Suteindo Garasu: Stained Glass by Kenneth Fenter being re-released by Kenneth Fenter

Window design by Barboa of Hong Kong Stained Glass for
The Nagai Center, Nagasaki Japan by Kenneth Fenter, 1979 size 6'x6'

I'm in the process of re-releasing the non-fiction book Steindo Garasu: Stained Glass that I published under the imprint of Cross Cultural Press back in 1989. It is a trip down memory lane and also requires close reading and editing to remove scanning errors.
The preceding post of the photo from Junshin Junior College held up by Father Aguilar was prompted by that process.
I'm at the point in the book of arriving at the Nagai Center with my first batch of stained glass windows for the chapel in the Nagai Center. Part of that chapter tells about the name Nagai Center and the man it was named after, Dr. Takashi Nagai. Back up form the mid fifties to 1945 to see where Dr. Nagai came in. I'm going to lift a section from the book Suteindo Garasu.

The three story concrete building had been built about half way up the slope on Motohara Machi about a half mile from the Urakami Cathedral. Father Aguilar had named the Center after Dr. Nagai a famous figure in Nagasaki's struggle to recover from the effects of the atomic bombing.

One irony of the A-bombing of Nagasaki was the location of the epicenter of that blast, which was almost directly over the Urakami Cathedral. Japan had fewer than a million Christians out of a popu­lation of about 100 million at the time of the bombing. Most of them lived in the Urakami district surrounding the cathedral. When the bomb detonated, it had nearly wiped out the Christian population of Japan.

The mountainous terrain of Nagasaki saved it from the absolute destruction that the A-Bomb had done to Hiroshima, which is bowl shaped. Even with some protection, 175,000 people either died immediately, or within a short time, from the direct blast or radiation aftermath.

The U.S. Army projected the area would not be inhabitable for 75 years and Nagasaki and Hiroshima would be wastelands today if nature had not taken a hand and washed the area clean with a rain storm and a typhoon soon after the bombing.

Dr. Tatsuichiro Akizuki in his book Document of A-Bombed Na­gasaki (translated and published 1977 by Keiichi Nagata 1024 Narutaki-Machi, Nagasaki, Japan, 850) describes the storm and its effect on the radiation poisoning. According to him, people were dying by the hundreds every day until thirty days after the bombing. Medical supplies were practically non-existent. Mercurochrome was all the doctor had to treat victims whose flesh was falling away. For most people, shelters amounted to little more than holes in the ground covered with blackened, twisted sheets of corrugated tin. Dr. Akizuki and his surviving peers were almost powerless but worked endlessly. The doctors were themselves ill from the radiation. On the evening of September 2, a day Dr. Akizuki called the "210th Day, the storm day," it began to sprinkle. That night the rain poured. Makeshift shelters were washed away, people drowned in the flooding. Water raced down the denuded slopes and rushed to the ocean. The suffering of the burned and dying was intensified by the soaking and the "awful terror" of the storm. Because even surviving houses were severely damaged, there was no shelter from the deluge and wind. For two days, the storm raged and by the time it had passed more than twelve inches of rain had fallen. Two weeks later Nagasaki and Hiroshima were again inundated by Typhoon Mukurazaki the largest typhoon to hit that part of Japan since re­cords had been kept.

When the sun came out after each storm, the air "was changed." Much of the nausea that had been with everyone began to pass. The radiation in the top soil and the ashes had been washed out to sea. From that time onward, the people began to improve from radiation sickness and to make what recovery they could, according to Dr. Akizuki.

For years, the area had remained vacant even though the radia­tion readings were no longer at a dangerous level. Dr. Takashi Nagai, an influential Christian Doctor of Nagasaki, wanted people to move back into the area, but people were afraid and shunned it. Some institutions originally located in the destroyed zone, such as Chinzei Gakuin, a private school, had moved to Isahaya. The Junshin convent had moved to a mountain top several miles away.

Dr. Nagai believed that people would not move back into the area until the Urakami Cathedral was rebuilt. People would return to the area when they could hear the bells of Urakami. His prediction came true. When the Urakami Cathedral was restored, and the bells rang out reassurance to the people, they began rebuilding along the slopes and valleys around the church. The complete story is told in the book The Bells of Nagasaki, by Takashi Nagai, Kodansha, 1984.

In honor of Dr. Nagai's tireless dedication to the project of rebuilding the Urakami Cathedral, Jose Aguilar had named the youth center he supervised, the Nagai Students' Center.

Aguilar intended the Center to be a place where local youth could go to play table tennis, study languages, or have meetings, dinners or parties. The Center acted as youth hostel for the hordes of traveling students during the months of March and August while school was in recess. For 400 yen ($2.00 in 1980) they could sleep on a futon in one of the two dormitory rooms. The room on the fourth floor was for the women, third floor for the men. For an extra fifty yen they could have breakfast consisting of green tea, a bowl of rice, and a slice of bread with butter. Also on the fourth floor was a chapel for a small but dedicated congregation. The youth liked the Center because, although the rules were no different from numer­ous other youth hostels in temples around the country, Aguilar spent minimum time preaching to them.

For years we received a New Year's greeting form Father Aguilar. In recent years we have not. Attempts to reach him have been unanswered. When I google the Nagai Center nothing comes up. I have to assume he has retired. The last time I saw the good Father he was still there and as lively as ever in 1990.

Kenneth Fenter.