On the 05th October 2007, while we were walking around the town of Omi-Imazu, in Shiga Prefecture, we came across a street called "Vories-dori". Now since this street had a foreign name (which is rather unusual in traditional Japanese town), we decided to take a look and see. The first building we came a was museum about the life of William Merrell Vories.

Vories who was born in Leavenworth Kansas USA, moved to Japan in 1905 as an English teacher. He was very active Christian outreach in Shiga Prefecture going from town to town on the shores of Lake Biwa using his boat the Galilee-maru. He founded the Omi Brotherhood an organisation which funded the mission outreach through various commercial enterprises, most famous for the manufacture of the product "Metholatum" (a medicinal ointment). The Omi Brotherhood has been responsible for building a number of YMCAs, schools, and tuberculosis sanatoriums. He also worked as an architect and founded the W.M. Vories & Company Architects which has been responsible for designing over 2000 buildings in Japan, included a number of churches.

I was greatly inspired by the legacy that one man who dedicated his life to following Christ can leave. When we got back to the holiday house that evening and told Kazuo about what we found, he told us that his parents went to the same church as Vorries and where greatly encouraged in their Christian walk by him. Kazuo thought that we probably would not have met him if it were not for Vorries!

For further information on Vories life see the Wikipedia Entry (English). His life and company history can be found here (in Japanese)