by Lavern Rodgers
BBFI missionary to Japan
In the year since the monstrous earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011, many of our JBBF churches have been working together, coming and going, to help hurting people in the disaster areas. Our people are answering the call. They make up teams of volunteers and go! They go for a week at a time and do so with great joy. They want to be a part of the cleanup and rebuilding process, however big or small. The volunteers distribute packs of relief food, bottled water, and daily necessities together with Bibles and tracts to open doors for ministering to those who have lost everything.
The national and local governments have done an amazing job of erecting sturdy pre-fab evacuation centers (see photos at right). The drab grey color units, in rows of tiny apartments under one roof, are constructed near hospitals and shopping areas to make it more convenient for the tenants. Each housing site is full of hurting people who have lost everything. They open up and welcome us, especially since we come from so far away. We go first to the managers of the evacuation centers for permission to deliver the relief packs. The managers often also offer us the small meeting room they have on-site to invite the residents to attend our service of song and encouragement. This opens the door to bring them the gospel of salvation and hope. Seeds are being planted for starting churches.
All of this of course takes money to do. In concert with churches in America, our church family in Japan has been “gung-ho” responding with offerings for this relief work. Our working together and coming from afar has a tremendous impact with these hurting people. It is a tremendous testimony of Japanese and American Christians working together to make a statement: “God loves you and we care for you!”
A special fund for managing relief gifts and expenditures has been set up with two of our leading pastors as custodians and trustees sponsored by the Takiyama Bible Baptist Church, Pastor and Trustee Hideo Oki and Pastor Tokuho Kage of Kohoku Bible Baptist Church as the other trustee. It is the Grace Earthquake Relief Fund.
These two churches working together have been at the center of this relief ministry and have published a fabulous brochure to report of the labors of several of the churches in this volunteer ministry of Grace. The pictures in this article are from this publication. Although the brochure is in Japanese, the pictures tell the story.
Only one of our Fellowship churches had serious damage that had to be repaired or replaced. This is Grace Baptist Temple in Oizumi town in Gumma Prefecture. It was started by Bobby Finch. The pastor now is Aisaku Sawa. The two-story prefab kitchen and storage building was badly damaged and has been replaced with two single story buildings. One has a new kitchen installed to the delight of the ladies. The parsonage was structurally damaged some but was reparable. The block fence toppled and was rebuilt. Pastor Aisaku Sawa and his people send their deepest thanks to the churches in America for the love gifts to make the necessary repairs. Love offerings came from our Japanese churches too.
The Japan National Police has released the dismal figures on the earthquake and tsunami disaster: 15,854 confirmed deaths, 26,992 injured, 3,155 persons still missing across 20 prefectures. The grim report is 129,225 buildings totally collapsed, 254,204 half collapsed, and 691,766 partially collapsed. The World Bank estimates the damage costs $235 billion making it the most in history for a natural disaster. As of January 23, there are around 338,000 evacuees, most of them in prefabricated state homes.
I have often wondered, and said it out loud publicly, “What will it take to wake up the Christian world again to the need of the gospel for the world’s most unreached nation like it was at the end of WWII?” At that time, General MacArthur made an appeal for 15,000 missionaries to come and win Japan to Christ! Fifteen hundred answered that call and came. Lord, are you giving us another call? Lord, please send 1,500 again. And Lord, how many will you send to come and give a bottle of living water in your name to these thirsty souls?