Disaster Reports

Baseball Helps Bring Hope to Hiroshima

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Will Thompson of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes contacted CRASH with news that American pitcher Bryan Bullington, a Christian, was interested in lending a hand in the relief effort in Hiroshima.  Bullington, who is currently a pitcher with the Hiroshima Carp, was the first overall pick of the 2002 Major League Baseball Draft and has played for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Cleveland Indians, Toronto Blue Jays, and Kansas City Royals.  Since Bullington is currently in rehabilitation we could not put him to work mucking out homes, but local pastor Hiroshi Horikawa had a better idea, visiting the Bairin Elementary School where students and staff had just begun classes after the school reopened.  Thompson reports,10694909_10203010264793977_1915876364_n

“On Tuesday, September 16th we visited Bairin Elementary School with Bryan Bullington, pitcher for the Hiroshima Carp, along with Rev. Horikawa of Mitaki Green Chapel, and Yusuke Yoshioka and myself from FCA Japan. The school is right in the middle of the area affected by the landslides and you could see the mud on the hills and in the street from the windows of the school. The principal said that right after the disaster over 600 people stayed temporarily in the school gymnasium with dozens still living there now weeks later. Thankfully, there were no lives lost among the students and families of the school despite being right next to the landslides. It was great seeing the joy and smiles on the kids’ faces when they were suprised by a visit to their classroom from a professional baseball player from their beloved Hiroshima Carp. According to the principal, this was the first time that a player from the Carp had ever come to visit the school. The teachers may have been the ones that were most excited with several of them freaking out over the surprise visit by the baseball star, being huge Carp fans themselves. Its amazing to see the influence that athletes have, and the potential to use that influence for the Kingdom and to bring true hope to people, especially out of disaster. We are really thankful for Bryan, for taking his time out to visit with and encourage the kids, and for our brothers and partners at CRASH Japan for providing the opportunity to serve and their tireless commitment to provide relief and the true hope of Jesus in the wake of disasters.”

CRASH has found that sports can be a wonderful way to bring recovery after disaster, helping children’s teams recover equipment and hold skills camps with help from professional players after the tsunami of 2011 and the tornado of 2012.  The Fellowship of Christian Athletes has introduced players and partnered in these efforts.

Hiroshima Volunteers Needed Through September

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On the 19th and 20th of August more than a month’s worth of rain fell in a 24 hour period bringing already saturated hillsides down into residential areas of the city of Hiroshima. Since then rescue workers have labored under dangerous conditions with rain continuing to fall and the threat of further movement to find the bodies of 72 victims with 2 still left missing. 24 homes were destroyed completely by the landslides but another 392 dwellings have been damaged, flooded, or surrounded by rocks and mud. Now the tedious and difficult job of removing this debris, helping survivors get back to normal and caring for the emotional and spiritual burdens they face has begun.

In the days after the disaster as Japan watched their television screens to see if there were any that could be rescued, Christians in Hiroshima were already preparing to make a difference. The Hiroshima Senkyou Kyouroku Kai, a group of local pastors, gathered together in the middle of the summer holidays and together with Japan Food for the Hungry International and CRASH Japan started to prepare for volunteers to work safely and effectively in the Hiroshima response.

We have learned from our experience with the Tohoku disaster that although many volunteers will rush to scene in the first response and overwhelm the local volunteer centers capacity to manage them, as the work drags on the numbers of volunteers will decrease and survivors will be left to fend for themselves. The Hiroshima Christian Volunteer Center has been set up independently by the local churches to continue working in support of their community. CRASH Japan is mobilizing volunteers throughout the month of September to join in with Christians in Hiroshima to bring help and hope to their neighbors.

Please join in! We need your help. Teams or individuals please Register with CRASH today.

Photos courtesy of the 広島宣教協力会 (Hiroshima Senkyou Kyouroku Kai)

Hiroshima Landslide Volunteer Registration

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from the Asahi Shimbun

from the Asahi Shimbun

We are currently assessing the situation in Hiroshima where deadly landslides swept through a number of communities on August 20th. Churches in Hiroshima and the local office of Japan Food for the Hungry International are meeting today to work on a plan for coordinated action. Clean up after mudslides is very hard work and labor intensive. There will be a need for those who can volunteer. We will do our best to provide opportunities in cooperation with churches in Hiroshima for volunteer teams to serve. CRASH seeks to deploy Christian volunteer teams that can work safely and effectively to bring help and hope to communities through the local church. We will work as quickly as we can, but in an organized and effective manner. If you would like to volunteer, please register now for the CRASH newsletter and we will keep you posted in the days ahead as things get organized.

