NewStories’ arrival in Japan to support communities after the March 11, 2011 Triple Disasters—earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear explosions—was the culmination of a journey that began four decades earlier, in 1970. That year, Bob Stilger, who would go on to found NewStories in 2000, first set foot in Japan as a college senior.
Bob often speaks of his life as spirit-guided, and spirit opened a door to Japan when Bob was in deep despair. In 1970, as the U.S. escalated its war in Vietnam, the National Guard killed four students at Kent State University, intensifying Bob’s grief and confusion. Not long after his arrival in Japan, he met the grandfather of his heart – Nakatsugawa Naokauzu-san – his Ojiichama. This meeting would lay the foundation for a relationship that has now spanned 54 years, connecting Bob, his spouse Susan Virnig, and daughter Annie Stilger Virnig with the Nakatsugawa family in a deep bond.
Most weekends in Japan, Bob would hitchhike from Tokyo to Kyoto and spend a day visiting temples across the region with his Ojiichama. He learned listening. He learned presence. He learned wonder and awe. He learned about culture and difference. These qualities are the soil in which NewStories principles would gestate and grow for the next 50+ years.
Almost every year in the 70s and 80s, Bob and Susan would return to Japan, or members of the Nakatsugawa family would visit them. This pattern of visits back and forth across the Pacific continue to this day, augmented in the late 80s with wintertimes together on Maui every year for nearly 30 years after Annie was born. They are a family of choice, steeped in the culture of Japan.
Bob’s connection to Japan was a deeply personal one, which spirit expanded in 2010. Bob was invited to bring his work from around the world, based on using dialogue to build healthy and resilient communities. It was as if spirit had opened another unexpected door. Over the course of the year, often with Susan, and with multiple visits, Bob was invited to bring Art of Hosting Conversations That Matter to Japan. Change was in the air in Japan and Bob met an amazing array of Japanese people who were committed to helping Japan create a new future. It took Bob’s bringing AoH into Japan for him to realize how much Japanese Culture was what he had drawn on as he worked with others to create Art of Hosting. It was like bringing it home.
Then came March 11, 2011. Heartbreaking, life-shattering devastation. And for Bob, an immediate call to help people in the disaster region and across Japan begin to discover a different future. In April of that year, while sitting in an onsen with Enamoto Hide-san, a friend and fellow community-builder, Bob reflected on their shared work from 2010. Hide-san, who had introduced personal coaching to Japan and co-founded Japan’s Transition Town Movement, remarked, “It’s like spirit gave us a head start.” That head start laid the foundation for what was to come—using dialogue and deep listening to guide communities toward recovery and renewal.
Looking back, it is like the yet unnamed NewStories’ Principles were the foundation for all work that followed.
Among the people that Bob had met in 2010 was Nomura Takahiko. Taka had seen immediate connections between Art of Hosting and his work at Knowledge Dynamics Iniaitive to bring FutureSessions into Japan. After years of working with knowledge management, Taka had concluded that knowledge management needed to be combined with deep dialogue if it were to lead to change. Together, Bob and Taka and others committed to introducing the form called FutureSessions as a way for people to come together to envison a new future and to build healthy and resilient communities.
Taka, Hide, Bob and many others worked in the disaster area and across Japan, helping people listen to each other and to speak their truths. It was a time filled with grief and sorrow as well as a time of new possibilities. Bob remembers one person in the disaster area who said don’t tell anyone, but I am having more fun that I ever had in my life. The disaster had released people from self and culture-imposed restraints. It had released them from a future they did not want.
Bob traveled back and forth to Japan up to six times a year, spending 4-6 months in Japan each year from 2011-2017. In 2015 Eiji Press published his reflections on these years in Japanese and in 2017, NewStories published the English version of AfterNow. Until the COVID lockdowns, Bob returned to Japan to work with communities three or four times a year and since Japan reopened in 2022, once or twice a year.
People often ask why NewStories works in Japan. The answer is simple: it is because of love. Because of family, both of blood and of choice. It is because of the soul-deep resonance Bob has with Japan. Because of the spirit-guided journey that began 54 years ago and continues today.
Japan is another home. And the work that began all those years ago continues, rooted in the relationships that sustain it.
Read more about NewStories’ work Regenerating Communities After Disruption & Disaster.