Oomoto’s First Four Youth Missions
The Oomoto Youth Department began sending cultural exchange delegations abroad in the 1980’s, with missions to Brazil (1981), China (1988), Korea (1989), and the Soviet Union (1990). For each of these four trips, the hosts were local Esperanto groups.
Grace Cathedral
Stanford University
For its fifth trip in the fall of 1996, the Youth Department put together a series of events in the San Francisco Bay area of a truly ambitious scale. The highlights of the trip were an interfaith service at Grace Cathedral on October 28, and on October 29 a “Japan-Arts Evening” at Stanford University, in collaboration with San Francisco Taiko Dojo master and old Oomoto friend Seiichi Tanaka. The ceremony at Grace Cathedral, including offering of tea and Noh music, mirrored the events of Oomoto’s first ceremony in San Francisco 21 years earlier.
Help from Friends
The Fifth Mission drew on interfaith and arts connections on the US West Coast dating back many years. Milena Chilla-Markhoff (Oomoto Seminar 1995), Patricia Madson, and many others all contributed to making the Mission a success. With the support of these friends, the Oomoto youth were able to reaffirm old bonds and build a base for new activities in the future.
Friends of Oomoto
Following the 10th Oomoto arts seminar in 1986, seminar alumnus Patricia Ryan Madson returned to San Francisco and started a group of Oomoto school graduates to support the seminar and Oomoto’s overseas activities.
Called “Friends of Oomoto”, the group helps seminar alumni keep in touch with one another, introduces new students to the seminar, and assists Oomoto with its interfaith and arts events in the USA. Recently Patricia and members of Friends of Oomoto helped to set up the program of events for the October 1996 Youth Mission to California.
Patricia is a Senior Lecturer in Drama at Stanford University. She has returned yearly to the Oomoto seminar since 1986, acting as Seminar Coordinator.