The Loochoo Naval Mission (1843–1861) was a Church of England mission society dedicated in the Christian outreach to outlying Ryukyu Islands. At the time, the islands were a sovereign nation but are now part of Japan.
The work of the mission was significant both in the history of the Ryukyu Kingdom and as the first recorded Anglican and Protestant mission activity in the Japanese archipelago.[1]
The mission's first lay mission leader, medical doctor Bernard Jean Bettelheim, landed in the Ryukyu Islands in on April 30, 1846.[4] accompanied by his wife, his two young children, a tutor named Sarah Speight James, and a Cantonese translator.
Bettelheim's arrival was not a welcome development for the Ryukyuan authorities or much of the local population; when offered temporary shelter, he promptly took up permanent residence in the Gokoku-ji temple and refused to leave for the next seven years. Bettelheim did provide medical care to local residents and made considerable progress in learning the local language, but was not reported to have made any Christian converts in the years he lived on the island. Bettelheim was eventually succeeded in 1854 by Rev. George Harman Moreton.[5]
The work of the Loochoo mission effectively came to a close in 1861 when the balance of funds were given to the Church Mission Society with the aim of financing further Christian outreach in Japan.
References
↑ Ion, Hamish (2009). American Missionaries, Christiam Oyatoi, and Japan 1859-73. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press. p.9. ISBN978-0-7748-1647-2.
↑ Kerr, George (2000). Okinawa: The History of an Island People. Tokyo: Tuttle. p.279. ISBN978-0804820875.
↑ Osterkamp, Sven (2015). Heinrich, Patrick (ed.). Handbook of the Rukyuan Languages: History, Structure, and Use. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter Inc. p.74. ISBN978-1-5015-1071-7.
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