Happy New Year! Wow, what a year it has been! I still remember when I was tinkering with the website around this time last year! Right now, the Tenrikyo Resource (TR) has been up for a little over a year. Here’s a little history:

The Domain Name

I registered “tenrikyo-resource.com” on July 9, 2008, which was the first domain I registered for a web hosting service. For over 2 years, I just left the domain to have a page with links to many Tenrikyo links. Of course, I wanted to run a blog and do all the stuff we’re doing now, but I felt that we needed more planning. At the time I was exchanging emails with Roy and just do a lot of planning and thinking.

The Blog and Wiki

Finally, I just got tired of planning and just went for it. I was actually thinking of making a custom design myself, using sketches and learn how to write custom themes for WordPress, but that was taking forever. I slapped together the website with a free downloaded theme and wrote the first blog post on November 7, 2010. I just thought, “I’ll work on it as I go.” I also installed the Tenrikyo Resource Wiki (TR Wiki) at the same time.

From then on, Roy worked like a machine and pumped out article after article to both the TR wiki and blog. Without him, this website wouldn’t be what it is now!

The Tenrikyo Resource is trying to provide accurate and useful information to the world about Tenrikyo. Roy and I strongly felt that while there is so much to know about Tenrikyo, very little is actually accessible, even to Tenrikyo followers themselves! So far, I think we’ve done a good job, but there is still much more to do.

Top Blog Posts of 2011

1. How to pray for the crisis in Japan – March 17, 2011
2. Keigo Morishita Part 1 – “Fools Are desired By God” – April 5, 2011
3. CNN Mentions Tenrikyo’s Disaster-Relief Efforts – March 24, 2011
4. Tenrikyo to Accept 3,000 Displaced By Recent Disaster – March 24, 2011
5. GO ALOHA GO (Kaishow Caravan) – June 21, 2011

There is no question that the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami have been the hot topic of the year and the initial draw of our massive number of visitors on a monthly basis. We have approximately 500 visits and 1000 page views a month.

Top 5 Wiki Pages of 2011

1. Miki Nakayama
2. Hinokishin
3. Tenrikyo
4. Tenri-O-no-Mikoto
5. Tenri Forum 2006

TR Wiki is the most important part of the Tenrikyo Resource. This list shows that people are searching for these very important aspects of Tenrikyo. Also, the Tenri Forum 2006, which is the most up-to-date collection of organized opinions of the Tenrikyo religion in English, is still quite important. I hope this will set the importance of the next forum, which will be in 2016.

Whew! What a year! So what’s coming up for 2012? Well, we’re hoping that we can get more interaction with our readers and possibly expand TR into other languages! Thank you all for your continued support and have a great year!