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2011: Crisis in Japan
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Age 60 & homeless, he taps rejuvenated faith for fulfillment
TOKYO (BP) -- A mother and her 7-year-old son pick through a stack of clothes piled on the parking lot pavement. After the March 11 earthquake and tsunami wiped out their house, the only clothes they owned were the ones they were wearing.
The somber-faced duo can't find what they need and stop a man sliding back and forth between the stacks and the truck filled with supplies. Masashi Takahashi nods when the mother asks for children's underwear. The 60-year-old man tugs his soiled baseball cap so low that it touches his smudged glasses before digging into the piles. He never thought he'd see the day a child in Japan stood in a distribution line.
"That's what old homeless men like me do, not children," he mumbles, tugging his cap even lower in an effort to hide a tear as he finds the item.
Takahashi is one of the 4,000 homeless living in Tokyo and no stranger to distribution lines. He spends part of each day waiting for food donations or other supplies. He isn't on the giving side of the line very often. So when the chance came to leave his sidewalk "bed" outside of Shinjuku train station to volunteer with Tokyo Baptist Church in one of the hardest-hit tsunami areas more than 240 miles away, Takahashi took it.
Who better to minister to those who just lost everything than someone who has nothing?
It was through church distributions like this one that Takahashi's heart slowly opened to Christ. After losing his job nine years ago, he took to the streets with only 2,000 yen -- $25 -- in his pocket. He soon learned the only way to survive was by standing in line at church distributions. The only drawback was that they always preached before handing out the food. But as Takahashi points out, you don't have to listen. He didn't for the first seven years.
Everything changed the day IMB (International Mission Board) missionary Josh Parks asked him to pray. As the former factory worker spoke to God, childhood memories of giving his life to Christ flooded his heart. From that moment, his faith grew, as did a desire to share it -- leading him to minister in Japan's worst disaster since Hiroshima.
The scene around him looks as if a bomb, instead of crashing waves, blew up the fishing village. Houses are splintered into thousands of pieces. A single train car sits mangled in the middle of the town's cemetery. The devastation is overwhelming, yet Takahashi barely slows down to absorb it. He supplies the distribution line until everything is given away and he's utterly exhausted.
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Japan quake survivors learn to laugh again
OFUNATO CITY, Japan (BP) -- A hush falls across the room when the odd-looking Americans arrive. The Japanese discreetly check out the bright red hair. They whisper about the oversized clothes in primary colors. They touch their own noses, mentally comparing to the round red ones of their visitors.
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'Yellow shirts' give Japan's quake/tsunami survivors hope
TOHOKU, Japan (BP) -- Everything changed on March 11 for Eiko Tanno. It was the day a 9.0 magnitude earthquake hit the northeastern coast of Japan -- the day she lost hope.
Tanno was working in her home office when the ground started shaking and shimmying. She ran outside and huddled with her neighbors.
Then came the tsunami warning.
"The day the yellow shirts came to my neighborhood, my life changed and I felt hope again."
-- Japan quake survivor | They rushed to higher ground and watched as powerful walls of water took out entire neighborhoods and anyone in its path. Some houses dislodged from their foundation and floated away. Others simply splintered into scraps from the force of the waves. Tanno's house, however, remained intact. The water overtook the first floor but didn't climb higher.
"The tsunami took away my livelihood," the middle-aged Tanno says seven months after Japan's historic triple disaster that included an earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis. "My business was downstairs, and it was ruined. My house was not totally destroyed so I was not given access to temporary housing. I didn't know what I was going to do."
For months, Tanno traipsed through the mud and toxins in her home. She climbed the stairs to a bedroom where she and her family had begun living and working. She always closed the door, trying to shut out the constant reminder of her fate. No matter what she did, though, she couldn't escape the rotten smell of dead fish or the piles of rubble outside her windows.
It was a depressing living situation until a group of strangers knocked on her door.
"The day the yellow shirts came to my neighborhood, my life changed and I felt hope again," Tanno says, pointing to a group of workers wearing yellow shirts, hats and vests. Month by month, the yellow shirts slowly help transform her neighborhood.
Southern Baptist Disaster Relief teams, known in this part of Japan by the yellow clothing they wear, cleaned out the mud and toxins caked over Tanno's bottom floor as well as every house left standing on her block. A few weeks later, another team pulled out rotten boards.
Today's team -- "yellow shirts" from Missouri -- installs insulation and hammers in flooring. They laugh and tease as they work. They stop to bow in respect to neighbors coming in to inspect the progress and soon have their new Japanese friends laughing.
David Price of Calvary Baptist Church in Neosho, Mo., marvels over the fact that disaster relief teams from different states have come to Japan during the past six months ...
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In Japan, 'ground presence' makes impact
KAMAISHI, Japan (BP)--The woman closely examines the handmade doll. On one side, the doll's face sports a big smile and exudes happiness. She flips it over and sees the facial expression is a frown, symbolizing sadness and grief.
