The northern east coast of Japan is idyllic in many ways. Small towns and fishing villages dot the coastline and if you traveled there before March 11, 2011, you would come away with a feeling, “yes, that is Japan just as I imagined it!” Now, that idyllic world has turned upside down and when and how it will become “righted” again is an unanswerable question at this moment!

 

My wife and I served for 22 years as IM missionaries to this beautiful country working to share the love of Christ with the Japanese. For the most part, the Japanese people are peace-loving, law abiding, homogeneous folks who enjoy religious freedom and live their lives very eclectically. March 11 changed all that. The tsunami, subsequent earthquakes and aftershocks, and nuclear power plant meltdowns have ways to insult your religious practices like nothing else. Anywhere that the one true and living God is not trusted the impact of loss of life and limb is so much greater to manage and survive.

 

It has been this way so many times in the past in this great country. Major earthquakes, plane crashes, terrorist attacks from within, even a world war by all calculations should have brought Japan to the foot of the cross but it has not. Even today, after hundreds of years of Christian work in Japan, only less than 1% can be counted as sincere followers of Christ.

 

I have been invited as a part of a team of folks from Baptist agencies around the world (including International Ministries) very involved and concerned about the aftermath of the recent disasters in Japan, to travel to Japan the last week in September to get my first look at the affected areas. What do I expect? This is a hard question. I was in Thailand several weeks after the Asian Tsunami hit there and was deeply moved by the destruction and the loss that people suffered. It was almost harder for those who remained!

 

The problem is that I love Japan as much as I love my own! I am anxious about what I will see and what I will learn as we visit members and families of the Japan Baptist Union churches, schools, and homes that were damaged or destroyed. I want to go to encourage these wonderful folks that as they rebuild their lives in the strength of the Lord, they can also reach out to their friends and neighbors in the Name of Christ. American Baptists have collected more than $450,000 through One Great Hour of Sharing and much of that has been sent to help with the rebuilding process. Rebuilding a building certainly helps but the emotional and spiritual rebuilding takes significantly more time. This team of Baptist agencies will come alongside our Baptist partners in Japan and seek God’s grace in putting together a three year recovery plan that hopes to accomplish the following:

 1)     To coordinate the efforts of International Baptists so that we can reduce the workload of the JBC & JBU, and shoulder more of the responsibilities for communication and logistical arrangements. 

 2)      Bring together in one room the combined wisdom and experience from Baptists around the world to develop the best possible 3-year recovery plan for Japanese Baptists to respond to this devastating three pronged disaster – earthquake, tsunami, radiation contamination.

 3)  Produce a Three Year T?hoku Recovery Plan which can be implemented by Japanese Baptists with assistance/cooperation from various outside Baptist bodies/organizations.  (Who, what, when, where and $.)

 

Please pray for me in this endeavor. I really want to serve God through this experience. I need to know you are behind me as God continues to open doors for us all to be engaged in bringing recovery and Christ to this great nation.