CONCLUSION On March 11, 2011, at 2:46 pm, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake hit the northeast coast of Japan (the area known as the Tohoku). Its epicenter was 130 km from Ishinomaki City, Miyagi Pref., where I was born. A half hour later, an 8-meter high tsunami slammed into the city, leaving more than 3,000 dead. Ultimately, tsunamis as high as 40 meters destroyed over 600 km of coastline, leaving almost 20,000 dead and over 400,000 homeless. We immediately switched into “relief action mode” – something that would consume most of our time, thoughts, and energies for the next 15 months. On our first relief trip to the Tohoku, we came across a Zen Buddhist temple on a remote peninsula, where about 200 survivors from a nearby fishing village took refuge initially. The priest and his wife were in their early 30s and they had three children. At the time of the earthquake, their oldest child was at kindergarten in the nearest town, eight kms away. Thankfully the teachers immediately took the children to high ground where they were safe from the tsunami, but the priest and his wife had no way of knowing that. The only road into town had been cut off by the earthquake and tsunami, and phones weren’t functioning, so there was nothing they could do. The earthquake was on Friday. They didn’t see their son until Monday and in the midst of this uncertainty, they had to care for the needs of 200 traumatized people. By the time we stumbled across the temple a few weeks later, the number of evacuees had decreased to about 100, but the need for food, clothing, and other supplies was still urgent and stress levels were high. Nevertheless, this Buddhist priest was not about to accept anything from a Christian missionary. Then I told him I had spent my early childhood in Ishinomaki, the closest large city. “What kindergarten did you attend?” he replied, testing me. When I told him the kindergarten name, his manner changed. “Really? That’s where I attended.” In Japan, an older alumnus of a school is obligated to take care of a younger alumnus, even if it’s only kindergarten. Once it was established that I was his “sempai,” he accepted supplies, invited us in, and quickly warmed to our presence. After hearing the story of their ordeal, I asked “How is your marriage doing?” The priest and his wife looked at each other in embarrassment. Then they both blurted out “We fight all the time”. That was an opportunity to share some of the biblical principles included in this book. The advice apparently helped reduce their conflicts in the following weeks because they continued to ask questions on each of our subsequent visits. Amazingly, we later discovered the priest’s wife had attended Bible Camp as a child in a distant part of Japan, during the years we were on staff at that very camp. Truly this was a divine appointment! Especially through the medium of family issues, God has continued to open doors for us to minister to this precious family. (continued)
Posted on: Fri, 04 Jul 2014 02:05:20 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015