OMF Kanto/Tohoku Earthquake from Mike McGinty on Vimeo.
Please Also Feel Free to Contact Us Directly
The following websites are a good place to start in finding information on:
- How to Pray
- How to Give
- How to Volunteer (Short Term Opportunities)
CRASH Japan - Love on Japan 2011
OMF International - Japan Field
If you are interested in joining a short-term mission trip for relief work in Japan, try:
CRASH Japan's volunteer FAQ page (you can find a link to their online application form at the top of their homepage)
SEND Canada - Check out SEND Canada's "Help Wanted" section at the bottom left hand side of their home page (or if you don't live in Canada, try SEND International Missions' homepage for your own country)
If you would like to read earthquake/tsunami relief and recovery reports from our OMF missionaries in the field try:
For my uncle, Martin Ghent's updates, visit His FaceBook Page
A blog of Prayer Partner Letters posted by our missionaries in Sendai
For my father, John Elliot's reports, browse through his site (you can click on "2011 tsunami" under "Labels" on the right sidebar)
Also, be sure to browse through the OMF Japan Field's Earthquake and Tsumami page
Japan Earthquake: What Should Our Response Be?
SLIDE 1: Introduction of Video Clip
Good afternoon. (As introduced,) my name is Luke Elliot, and I'm the son of OMF missionaries. I grew up in Japan, in the Tohoku region that was devastated by the recent mega-earthquake and tsunami. My wife and I came to Canada in the fall of 2009, and we're currently in the process of partnership development in preparation to return to Japan as full time OMF missionaries, Lord willing, in the summer of 2012.
While it's been very difficult for us to be away from our home in northern Japan in this hour of need, we're conscious that the Lord has willed for us the role of sharing with brothers and sisters here in Canada about what's happening with our missionary colleagues, and about the needs of our fellow Christians in the devastated regions.
I suspect that, here in Canada, the images of what happened on March 11 are already beginning to fade from our memories so, I'd like to invite you to prayerfully watch this short video clip before I begin.
SLIDE 2
The facts of the earthquake are well known now. 9.0 magnitude, over 26,000 dead and missing after a massive tsunami, and over 300 billion dollars in damage. But for our missionaries on the ground, faced with hundreds of severe after shocks, power outages, and shortages of food, fuel, and sometimes even water, there was a lot of shock and confusion -- but very little dependable information during the first week.
SLIDE 3
Those difficulties notwithstanding, plans were quickly made to send a survey team in to assess needs and determine possible ways in which to help. Five days after the tsunami, Martin Ghent and John Elliot, two of our Canadian OMF missionaries serving in the northern most part of the affected area, were finally able to gather enough fuel to drive a small truck of food and other needed supplies to the remote coast of Iwate Prefecture—this was, and still remains, an area getting less attention from the authorities than the more populated and accessible regions to the south.
What they found there must have profoundly challenged their assumptions about what the missionary life looks like in Japan. I would like to read you a couple of exerts from their early reports:
The little clusters of survivors, separated by spurs of the mountain, have adapted in varying degrees. Those with dynamic, imaginative leaders have jury-rigged a water line from a mountain stream, directing it into a salvaged bathtub, heated by a fire in an oil drum cut in half. They are sitting around salvaged tables in someone’s yard, and have concocted a huge pot of soup from supplies delivered by relief workers.
The following anecdote is also useful for gaining a better picture of how bad it was, even two weeks after the tsunami:
There was a backhoe visible over the rubble, not more than 50 yards away, and [military] personnel were busy removing downed power lines in preparation for clearing the road. Surely they would be through in no time?
`Oh no, it will take a couple of days at least,’ one lady said.
`There are probably 40 corpses in there, and they have to stop and deal with each [one] of them.’
She was very matter of fact about it, but the inescapable fact is that she would know most of those people.
SLIDE 4
Through this survey trip John and Martin were able to identify a high priority area covering about six municipalities, and with a population of a little over 200,000 people . . . but only eight churches. As a result of the tsunami, somewhere between 9 and 10 thousand are dead or missing in this area—or, in other words, close to 5% of the population. Of the eight churches, with congregations averaging about 20 to 30 in number, two churches were identified as being unable to repair their buildings and reopen without outside help. One of these churches was in Kamaishi City, the city in the video we just saw, where the downtown core was swept away as school children and teachers looked on from a hillside.