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6.7 Japan quake buffets Baptist workers
ISHINOMAKI, Japan (BP)--A 6.7-magnitude earthquake struck at 6:51 a.m. June 23 off the northeast coast of Japan -- rattling the communities devastated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami as well as a nine-member Southern Baptists of Texas Convention disaster relief team.
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Weeks later, Japan survivors still beg: 'Please help us!'
ISHINOMAKI, Japan (BP)--The handwritten note practically cries out: "Living here! Please help us!"
The volunteers from Tokyo Baptist Church almost miss the dirty scrap of paper, attached to the battered door. It blends in with the rubble and debris left behind by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
Major parts of the house are gone, washed away a month ago by the crushing tsunami waves. Not really believing anyone will answer, volunteer Satomi Ono calls out to see if anyone is there.
A young mother cautiously pokes her head around the corner. When she sees the volunteers' warm smiles, relief rushes over her and she excitedly yells to her father. They are the only two left in their family. Her two children were swept out of her arms in the tsunami wave. Her mother and husband also died on that fateful day.
The young woman invites the team inside. Despite broken dishes standing up in the mud-caked floor, Ono can see that the pair had worked hard, cleaning their disaster-stricken home. Piles of papers, toys, rotting clothes and splintered wood are ready to be bagged and deposited on the street for garbage crews.
The volunteer slides off her backpack and asks if there's anything they need ...
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Japan fireman searches rubble to ease pain
SENDAI, Japan (BP) -- Masayuki Yamaki slowly picks his way through the slippery black mud toward his crew of yellow- and orange-clad firefighters. He deliberately tries to stay off the debris. It would be easier and faster to walk on the piles but he just can't bring himself to do it.
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FIRST-PERSON: Flowers amidst the rubble
Naomi Paget, a Southern Baptist disaster relief specialist, reflects on her desire to help Japanese people see the beauty that is Jesus in the midst of ugliness caused by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
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Japan relief: 'Let's do it together!'
TOKYO (BP)--It's a lot different this time. So much so that Southern Baptist disaster relief specialist Don Hargis looks incredulous if you try to compare Haiti's earthquake or even the 2004 South Asia tsunami to Japan's March 11 triple disaster.
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In Japan, weekly relief caravans, training under way
 | | A Baptist relief worker listens as a Japanese boy shares his heartache over losing his dog in the tsunami. Southern Baptists working in the disaster response after Japan’s March 11 earthquake and tsunami report that weekly caravans are now making their way into the disaster zone and that training efforts are helping Japanese Baptists mount effective relief initiatives. |
ISHINOMAKI, Japan (BP)--Japan's Baptist leader has expressed heartfelt gratitude for the assistance Baptists worldwide have provided in the aftermath of his country's March 11 earthquake and tsunami -- and has made specific requests for continued prayer.
Southern Baptists working in the disaster response say they are pleased that weekly caravans can now make their way into the disaster zone and that training efforts are helping Japanese Baptists mount effective relief initiatives.
"Please accept my deepest gratitude for your kind expressions of comfort, encouragement, prayer support, and love offerings, following the earthquake that has wrought devastation to Japan," Makoto Kato, executive secretary of the Japan Baptist Convention, said in an April 1 letter. "The warm response from Christian brothers and sisters around the world has sustained our broken hearts. Japan Baptist churches appreciate the marvelous support system of Baptists around the world united in prayer for Japan."
The increased availability of gasoline has made it possible for "the most critical necessities for human existence, such as water, food, clothing, gasoline, and kerosene," to be delivered into the disaster zone, Kato said. The Japan Baptist Convention has placed temporary crisis management staff in the area to support the work of local churches in helping ease the emotional trauma disaster survivors are experiencing.
Baptist Global Response, an international relief and development organization, and its partners are moving to establish bases of operation in the primary impact areas of Sendai and Ishinomaki, said Jeff Palmer, BGR's executive director.
"We have partners committed to establishing and staffing bases of operations in Ishinomaki and Sendai, and plan to build housing in Sendai for Japanese Baptist volunteers coming out from Tokyo," Palmer said. "The operation now has the capacity of feeding hot meals to up to 3,000 people at a time, and our stateside disaster relief specialists have trained Japanese Baptists in areas of disaster response administration, grief counseling and logistics."
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Aftershocks keep Japan's disaster survivors on edge
ISHINOMAKI, Japan (BP)--Things appeared to be getting better in Hirasuka Kiiko's neighborhood on the outer edge of Japan's tsunami disaster zone.
Cleanup crews hauled off mounds of debris blocking the entrance to her home. They even towed the pile of cars deposited in her driveway by the March 11 tsunami. Her children shoveled out the mud and muck left in the ground floor of her two-story house.
