I know it's been a while but when your in the frying pan all you do is run around and try not to get cooked. It has been one of the most difficult weeks for me. In 1984, my boot camp in Fort Dix New Jersey was a pleasure cruise compared to this time. It isn't the physical demand but the mental and spiritual things that have come my way. I am on the Emotional Care Team. In the US we call it Pastoral Care or Pastoral Crisis Intervention PCI. Here we renamed it Emocare. We have two groups to approach this, one is the team care which I am leading and the survivor care. The UN report said the PTSD symptoms are already beginning to manifest in people earlier than usual. The Children are especially affected.
I am working with a team of people that is changing daily and we are ramping up a training process for different types of teams in the field right now. We first have Assessment teams usually our first responders they love to get out there to be our eyes and ears and survey the land and find possible sights for us to set up camps. After two weeks we now have three full functioning Bases and a fourth on the way.
We now have a second Group in the field known as supply and base staff. There are long term teams who will stay up to two weeks on base and network with churches in the area. Our first one is up to about 35-40 some churches that they are getting aid to and helping with emotional and spiritual care.
We then have our third group of people to train and those are our recovery teams. There are churches and groups from all over the world and in the Tokyo area and we network the local churches with the churches in the affected areas and they then begin the clean up and ministering to the people.
God is at work and there are many coming to faith. The devastation is so great and vast. One pastor from Chicago said he was in Haiti but this was far worse. Another pastor said the amount of devastation was like 5 katrinas. In one area of Kasenuma you can be on the beach and look inland for a mile and then drive for 15 miles north and it is all devastation. The strange feeling team members have is that the place has a deafening silence.
We are having to work on Cultural Sensitivity Training for our American guests. The Japanese are very private persons and since the disaster have very little dignity left. They are in the shelters and have set up chairs for walls and they have a blanket on the floor but members take off their shoes to enter and ask for permission to enter. They feel strange because this is all the home they have left and they are encroaching upon it. In one church a big named organization was said to have a circus driving around with a van full of film crews and as they come to a church they jump out and almost bust the doors of the churches down. You have to understand most churches in this area are small and usually the pastors home. The guys of this group jump out and make a chain carrying relief into the home of the pastor and they start to slide boxes across their very old and precious wood floor. In Japan you don't do those things. It is disrespectful. You take off your shoes no matter if you have the combat boots on you take them off. You honor the home. Anyway, I am on a soap box crying against the so-called relief. The disaster is hard enough to process but the relief crew should not be a disaster and embarrassment to Jesus Christ. I never knew how many hundreds of groups there are. They all claim some kind of fame naming their disasters as badges of honor. It is kind of sickening. They don't remember the people or church name but that disaster..."Yea we were there." So what! These groups come in for a month or two and then leave. Our goal at Crash is we are here for the long term. We are here to help. We live here and aren't going home or off to the next disaster. Just to give you a sense of this. One team called a Pastor to offer relief to them and they said, "Not today. We are not ready to receive you. Come on Monday." That was two days later. They would rather do without and suffer for honor of the family members to all get ready to receive a guest.
I was promoted just today. Yea, but it can change tomorrow so stay tuned. I am now also in charge of Radiation monitoring. We are getting trained on the latest equipment for testing radiation. A group donated 12 units for us to use. Each base camp and each work team will be given a monitor that will have readings for the whole day of how much IF ANY exposure they may have to radiation. So far to my knowledge there is none in the areas we are in but that can change and we need to keep a daily log on the readings and if they spike I have to call teams out of the field. So I am over the Pastoral Care, Survivor care, Radiation Scary (JOKE) and a few others things I think. I have no Idea what I am doing but that Jesus keeps providing the right people to plug into place and have them go to work. The amount of translators that are available are awesome. God is good. We have had Erin Kawaye of OMF international come in and train our HQ team on our roles together and how we are to work together. It was a great time. I am learning how to love people in a new way. I am working with many different denominations and types of Christians. Love is the key.
We had an Emocare information night expecting 30 some people we called to show up. About 200 showed up and we had it U-streamed with 10 churches logging on. It was so awesome. I was terrible and God is using it. HA. I love our God so much. The verse I am enjoying and chewing on right now is Hebrews 12:12 in the New Living Translation. "So take a new grip with your tired hands and stand firm on your shaky legs. Mark out a straight path for your feet. Then those who follow you, though they are weak and lame, will not stumble and fall but will become strong." There is another meeting next week and they decided to rent out Aoyama Gakuin Hall. That is a big college in Tokyo. They are expecting 700 but have a feeling it may be more.
