Specific Prayer for those in Japan

28 November 2011

Here are some heart-warming quotes from survivors in Japan:

• From a man who has been living in temporary housing - "Right after the tsunami, the Japanese government, as well as other governments, came to help. Many Non-Profits also came and met many needs. But now, six months later, it is only the Christians who are still here."
• A couple said: "Other religions here have asked or pushed us to pay to be sure we are able to receive happiness. But the Christians came and served without any expectations that we give something to them and they seem to have such joy. We want this same thing in our lives." Matthew 5:13-16 when lived out shines His light!
• A local community leader accepted Christ earlier this month. He said, "The Buddhist priests have come asking for money to rebuild the temples. The Christians have come and have served us since the day after the earthquake and have asked for nothing in return. I want to know why? I want to know this God you speak of."

19 October 2011

Lives are being touched every day through various outreaches. Follow this blog and the excitement of our newly formed team as they reach out to those in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami.

26 September 2011

There was a great Saturday outreach event! Right outside where a house was in the process of being cleaned, the local folks gathered and played Bingo!Located on the opposite side of the street was the kitchen where food was being prepared to feed the crowds. It was a great panorama of the continuation of the response in the wake of this huge crisis. Pray along with the ministry partners as they continue planned outreaches to the Ishinomaki area.

22 September 2011

The real work is just about to begin! Most of the emergency-relief activities of the Japan Self Defense Forces were stopped by the end of July, and many evacuation centers were closed after the evacuees were moved to temporary housing facilities. Now is a critical time for meeting the disaster victims’ mental and spiritual needs, which are expected to become more serious at this stage. Their need for the eternal hope and spiritual strength to live through their ordeal has become more real. Driven by the desire to bring living water to as many people as possible, Help Tohoku is now shifting its activities to the next stage. Pray for these future plans:

• Open Café: A café will be set up where people can come and enjoy a relaxed atmosphere
  every Thursday starting in September. The need: volunteers to serve as “hosts” to talk and listen to people.
• Center for volunteer operations: Liaisons are needed to support volunteer activities and to offer services to meet the local needs.
• Monthly Saturday relief work
• Summer pool opening
• Ongoing Saturday children’s ministry

15 September 2011

This swimming pool was built in the backyard of a house that had been damaged by the tsunami and now has been converted into the base of our operations in the area. A cross, painted in white, can be seen at the bottom of the pool. The pool has been opened for children in the area, in hopes that it would serve as a place where they could come to play, relax and rest.

31 August 2011

Sometimes ministry happens at a festival, sometimes by helping a new business and sometimes it’s just about one person!

22 August 2011

Pray for the new Mobile Coffee House (pictured at left) that will travel to various locations to serve those affected by the devastation in Japan. The team is using many relational activities to be involved in the healing process. Along with serving meals and coffee, the game of Bingo! has been used to bring smiles to the people’s faces!

8 August 2011

Pray for the people touched by the short-term team that just returned from Japan.

26 July 2011

Hear what a teenager says about her relationship-building time in Japan, ministering alongside her Dad.

"We went to Ishinomaki with Pastor S, one of our partners, and his friend. On the previous day we had gone to the same location, an empty parking lot, to distribute food to other people of the neighborhood. The pastor had met a lady at the distribution and wanted to visit her. When we arrived, she invited us in for coffee and tea, while she and her husband told us their story with the pastor and his friend translating. Miko told us that she had been at the gym when the earthquake struck. She made it home and was on the second floor of the house with her husband when the tsunami hit. The water filled the entire first floor of the house. The water stayed for about 2 hours. When they came downstairs, there was still knee deep water in the street.
For the first seven days, they ate noodles from packages that they dug up from the mud. They are still in the process of cleaning up. All the down stairs rooms, except for one, have been cleaned up and are livable. The belongings that they were able to salvage are stacked in boxes in what they are using as the living room.

Our new Japanese friends

We also found out that Isau and his brother were commercial fishermen. They had both been to the U.S. and South America to fish. They said that the thing that they loved the most, in the U.S., was the steak. As we left after three hours of fellowship, we started to think about what a great idea it would be to have an American cheeseburger BBQ for the family. So on Friday, we bought ground beef, Coke, buns, cheese and chips and drove over to their house. We arrived unannounced, to make cheeseburgers. When we asked if we could do an American BBQ for them, they were very excited. So we set up and started cooking. Hedako and Isau kept bring out more food, traditional Japanese salad, sauces for the hamburgers and cold coffee.

Hedako and Isau’s son, Koyoshi, also showed up to eat with us. Talking was a bit difficult with the language barrier and no translator, but we were able to do fairly well. There was a lot of laughter and trying of all the words we knew in the other language. Their daughter, Yuka, arrived shortly after we went in for tea. She spoke a little English, and told us that she works at a kindergarten. Yuka said that when they felt the earthquake the workers grabbed the kids’ hands and ran for higher ground. The tsunami wave swamped the building.

Koyoshi was driving his car when the earthquake hit. A runner then knocked on his window and told him a tsunami was coming. Together they ran to higher ground. Koyoshi’s car ended up in a rice field a few blocks behind their house.

Takadashi

On Saturday, our partner church held a takadashi for the people of the neighborhood. A takadashiis a cook out. Hedako and her family came. After they got their food they went home and we continued to talk to people. Then Yuka asked if I could go with her to her kimono teacher so she could put a kimono on me. I went with her and had a pretty fun time. Then we walked back over to her house where I showed off my new look to everyone and got some pictures taken.