When electricity finally returned to her neighborhood April 7, Kiiko slept inside for the first time in a month. She'd been too scared to stay by herself in the dark, not to mention the threat of another earthquake. On her first night back home, she stayed on the second floor, "just in case another tsunami hits." The water level reached more than halfway up the front door, so the top floor seemed safest.
The middle-aged Japanese woman couldn't contain her excitement about the next day. Utility workers promised the community their water would be turned on. She went to bed dreaming about taking a hot bath and washing clothes, something she's been unable to do since the earthquake and tsunami.
Then, at 11:36 p.m., a 7.6-magnitude aftershock rocked the area. A low rumble built to a dull roar. The shaking lasted less than two minutes but felt like eternity. Everything in Kiiko's house moved straight up and down, a sign the quake's epicenter was directly below the region.
An eery silence descended as more than 1 million people were, once again, without electricity. Kiiko picked up her thin futon mattress and the pile of blankets. She felt her way down the stairs in the dark and joined her neighbors outside in the cold. No one got much sleep as aftershocks continued to ripple through the area.
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Japan relief makes 'God-sized' impact
TOKYO (BP)--Yongala and her husband Junkichi couldn't believe their eyes. Their 145-year-old family business was swept away in a moment by the March 11 tsunami that struck Ishinomaki, Japan -- hard on the heels of a massive earthquake.
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Food, water, 'mud-out' top Japan needs
ALPHARETTA, Ga. (BP)--The sight of Japanese citizens surviving on a can of tuna, one piece of bread and a serving of noodles a day doled out by the government dismayed John Hayes.
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Japan teams enter disaster zone, find no radiation
TOKYO (BP)--It took six days for Southern Baptist disaster relief specialists from Alabama and South Carolina to gain access to Japan's tsunami- and earthquake-stricken Tohoku prefecture.
It only took a few minutes, however, for them to understand the intense fears surrounding the nuclear crisis and how it affects disaster response.
Hardly anyone was at the Tokyo airport when John Hayes of Birmingham, Ala., and Eddie Pettit of Sunset, S.C., arrived March 19. With no traffic, the bus trip into town took only an hour that Saturday, a ride that normally takes two or more. Even the busiest crosswalk in the country only mustered 15 to 20 people. Normally this corner is a sea of hundreds dressed in black business suits, jockeying for space to cross the street.
Despite living more than 200 miles from the failing Fukushima nuclear plant, Tokyo residents stayed home, creating a "ghost town" atmosphere. In a city of nearly 13 million people, most venture out only to purchase bottled water and toilet paper.
"The fear of radiation is really the biggest obstacle in responding to Japan's disaster," Pettit admits. "It's not only affected the Japanese but it's dominated the media and created fear throughout the world.
"We have to convince the people in the States that it's safe to work here," he adds. "I want Southern Baptists to know that the radiation scare is a lot worse in the States than it is here now."
Tokyo and surrounding areas are slowly coming back to life three weeks after the nightmare began. People are venturing back to work and restaurants reopening. The fear, though, is still hidden just below the surface. It comes out in simple things like wondering if the fruit or vegetables you buy came from Fukushima or if the tap water has radiation contamination.
The possibility of radiation is always at the back of people's minds, especially when members of Tokyo Baptist Church sit around a table to talk with Hayes and Pettit on ways to launch a disaster relief ministry amid Japan's triple disaster.
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'Not done weeping yet,' missionary in Japan says
ISHINOMAKI, Japan (BP)--"Disaster" says it all.
Southern Baptist missionaries and volunteers finally distributed relief goods in Ishinomaki, Japan, this week after two weeks of attempting to gain access to the quake-stricken areas. Power outages, gas rationing, an escalating nuclear crisis and relocation of International Mission Board personnel hampered earlier attempts.
Ishinomaki -- a small city of around 120,000 people -- was devastated March 11 by the 9.0-magnitude earthquake and ensuing tsunami. Officials estimate that more than 18,000 people died and thousands more are missing along Japan's northeastern coast.
The 11-member team spent two days distributing relief goods at multiple locations throughout the city, including an apartment complex, a nursing home and a bus station. Everywhere they went, they found grateful Japanese, eager for someone to listen to their stories.
International Mission Board missionary Jared Jones helped one man shovel debris from his home. The day before, the man received a call from local officials to identify his wife's body. The man -- a Buddhist -- talked with Jones about how his wife often encouraged him to read the Bible. The couple had been married 40 years.
"He just needed somebody to listen to him," Jones said.
Missionary Ed Jordan had a similar experience. Jordan, who works with the deaf, was distributing goods in a bus station when a colleague asked for help. One of the victims was a deaf woman who was unable to communicate with the hearing volunteers.
When Jordan talked with her in sign language about her family and her home, the woman was thrilled. "If she shook my hand once, she shook it a dozen times," Jordan said.
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