It is now two months since the largest earthquake ever to be recorded in the history of Japan, rocked our nation. Though we are asked to cut down on electricity use and the news from the nuclear power plant is still not very encouraging, as the aftershocks have dwindled, life is now pretty much back to normal.
First of all I would like to say thank you to our brothers and sisters all over the world for your prayers, your words of love and encouragement, and the many churches that have taken up collections to help us in the middle of this tragedy.
I am proud of the disciples in Tokyo, who in the midst of this major challenge have been courageous, joyful and focused on serving
the Lord. We have now more people studying the Bible than we have had in
years, and many desire to get baptized or restored. Many of our friends continued to study the Bible in the days and weeks following the earthquake. One young lady, who spent the night at the church building the day of the earthquake because she could not get home, recently started
studying the Bible.
Last month, Charles Ham, who serves as director of disaster relief for HOPE worldwide visited us from Indonesia to help us plan our relief efforts for the Tohoku area. The staff brothers and our Japanese HOPE director took a trip with Charles to Sendai, one of the major cities devastated by the earthquake and tsunami. We visited volunteer centers and evacuation centers and had an opportunity to speak to different people. Our hearts were moved as so many people expressed their need for help and thanked us for being willing to travel hundreds of miles to help the people of Tohoku. We were all especially moved as we visited the city of Ishinomaki, a coastal area that had one of the highest casualty rates. As we walked through what the tsunami left behind, neighborhoods where families had previously lived and children had played were totally turned into mountains of dirt and rubble. The reality of the devastation hit us as we saw people’s personal belongings and photo albums appear in the middle of the rubble. Here is a video of our tour.
God has opened up many doors for us to serve the people of Sendai. Starting in the month of June we plan to send teams of disci
ples on the weekends to do volunteer work for the physically challenged and those who are still living in evacuation centers. Our plan is to hire two full time staff employees for a limited time to live in Sendai and head up our relief
efforts. We have been in contact with many potential partners and donors who are excited about what we want to do. Already some of our volunteers have been able to do relief work in Tohoku. A few weeks ago, the church put together a garage sale to raise funds for our relief effort, and over USD$3500 were raised in one day. This last Sunday for our “HOPE Weekend”, all of our members were formally trained as volunteers to be prepared to go to Sendai at any time. Our dream is that through these relief efforts, people will feel God’s love and we will be able to build a church in Sendai.
Please continue to pray for our country, not just that for our rebuilding process but that people will be open to the gospel and that the church here will grow in amazing ways. We would like to thank the following churches for taking up collections and sending them to us for our relief efforts: the Seoul Church of Christ, the Guam Church, the Big Island church in Hawaii, and the Churches in Indonesia and India. A special thank you goes to our partners
in the faith, our brothers and sisters in Cambodia who held special prayer meetings and fasting sessions during the week of the earthquake. In the midst of their own poverty and needs, the disciples overwhelmed us with a sacrificial and generous gift of USD$1000. We want you to know that your money is already being used to help people and we will keep you posted on how our relief efforts progress with the help of our God. Thank you for your prayers and please continue to keep us in your prayers.
Love in Christ,
Takeshi Yamazaki, on behalf of the Tokyo Church of Christ