FUKUOKA--A “funeral” was held in a little Fukuoka church on a recent day for a man who had died alone in his 70s.

The ritual in late September was attended by only three people, including a worker of a group that had supported the man’s life in his later years.

Nobuyoshi Ishimura, head of Otomurai Bokushi-Tai (which roughly translates as “funeral pastors corps”), a nonprofit organization based in Nakagawa, Fukuoka Prefecture, was also there. No relative of the man, however, was present.

The NPO, based on the outskirts of this western metropolis, has been sending pastors free of charge to mourn those who died in solitude or poverty and had no wake or farewell ceremony held.

“I believe the Lord walked together with the deceased and was with him even when he was unsuccessful or sad,” the pastor said at the man's funeral as he faced the casket and a photo arranged in front of an altar decorated with white and pink flowers.

Sources including the support group worker said the man served in the Self-Defense Forces and worked, among other stints, for a pachinko parlor and a factory before he became jobless 15 years ago, when he had to care for his father.

The man was also forced, for some time, to sleep out in the open.

His younger sister, who lives in the Kanto region, was his only relative still living, but he declined to depend on her. The sources quoted the man as saying he didn’t want to bother his sister, who had established a happy household.

The man was hospitalized for a lung disease earlier this year and died in a ward in September.

“Being penniless or being alone does not make a human any less worthy of dignity,” Ishimura, 52, said. “A funeral service for mourning someone at the last moment means so much to me.”

Ishimura’s nonprofit activities date to 2016, when he learned, after starting a Christian-only undertaker’s business, about the increasing cases of "chokuso" (direct cremation), whereby a body is cremated without a wake, a farewell ceremony or other rituals because of economic reasons.

“I was taught so much at school about all human lives being equal, but that’s not, after all, the way things work,” he thought at the time.

Ishimura, a Christian, thereupon approached a number of pastors he knew to recruit them for the activities he started.

The pastors on the roster go to churches to conduct funerals, or to crematories to attend direct cremation, free of charge, where they give sermons on Biblical passages and on the deceased person, sing hymns and offer prayers.

The pastors pay respect to the life that each departed person has lived and preach that God is with the deceased.

About 30 pastors have signed up for the mission. Ishimura said his group has sent 90 or so pastors for free, to destinations mostly in Fukuoka Prefecture, during the nine years of its existence.

SON IN TEARS COLLECTS ASHES IN COFFEE JAR

Ishimura, as an undertaker, has organized large funerals with 100 or so attendants and has also helped clean out the belongings of those who died alone.

He said every time he realizes this gap, he renews his determination to do what little he can to mourn those who should be mourned.

A growing number of people are dying in solitude.

Welfare ministry figures show that public “funeral assistance” was provided in some 56,000 cases in fiscal 2024 to cover the funeral expenses of those with no assets or relatives, up nearly 18,000 cases from a decade earlier.

Ishimura’s group receives requests from support groups that have stayed close to deceased individuals, from undertaker’s offices and through the internet.

Most of the departed individuals are aged 65 or older. More than 80 percent are men.

The casket and cremation expenses are covered by public funeral assistance or the savings of those deceased or their family members.

Some bereaved family members may offer several thousands of yen (tens of dollars), of which, however, nothing is left when they are spent on covering the actual expenses, such as transportation.

Ishimura’s group has made it a rule that it sends a pastor upon request, whatever the faith of the deceased person, and the pastor should not proselytize the attendants.

Ishimura said the memory of one episode has never left his mind.

An elderly man died one day. He had abandoned his family dozens of years earlier, leaving his wife and young children behind, and had not been heard from since. His wife raised the children all alone.

The man’s son, who learned about his death through a notice from a public office, asked Ishimura’s group to send a pastor.

The son wouldn't forgive his father, who had made his mother suffer so much, so he came to the crematory without an urn, saying he wouldn’t collect his father’s ashes.

The son, however, shed tears as he talked to a pastor while waiting for the cremation to end.

“My father may have had a hard time in his own way,” he muttered reticently.

He got an empty instant coffee jar that he had found by the side of a concession stand, wiped the inside clean, placed ashes in the jar and took them home, Ishimura said.

“Perhaps he asked us to send the pastor because something, in fact, stuck deep in his mind,” he said.

The reality, however, is sometimes all too cruel.

In one instance, Ishimura said, he approached a bereaved family member to talk about the deceased person while the body was being cremated.

However, the family member snubbed him and opened a laptop computer instead, saying, “Oh no, I would rather just do my work.”

In many cases, Ishimura and his colleagues only have assistance records to rely on to learn about the kind of person a deceased individual was.

“Nobody deserves to die in loneliness,” Ishimura said he thinks every time he looks at similar records. “I hope what we are doing will help give people hope for life.”