site for the training campground because he saw a perfect view of Mt. Fuji, a distinctive image of Japan. When he visited Kiyosato for the first time to observe the site and looked the grand scenery of the southern Yatsugatake ridge from the observatory on the top of Mt. Utsukushi-mori, he was overwhelmed by the scenary and could not a speak a word for a while.
After he successfully negotiated with Yamanashi Prefecture for buying a area of public property, he started to focused all his efforts on collecting funds. He spared every minute except the time he attended the lectures at Rikkyo University in typing contribution request letters as read something like ...to construct a farm community in Kiyosato, Japan, upon the foundation of the Christian philosopy of "Prayer and Service." It is said that he kept typing letters one by one sincerely without printing all at once. However, he had to send more than a thousand letters at once, so he came across a financial problem ending up with a shortage of postage. On the other hand, the training camp was named “Sei-sen-ryo” depriving a Chinese character from both “Kiyosato” and “Oizumi.”
Struggle before WWII
However, the funds for construction were not sent from the US supporters for a long time. Paul Rusch returned home in haste and called his fellows for contributions to his project in Japan.
The time was on the brink of war, and the antagonistic feelings toward Japan were of the worst in the US. Paul Rusch was in the middle of severe criticism but he strongly appealed that it was the Christian spirit that could save Japan out of such militaristic atmosphere, and finally he successfully obtained financial support.
A difficult obstacle appeared when the prospects for the construction work looked bright. The construction stagnated because there was not a reliable road network for transportation. The war between Japan and China even halted the supple of materials. Additionally, a freight road was flooded and washed away completely once the rainy season started.
It was a group of student volunteers of Rikkyo University that came to save Seisen-Ryo when it hit a snag. Moreover, there were offers of financial support from the church members and the domestic business circles who sympathized with Paul Rusch’s ideal. Seisen-ryo was finally completed in July, 1938 when Paul Rusch was 40 years old. The sky was of sheer blue and perfectly clear as if it were blessing all the people gathered around who attended the inauguration ceremony of the Seisen-ryo, and Mt. Fuji showed its most dignified figure.
Seisen-ryo offered various projects and the management was successful for a while. However, the Pacific War broke out in 1941. Paul Rusch was detained and at last he was deported.
After WWII: Beginning of the KEEP Fundation
The WW II ended in 1945. He returned to Japan as he promised so. Paul Rusch was assigned to the general headquarter(GHQ or Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers) in Tokyo as an officer. Japan appeared to him as devastated as it was before when the Great Kanto Earthquake occured 20 years ago.
Paul Rusch retired from a military service in 1949 and started the construction project of Kiyosato Farm Village Center, known today as KEEP(Kiyosato Educational Experiment Project) where Seisen-ryo resided as a core of the project. This was an attempt to give a hope to those towns and villages in the war-ravaged Japan, and to educate farmers to stand upon a workable form of democracy. Its aim was to establish a practical model of farm community with the banner of four ideals of “food,” “health,” “belief,” and “education of the youth.” He completed local facilities one after another including a church, an experimental farm for cold highland weather, a farmers’ hospital, a farmers’ library, a nursery, an agricultural training school and so on around Seisen-ryo, while requesting support from the citizens in the United States and Canada. Kiyosato exactly became a "holy ground" for the people all over the world who aimed to realize the similar ideals of post-war revitalization.
Contact:
Hokuto City Government Office:
961-1 Mamyoda, Sutama-cho, Hokuto cityYamanashi Prefecture 408-0188
Japan
Phone: 0551-42-1111
E-mail: info@city.hokuto.yamanashi.jp
