Rev. Aoki Dies at Age 77
Diocesan Press Service. March 26, 1969 [75-8]
NEW YORK, N. Y. -- Death has brought to an end the life-long work of Yasujiro Aoki to aid victims of leprosy and to bring them to Christianity.
The Rev. Mr. Aoki, a deacon of the Episcopal Church in Okinawa and a former Buddhist, died on Thursday, March 6, at the leper colony he founded. He was 77 years of age and had been a leper since 17.
He was made a deacon by the Rt. Rev. Harry S. Kennedy, Bishop of Honolulu, just three years ago in recognition of his many years as a lay missionary and as the spiritual head of the leper colony called Airaku-en (Garden of Love).
Airaku-en was founded over obstacles which would have discouraged anyone but a saint.
There was community resistance to the colony itself.
In the beginning, during the early years of the 20's and 30's, the lepers were forced to live in caves.
There were shortages of food and medicines.
World War II brought persecution and setbacks, but today the colony stands as a monument to heroic effort spanning more than forty years.
There are now 924 leper patients who are residents of Airaku-en, living under modern, comfortable conditions. Thirty-four percent of them are Christians.
In the Okinawa population as a whole only one percent is Christian.
It will not be officially recorded on the mausoleum where he is interred, but the presence and work of Yasujiro Aoki are obviously what made the difference.
(A photograph of the Rev. Mr. Aoki is enclosed.)
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