Japan Update 3
23/03/2011 9:35 pm
Give for Japan relief online now.
It is over a week since the earthquake and tsunami on March 11th and relief efforts are under way. An OMF team from Hokkaido has gone south on Tuesday (22nd) with supplies and will set up a soup kitchen in a town in a devastated area, based in a local church. They expect to be there for about a week. A missionary couple who live in Sendai report many opportunities to help people, show sympathy and at the same time tell the gospel and give out tracts. Transport networks are still poor and gasoline is scarce. The crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant has caused a great deal of anxiety and uncertainty. The OMF International Crisis Management Team monitors and assesses the situation daily.
OMF International is working closely with CRASH (Christian Relief Assistance Support and Hope - crashjapan.com) a local, inter-Mission relief organization. We have personnel working with them in their main center in Tokyo and expect others to be involved as volunteers once more local bases are established.
The Sendai Earthquake Relief Fund, an OMF Japan project, has been created to channel funds for this effort. Funds donated to the project will be used in one of two ways: they will be used to purchase relief supplies such as blankets, bottled water, food, fuel/ water containers, electric generators, etc or to pay for fuel and other costs associated with transporting these items and OMF personnel to areas affected by the earthquake and tsunami; or they will be passed onto the CRASH network, with whom OMF International is working. CRASH will also use the funds primarily for supplies and transport. Further information on CRASH can be found at crashjapan.com
Prayer requests - updated March 21:
- Pray for good resolution of the problems at the nuclear plant without spillage of radiation. Pray too for those working to contain this.
- Pray for all those affected by the earthquake and tsunami. Numbers keep rising and many are in evacuation centers, including those evacuated from a 20km radius round the Fukushima plant. Pray that adequate supplies of food and water will soon get through to those centers and that electricity can be connected again.
- A pastor who is in a center with many of his church members has said "I feel like Moses with the people of Israel in the desert." Pray for Christians to know God’s comfort and sustaining help and to have boldness and confidence in reaching out in his name to those around them.
- Pray for the many who have been traumatized and who will need both short and long term help to work through the loss of everything, including family members, friends and whole communities.
- Pray for CRASH, the Hokkaido Relief team and all involved in organizing relief efforts – for good planning and co-ordination between central government, local communities and relief organizations.
- Pray that as Japan has been literally shaken, so it will spiritually be shaken to turn to the God who weeps with those who weep, who is the God of all comfort, who reaches out in this tragedy to draw people to himself. Pray for Christians to be bold in speaking for him and confident in living in him in these uncertain days.
