By Jane Zsovan-Harris

Photo: Donna Bilyk / Artist's Touch Studio 

Tsuyoshi Eddy Nishida was born into a Buddhist family on New Year's Day, 1923. His hometown, Woodfibre on Howe Sound north of Vancouver, was a logging community. Halfway through Grade Eleven Eddy Nishida quit school to work full-time in the pulp mill. Days were long, work was strenuous, and Eddy contracted tuberculosis.

Eddy, like other Japanese Canadians in Woodfibre, thought getting TB was a sign of shameful weakness. "Day after day I walked way out among the high cliffs, standing there by the hours trying to generate courage to throw myself off," says Eddy.

He was still mulling over ways to end his life on Dec. 7, 1941 when Japanese planes bombed the American base at Pearl Harbour. Government officials sent Eddy to a sanatorium for Japanese internees in New Denver, in the interior of B.C., where for eight years, he watched Japanese Canadians die of tuberculosis.

"A young Christian woman in her mid-twenties knew she was dying but she was always calm, serene. She knew physical death is not the end. So many others with faith in Christ died the same way, full of hope," says Eddy.

In contrast, dying Buddhists were often plagued by nightmares and mental anguish.

Still, Eddy was not ready to change his religion. "Christ's love and forgiveness, for someone who had grown up without this precious background, who was trying to sneak in through the back door, it was an uphill climb," says Eddy.

One eager Pentecostal missionary tried to force Eddy's conversion. "He shoved me on my knees and wouldn't let me up until I confessed my sins," says Eddy. The experience traumatized him and he was bedridden for two years.

The Right Rev’d Hugh Embling was one of the few visitors Eddy received as he struggled for his life.

Bishop Embling, who had been made an officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1919, had been Assistant Bishop of Korea and Examining Chaplain to the Archbishop of York. He came to New Denver in 1946 as rector of St Stephen's Anglican Church and is buried—as he requested--in an unmarked grave in New Denver. 

Lying in his cell, Eddy tried to decide if Christian doctrine was true. One night, he shouted, “Not my will, but thy will be done.” “To my surprise, absolute calm came over me and for the first night in several weeks I slept in absolute calm,” says Eddy.

As Eddy tried to understand this experience, Bishop Embling pronounced his verdict: "You are ready." He baptized and confirmed Eddy that week.

By 1950, Eddy was well enough to join his family now settled in Raymond, Alberta. He didn't stay long. "I remember my mother saying to me that, in this town, if you are not a Mormon you are nothing," remembers Eddy.

He moved to Lethbridge, apprenticed as a welder, joined St. Augustine's Anglican Church and started singing in the choir.

"In September 1952 I married a girl I was engaged to since 1948," says Eddy. Tragically only five years later Janet died of a brain tumour. Eddy never remarried or had any children. 

"The only thing that kept me on a sort of even keel was going to work every day and singing in the choir," says Eddy. He also obtained his Lay Reader's licence and led prayers in Japanese for Japanese Albertans.

"I was out of the house and occupied for a little while each weekend. It was a thin thread but I hung on to it for many years," he says.

By 1965, the thread was breaking. "I had to find a time and place where I could go to think seriously what direction my life was going to take," he says.

Eddy spent a week living with monks in California. "I came home, not knowing if I'd accomplished anything. But small amazing coincidences started to happen," he remembers.

About this time, Eddy stopped for coffee at the Sorrento Lay Training Centre in Caroline, Alberta. (The Centre offers training courses for Anglican lay people.) "After supper they invited me to listen to a course," he says.

As two scientists gave the lecture, Eddy was amazed. "Until then I thought academics, such as professors at universities, were atheists or agnostics," he said.

He registered for the week-long course and continued to attended classes every summer until his health deteriorated in 2007. He also did yard work, welding and carpentry and volunteered as an audio technician at Sorrento.

"It was a place where a blue collar worker like me could learn different aspects of this faith and enjoy a wonderful vacation at the same time," he says.

After Eddy's job took him to Calgary in 1971, he remained in St. Augustine's choir, commuting to Lethbridge every Sunday, until he retired in 1991.

"As a teenager, I spent some years in the parish and in the choir,” remembers the Rev’d Canon James Robinson, Rector of St Augustine's. “[Eddy’s] commitment made a deep impression on me."

In 1992, Eddy attended Cursillo. The Cursillo movement focuses on training lay people to become effective Christian leaders over the course of an intensive three-day weekend. (Cursillo means “short course” in Spanish.) The weekend includes fifteen talks, some given by priests and some by lay people. Participants are encouraged to take the movement's methods back into the world on what they call the "fourth day."

"For many years I had found myself going through the so-called Anglican ritual almost by habit, but after Cursillo, this so-called habit has become very, very meaningful," says Eddy.

"He loves the Parish of Saint Augustine's. He has such a deep commitment to Jesus and to the church and that sets such a wonderful example for the parish," says Robinson.

When Eddy received compensation from the Government of Canada for his years as a World War II detainee, he gave the money away to St. Augustine's organ fund and toward a life insurance policy benefiting Sorrento Centre.

On Jan. 27, Eddy's eyes welled with tears as Archbishop Fred Hiltz, Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, awarded him the Anglican Award of Merit. Eddie’s sister and brother, who had also converted to Christianity, were also at the presentation.

"You continue to teach us, even this very moment by your example, that a Christian is a mind through whom Christ thinks, a voice through which He speaks, a heart through which he loves, and a hand through which he helps," Hiltz said.