This next week will be hard and We need prayer. There are two teams from the US arriving and coming to check out our operations and then we will drive up to the bases and check on our teams and perform in field debriefings and radiation checking. Basically talk about the mission and read our Bibles and pray together. But I am supposed to sound real official. We if possible will also do some assessing if time allows for us to go into the Iwate prefecture north of sendai. Pray God to prepare our hearts for the time we have together and also for what we will see and smell.
I am on shaky legs right now. But God is encouraging me to stand firm and not stumble or run away. I think of the Love Song tune "With one hand reach out for Jesus and with the other bring a friend."
Pray for the Calvary Japan Conference coming up it should be awesome for all of us to be refreshed in the Lord. I pray we can all get together and just seek Jesus. I am loving my brothers and sisters in the others groups but there is something special and heart warming about your own family.
The Calvary Churches are responding to the disaster each in their Spirit led way. God is raising them up to respond in so many ways it is awesome. Chizuo and Rick went to the North area and just took a truck and loved on the people. It was very impacting but also a blessing for them to just pray and bless people as they'd come to an area and open the truck and give supplies to people. They touched so many lives. Pastor Jack was at Costco buying supplies to donate and is wanting to do all he can. Jeremiah is helping get teams with trucks off from his church to deliver relief to some churches. So many are helping. Many of the guys are busy but have plans to come and work. Travis and Rich and Kiyomasa are going up to Sendai to deliver relief and supplies soon. It is such a blessing to have brothers like minded and open to the leading to the Holy Spirit. They are such an encouragement to me. This week Travis came in to do some stuff and just took time and prayed for me. I needed it. Jonathan is some how holding together. He is that kind of person that loves to blaze a trail in a jungle where not many have gone before. We follow behind wondering where is he going some times but there are vistas were we see the hand of God working and moving and blessing.
This week was huge for the whole team as Jonathan took time to admit some things that were on the hearts of others and it was a breath of fresh air for everyone to stand back and regroup together. We have been strengthened in Jesus and linked arm in arm as we march forward. The awesome thing is we are not just the foreign missionaries we have hundreds of Japanese Christians all partnering with us and working though Crash. Our goal is to turn the whole thing over to Japanese churches.
There are miracles happening and many stories of hope coming out of this. The greatest thing I see is no one person is getting the glory. God is doing a work and he is getting the glory he deserves. One group commented on our team dynamic and that was that we all have a true heart for Jesus they saw no egos in the leadership. He needs to look harder. Mine is there an I am doing all I can to kill that bad boy daily now it is moment by moment. One team found a man and a woman sitting on the concrete steps of the foundation of their home that had been washed away. They asked if they needed anything. The woman who was a popular radio personality said we have our physical needs but what we need is "Heart Care." The team shared the gospel. She was so glad to hear this she took them down to the studio and put them on the air to share the gospel. In one area, I heard a team was passing out food and Bibles. The people took some food but all wanted Bibles. They are hungry for God and are searching.
In Tokyo it seems as if nothing happened. Many are back to their old ways. In my town the pachinko parlors are packed out. Life is resuming even though there is eminent danger just to the North they are oblivious many of them with consciences seared. The schools all will start back up again Monday. Life will return to normalcy. But many areas of our town now have refugees in the sense of people without homes and jobs are now down here in our area in Government shelters. There is opportunity to minister to them as well. Pray we will have opportunity to visit them and love on them.
There is an awakening beginning in the mountains where churches and pastors are coming together to pray and worship God. We rejoice with all that God is doing. We are expecting God to do things far greater than we could ever imagine or think. Pray for the salvation of Japan. Pray for our teams safety. Pray for the unity among the brethren. Pray that we will be known for our Love for one another. Pray for all the thousands that are now mobilizing in the US coming over to be sensitive to this beautiful culture. Pray that the body of Christ will bring glory to his name.
Mihoko and the kids went back to the states for 30 days and I have asked my Students to allow me a couple of weeks off to work. They are so gracious and some even call me just to see how I am doing. It is such a blessing to have good friends.
Erin from OMF leaves all our teams with Romans 15-1-7 I think I'll do the same as this is the sum of all we are trying to do here. We are creating an organization where by the Japanese churches can link with the affected Churches and bless them and help them.
1 We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. 2 Each of us should please our neighbors for their good, to build them up. 3 For even Christ did not please himself but, as it is written: “The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.”[a] 4 For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope. 5 May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, 6 so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 7 Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God. Romans 15:1-7 NIV
God bless you all. Do all to Glorify HimDan
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