I really enjoyed getting to know this family. As we were leaving Yuka told us that our coming to visit her family had made them very happy. That is the reason that we need to go to Japan, to make friends with the people who have been affected by the earthquake and tsunami. We were told by many people that Japanese people don’t normally let foreigners into their homes. The people of Japan are very open right now and we need workers to go and be light. Please consider going and I guarantee that you will come back changed and you will help change the lives of people in Japan such as our new friends… "

17 July 2011

The team that will focus on the Ishinomaki area is forming. One couple has moved from southern Japan and a "gap year" MK has joined them to focus on building relationships as they minister to those who have been displaced. Here is what they have been doing so far:

• Distributing food and supplies
• Assisting with an English program for grade school children
• Mucking out homes and tearing down drywall
• Serving BBQ meals in severely devastated areas and in a temporary housing facility
• Working with Samaritan’s Purse to rebuild homes
• Meeting with realtors to look into possible Community Center and housing locations
• Hosting three teams
• Getting to know the local medical care facility by spending an afternoon at a clinic with a missionary who fell at a work site
• Participating in these activities with Help Tohoku, Grace City Church, Tohoku Aid, Samaritan’s Purse, Ishinomaki Christ Church and Sendai EFC.

If you can serve BBQ and/or speak English, you qualify to help! You can bring laughter and hope like those who talked with Mr. Sasaki recently.

Mr Sasaki came to a BBQ at the temporary housing facility where he had been relocated. As the missionaries spoke with people waiting in line, Mr. Sasaki shared how he had lost his wife. He invited the missionary into his room at the shelter and talked for an hour. People need listeners who will let them share their stories. After many had gone through the BBQ line, it was announced that there was no more yakisoba but that there was still chicken. A few people commented that "even if there is no more food left, it was worth waiting in line to be able to talk and experience life with each other."

Please pray that the Japanese people in Ishinomaki will come to know true hope and find healing from the Perfect Healer. Pray that our workers will have wisdom to know how to listen and how to help. Pray for teams to come to help build relationships. Find out how you can send a team from your church.

7 July 2011

Watch this videoto see how short-term teams are making a difference. Toward the end, a ReachGlobal missionary is giving a hug! Pray for more workers for the harvest. If your church can send a team, contact japanteams@efca.org.

15 June 2011

What can you do to show Christ’s love in the aftermath of a crisis?

• Pray for those affected.
• Help them with dirty jobs.
• Invite them to a BBQ.
• Hand out needed supplies.
• Smile.
• Play games.

Those are the things that our ReachGlobal staff and their team have done in the last few days. To see more pictures of the bar-b-que and dirty job cleanups, see our Facebook page.

8 June 2011

Long-time ReachGlobal staff are relocating to the area most affected by the earthquake and tsunami.

• Pray for them to find housing and to settle in quickly.
• Pray that they can find a good location for a Friendship Center.
• Pray for them as they host short-term teams this summer.

See the video put together by the team they will join.

23 May 2011

Base camp being shored up

On top of a sea cliff, the living room overlooked the deep blue Pacific Ocean but when the area is scanned, the scenes of crumpled cars, scattered broken houses, and whole buildings swept off foundations seemed eerily out of place. Along this coastline, one of the hardest hit areas was Takayama. TouchGlobal has coordinated a team to plan for a long-range crisis response but before heading there, the team picked up power tools stored in a missionary’s basement near Tokyo. After another airport run, the first order of business was to replace the wooden staircases of the duplex which will be the base of operations for coming years of ministry to help the Japanese families who were hit the hardest.

The small team, including a Japanese architect, had inspected the duplex to see the structural soundness of the house and assessed how best to replace the wooden steps and decks. The duplex is expected to host many volunteer teams and new ReachGlobal staff who will be joining a new initiative for church planting in the Tohoku region.

After they determined the lumber needs, the team drove about an hour to a large Home Depot-type store where they secured lumber, picked up donated microwaves and hot pots and then headed back to the duplex. Awaiting them was quite a workout as they had to carry the lumber and supplies up a steep hill to stage the reconstruction that will soon begin.

The next project they needed to check out was in Ishinomaki where they looked at a house church site where they will partner with two Japanese groups to open a community center. The house was damaged by five feet of seawater and mud. The mud will need to be removed and the floor boards pulled up. Their work is far from over.

11 May 2011

It has been eight weeks since the earthquake and tsunami hit the Tohoku region of Japan. Let’s continue to pray for the Japanese and those helping in the crisis relief. One long-term ReachGlobal missionary couple will move from Fukuoka to Sendai. They would appreciate your prayers:

• as they shift their ministry focus and finish well in Fukuoka.
• As they begin to focus on their new ministry.
• As they face many changes.
• As they deal with sadness in leaving Fukuoka and excitement as they join in what God has prepared for them in Sendai.

2 May 2011

After leading scouting teams to scope out the damage, a long-term missionary couple is moving to Ishinomaki, Japan, to help in the relief and rebuilding of that city. Pray for their strength and endurance to make this move in the next month. What a surprise they had on their last trip,  meeting several Free Church pastors that they had worked with in the past. They also met a pastor’s daughter, Noriko. Noriko works as an evangelist in Tokyo, but she felt led to go home to help after the tsunami. She is praying about what she should do next. The missionary prayed Isaiah 30:21 with Noriko, "Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it.’"  After the prayer, Noriko looked up and said, "That is the exact same verse that God showed me before I decided to come to Ishinomaki."  God is at work!  Pray for Noriko to hear God’s voice as she determines God’s will! Thank God for those who are listening and responding to God’s promptings to help in Japan.

Check out the earlier posts.

http://reachglobalprayer.blogspot.com/

Add a prayer request with information on those you are praying for in Japan on the EFCA Facebook page comment posted 3/17/11, so we may pray in unison for the specific needs for these brothers and sisters.

More information

• Send a team to Japan! Contact japanteams@efca.org. 
• Download the Japan Earthquake Relief bulletin insert for use at your church.
• Give to TouchGlobal efforts in Japan