What is KEEP? a reader asks. Friends in the United States want to know about its activities before making a donation.

KEEP stands for Kiyosato Educational Experiment Project, a postwar achievement that began in 1925 when Paul Rusch postponed his plans for a career in hotel management to spend a year in Japan. He had been asked to help the YMCA rebuild its Tokyo headquarters after the devastating 1923 earthquake. After a year, he was urged to stay on for another. His business experience would be valuable to the Episcopal church organization with which he was then affiliated, and church-founded St. Paul's University, or Rikkyo, needed an economics teacher. He protested, but he liked Japan and finally agreed to another year -- and another and another.

It was not an easy transition for this so-called reluctant missionary, but his willingness to help where the need was greatest marked his life. He made friends easily and proved to be a great fundraiser, particularly benefiting St. Luke's Hospital, also established by the Episcopal mission. Early on he learned a valuable lesson: If you are going to do something in Japan, make it first class, a lesson many must still learn today.

One of his successful methods of raising funds was to go to a bar and talk enthusiastically about his work. Soon, people were asking how they could help. His energy was boundless, its effects long-lasting. Arranging a concert for a singer recently returned from Europe led eventually to a successful Japanese opera company; encouraging a neighborhood beautician to open a shop in rapidly expanding Karuizawa led to the founding of a Western-style beauty enterprise still well known today. Along the way Paul found his mission. He wanted to help the young men of Japan and hoped to establish a camp where they could learn Christian values. He finally found land for the project near Kiyosato village with a spectacular view of Yatsukatake, an eight-peaked mountain. Then gradually the fun part of life was diminished as Japan's openness to new experiences was curtailed by regulations and oppression. Japan was readying for war. Paul was interned after Pearl Harbor and repatriated in June of the next year. Always amicable, he hosted a farewell party for his captors.

After the war, he returned to Japan on MacArthur's staff. Conditions were grim and the rebuilding of Japan was challenging. His work was highly evaluated, but as soon as possible he returned to his former commitment. He wanted to get on with his camp to provide the youth of Japan with what he felt they needed: food, health, faith and hope for the future. He focused his plans again on Kiyosato, where he managed to build his camp and to create a new industry for the poverty-stricken area by introducing dairy farming. He built a modern hospital affiliated with St. Luke's, and people still talk about its first patient, a woman about to have a baby -- but she didn't trust the hospital and hurriedly left. The staff brought her back just in time, and she was so pleased with the care and so lavish in her praise that local support for the hospital was assured. He introduced the idea of a county fair, which drew people from other villages who then learned the new techniques that had proved so successful at KEEP. Riding horses were brought in and the Japanese Olympic riding team trained there. A two-year farm school taught young farmers new techniques. In time, comfortable lodgings for visitors were built and KEEP became the site of conferences as well as providing pleasant holidays for both foreign and Japanese visitors. Along the way there were fires and other disasters, but Paul's faith -- and his fundraising skills -- assured success.

It is an inspiring story that did not end with Paul's death in 1979. If you want to learn more, plan your own visit to KEEP where his work continues. New additions to the program are ecology and forestry studies, and a similar program has been launched in the Philippines. Call (0551) 48-2114 for information. Our reader's friends have good reason to help. They can even make their contribution in the U.S. Send it to the American Committee for KEEP, 825 Greenbay Road #122, Wilmette IL 60091.