Huge Earthquake in Japan

I've not met Pastor Sato, but he is the contact our missionary Dan Roberts has for taking in relief supplies. Dan has made two trips now. Pastor Sato's church is with the Conservative Baptists.

Pastor Sato and his family and church people are living in evacuation centers, as you can learn from the English posts on his website. However, a number of his men are among the workers at the nuclear plant trying to get things under control. By all means read this, folks, it will help you to know what to pray.

 

I just got an update from Brother Roberts. He and Pastor Fujioka just returned from a trip into Miyagi Prefecture. They have been going up into the mountains and finding groups of people who fled but have not yet been discovered by the Self Defense Forces. They have been taking in fresh vegetables and other basic supplies into these groups.

 

Wonderful! May God bless and use your church's gift.

 

I felt the huge aftershock way up here in Hokkaido. Patty was asleep already, but it swayed our 5th floor apt. pretty well. Some felt it up here and some did not. I think three were dead and over 100 injured from that, according to Japanese news.

Our missionary Dan Roberts has been going into the earthquake area every week now. He takes in a truck load of fresh vegetables and other items to 14 different shelters. The photos he sends are shocking and sad. Many people up in the mountain areas of Miyagi have still not been reached by the Japan Self Defense Forcees. Those areas are where Brother Roberts has been visiting. Our mission board has had over $7000 come in to help the effort.

Having said that, the large majority of refugees are being reached and helped, and Sendai and other cities are gradually getting cleaned up. The exceptions are the two cities which were basically wiped off the map by the tsunami. They are working there to clean up, and today's news showed the clean up being done by heavy machinery, with volunteers looking through the mess for personal items such as photos and possessions to give to survivors. But the task is absolutely huge.

Concerning the nuclear disaster, it's hard to tell what is going on there. The TV news and the newspapers give accounts, but the government and TEPCO (the power people) are really not very forthcoming. But today in the newspaper they had a map/chart comparing this disaster with Chernobyl, and it's not yet near how bad that one was. I'd say they are starting to get the nuclear plant situation under control here. But people are still nervous about it.

 

Here is a link to a video about our BWM missionary Dan Roberts and his trips into the disaster area: http://www.hbcguam.net/index.php?option=com_videomanager&view=video&video_id=47&tmpl=component

 

Here is a video by a close friend, Missionary David Carter, who just spent three weeks in the disaster zone helping: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArFX3ty0mS0

 

Thank you.

The cleanup and recovery is ongoing even after two years. Mr. U. from our church has moved down into the earthquake area and is working on the cleanup because there are jobs aplenty there.

To my understanding almost all of the nuclear plants have been shut down pending changes. So we've been told to be careful and save electricity so the whole country can avoid rationing, which has already taken place in some areas.

 

I've seen no followups on Japanese news about them for quite some time, and we were on furlough until the fall last year, so I'm not sure.