Becoming video staff at an international NGO Staying, and bearing fruit.

Updated 2026.10.08

Becoming no one in particular, just myself, and quieting my heart. In the days of recovery in the Philippines, a feeling slowly came back: “I really am being shown that I should go out.”

“God, is this what you mean?”

When I came back to Japan, the church was full of the Christmas spirit. As I attended the service as usual, a visitor was there, and we ended up talking a little.

That person worked for an NGO doing international humanitarian aid, and, of all things, their son was working as a camera operator on the frontlines. My inner radar pinged.

“God, is this what you mean?”

Learning that they were looking for video staff, I applied, praying, “If it is Your will, please lead me.” In July 2025, it was decided that I would join the international NGO Peace Winds Japan as video staff. I started in November.

“I probably don't know anything”

My reason for applying was very simple: “I want to use this gift, which I have devoted myself to since my teens, for society.”

But at the same time, there were things I had always avoided looking at. Society, the environment, refugees. I had worked on them as themes, but I felt I only understood them in my head. “I probably don't know anything.” That was my honest feeling.

In Japan and around the world, disasters will only increase. There are people living in conflict, and people who cannot raise their voices within the structures of society. If, through my experiences and pain so far, I can do the work of bringing hope through film, then I will give it everything.

The day my church sent me out

The day everyone at church sent me off. When I tried to recall these three years, tears overflowed and would not stop. I had told them, “I'm definitely going to cry, so I'll just say a few words.” Before I had read even a quarter of the speech I had prepared, I was choked up. (Laughs)

Pushed along by someone calling out “You can do it!” from the back, I somehow managed to say thank you.

Since I discovered film in my teens, I have walked this one path, clumsy as I am. From my late twenties, I could no longer treat things as other people's problems: disasters, climate change, conflict, refugees, people driven from their countries. Some of it overlapped with my own story.

My second day on the job: to a typhoon in the Philippines

Since I would often be heading to dangerous places, I planned to start with training and learn from scratch. But on my second day, while I was working in the office, I was suddenly asked to go. That same day I took my camera to the airport, and found myself in Cebu, the Philippines, which had been hit directly by a typhoon.

From there, to the large fire in Oita, to the areas hit by the Noto Peninsula earthquake two years on, and to the floods in Aceh, Indonesia. At every emergency, I ask myself again about the distance between filming and telling.

Letting go, and entrusting

Back then, I sometimes thought, “Even if someone like me goes, nothing will change.” And on the other hand, I was a bit tense, wanting to “bring hope with the gift God gave me.”

But now, little by little, I have changed. Relaxing, letting go, not rushing, not bracing myself, entrusting. If I can just quietly bear fruit where it is needed. I have come to think that way.

Amid destruction and creation

In this work, there has been destruction and creation, many times over. What I have believed in without wavering is that film affirms people. For those who asked me, and for the people I can see behind them, I report carefully and make something rich. Before long, the film becomes a person, walks out, and reaches others.

But standing against that was the reality of view counts, of reaching more people. Dogs and cats are searched for far more than humanitarian aid or climate change. I was very bad at staring down numbers.

But numbers and influence are equal, and if I get over this mountain, the view might be completely different. When an emergency happens, public attention gathers, donations come in, and relief supplies reach the site. At the very start of that chain is film.

If a video I made with everything I had has reached millions of impressions, and is still reaching someone who needs it somewhere, then maybe it really is worth staking my life on film. Where there had been anxiety, hope lit up at the same time.

I absolutely do not want to give up.
For the first time in a long while, my heart is burning.

Staying on the frontlines

Not “what can I do?” but “what fruit will I bear?” I feel that is what I was taught on the journey of recovery.

Not straining, but becoming natural. Not trying to do it myself, but entrusting. Protecting life, and passing on what I have learned to someone: I want to keep doing these steadily, in my own way. Someday, I would like to make a feature-length film and hold screenings. Not visiting to film, but staying on the frontlines and bearing fruit.

“I am the vine. You are the branches. He who remains in me and I in him, the same bears much fruit.”— John 15:5 (World English Bible)