SLIDE 5
Once these needs were identified, a six member OMF Team arrived from the northern island of Hokkaido and immediately began work cleaning and repairing the church buildings which, thought they had been flooded, still remained standing.
SLIDE 6
They also assisted in removing rubble from the surrounding area, and used the newly cleared churchyards to operate soup kitchens for the local community. Some members of the team also had opportunities to split off and help both church members and other people in the surrounding neighbourhoods to clean the mud and rubble out of their homes and small businesses.
SLIDE 7
Within a few weeks, both churches were ready to hold regular worship services and to serve as new bases of operation for further relief work in the area. The work has now moved into the third and final phase, which is to establish a semi-permanent centre from which to engage in long-term ministry in the area.
SLIDE 8
As you can see on the slide here, the OMF Japan Field Council has approved the creation of the Iwate Relief Project. The goal is to work with local churches in one or more of the coastal cities in Iwate that saw widespread destruction from the earthquake and tsunami . . . also, to provide relief and recovery assistance to those in that affected area. This will be a two-year project, and at the end of those two years a decision will be made whether their is a need and an opportunity to remain in the area for the purpose of planting a new church.
The priorities of this project have been clearly defined as 1) showing God's love to the local communities, 2) supporting local churches in their relief and evangelistic outreach, and 3) building trust and good relationships with the local churches and the local people.
SLIDE 9
So what can we do here in Canada? How should we respond to the ongoing physical and spiritual needs of the people of northern Japan? Our starting point, of course, is always prayer. In a few moments, after this presentation, we'll be spending some time looking at the latest field report from OMF Japan and praying together. But I'd also like to challenge you to pray for the people of Japan beyond this afternoon. There are many resources for updated prayer requests available on websites, FaceBook, and through mailing lists, and I would be happy to help anyone interested to connect to these resources.
SLIDE 10
The second way in which we should consider responding is through giving. It has been well documented that international donors have been reluctant to commit large sums of money to the relief and reconstruction effort in Japan. The coloured circles on this graph represent the cost of recent famous disasters—the large read circle represents the total damage in dollars of the East Japan Earthquake and tsunami. The white inner circles represent worldwide donations. As you can see, the red circle is three times as large as the yellow circle that represents the cost of damages from Hurricane Katrina. And yet, world donations for the Japan earthquake have only been one fifth of what donations for Katrina were. The 2010 floods in Pakistan, represented by the smallest coloured circle on the right, resulted in less than one twentieth the cost in damages, and yet attracted four times as much in donations as did the Japan earthquake.
The perception has been that Japan is rich and can take care of itself, but the truth is that the Japanese economy has been depressed for over twenty years now. And what's more, the Tohoku Region that was hit by the tsunami is the poorest area of Japan. The long term outlook for Japan's post-earthquake economy is actually extremely grim, and it is almost certain that many of the 170,000 or so made homeless by the tsunami will never, in their lifetimes, find permanent housing to replace the homes they lost.
SLIDE 11
As for Japan's small and struggling churches, the less affected are doing their very best to assist those that have been devastated in the disaster. However, their limited resources are not equal to the task. That is why many missionary and Christian organizations have established relief funds, both to assist local churches in need and to enable them to engage in assisting their local communities. OMF's own Sendai Earthquake Relief Fund and CRASH Japan's “Love On Japan” project shown here are two prominent examples.
SLIDE 12
A third thing we can do, a third way in which we should consider responding is sending both short and long term missionaries as well as volunteer workers. More and more short term opportunities will be opening up as CRASH Japan, OMF and other missionary organizations begin putting their plans for long term relief work in motion.
The need for long term missionaries is also great. The tsunami ravaged coast of Iwate Prefecture is one of the least reached areas in Japan. Roughly speaking, there is currently only one church for every 25,000 people and, in many of these areas, fewer than one in two thousand people are Christians.
SLIDE 13
The pain and suffering and loss incurred in the recent disaster has awakened many people in northeastern Japan to a their spiritual need that goes far deeper even, than the need for food, clothes and shelter that they experienced in the days following the tsunami. The fields are ripe but . . . who will go to harvest them?