OperationSAFE IN Yunnan, China

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OperationSAFE China

Zhaotong, Yunnan, China Earthquake Situation Update

At 4:30 p.m. on 3 August 2014, an earthquake at the magnitude of 6.5 shook Ludian County of Zhaotong Prefecture, Yunnan Province, affecting Ludian County, Qiaojia County, Shaoyang District and Yongshan County of Zhaotong Prefecture, as well as Huize County of Quzhing Prefecture. Among them, the worst hit areas are in Ludian County. The quake claimed 617 lives, 112 people were reported missing, 3,143 people were injured, and 229,700 people were displaced. Some 60,000 houses collapsed or were severely damaged. Public utility and infrastructure were damaged at various extents.

Our partners that we worked with for the 2008 Sichuan quake and 2010 quake in the Tibetan area of Quinghai have already been to do a rapid assessment and have discovered an urgent need for psychological emotional care for 6000 primary school students and have received an invitation from the local education officials. They would like to mobilize teams to begin OperationSAFE child trauma camps for these children as early as the end of this month. We need your help! As little as $6 can sponsor one child.

THE CHURCH IN JAPAN’S CRISIS OF AGE

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Servant Team Leader, Reiko Sugimoto reported: “Churches from about 30 different groups and around 140 people attended. God’s incomparable presence was with us to the end. I was so pleased that people came from as far away as Wakayama, Miyagi, Yamagata, Fukushima and Nagano and ranged in age from 0 to 80. Thank you for your prayers and attending and for each of your contributions to making this event successful.”

4/14 Window Tokyo Leadership Summit

Dr. Luis Bush and East Asia Coordinator John Hur’s presence was a great encouragement for our team and for those who attended.  As we talked around the lunch table, conversation turned to the critical moment that Japan is facing in its history and how God is positioning His people for it.  I will try to summarize and give some of my own insight.

Japan is currently approaching an existential crisis that it must resolve if it is going to survive.  The most simple way to describe it is that decades of low birth-rates and falling marriage rates combined with ever increasing life-spans has created a top heavy society with roughly a third of Japanese over the age of 60 and only 28% under the age of 30.  This problem is actually compounded in the Japanese church where Masakazu Suzuki of CRASH Japan writes, “based on 2012 data, out of the average sized church in Japan with 35 attending worship on Sunday, 18 are over the age of 60 and only 2 are under the age of 30.  This means that the church has 20% more elderly than the national average and 20% less of the younger generation.”  『宣教の革新を求めて』（東京基督教大学国際福音センター、2012年）によると日本のプロテスタント教会教勢の概数（2010-2011年）(Tokyo Christian University International Mission Center)

Part of the task that the 4/14 Window faces in Japan is to raise awareness of this crisis within the church and “draw the hearts of the fathers to the children.”  We are making good progress towards this with the successful events now in April and July that is growing towards a national conference in November.  We have enjoyed a broad base of support including organizations such as Samaritan’s Purse, OneHope, Awana and CRASH Japan and 7Media on the servant team as well as cooperation from the Japan Evangelical Association, the Lausanne Movement in Japan and independent churches.  The events have been given good coverage in the Japanese Christian press and the Leadership Summit will be broadcast in seminar format on CGN Television.

This is a “Kairos” moment in Japan’s history and it would be short-sighted to assume that God has left His people unprepared to meet the challenge.  The church in Japan has just been through a period of great change in response to the Great East Japan Disaster of 2011.  It has been said that during that time three walls have come down; the walls between churches, the walls between the church and community, and the walls between Japan and the outside world.  Let me make a few comments on each of these.

  1. The walls between churches
    The 4/14 Window Movement is interdenominational and so far there has been great cooperation and unity between differing groups.  One of the key ingredients to making it work is that we focus not on specific methodologies or doctrines, but on doing theology together and sharing resources without territorialism.
  2. The walls between churches and the community
    The bottom line is that without engaging the community there is no way to reverse the declining trend in the children and youth in the church.  We are past the point of expecting that children born in the church will be enough!  I am hoping that this can be the challenge that Pastor Nam Soo Kim can bring to the conference in November.
  3. The walls between Japan and the world
    The general attitude in Japan has been that things that work other places in the world won’t work here because of Japan’s unique nature.  But the tsunami forced us to work together with volunteers from around the world.  It is still difficult and never an exact match, but I believe that the contributions of the 4/14 Global leadership will be well received and help the church in Japan to find the way forward.  That said, I am encouraged that the Global Leadership is not dominated by Western Christians.  It is important that Asians (Korean, Mongolian, Indonesian, Philippines) be at the forefront and that there is plenty of time for Japanese leaders to present from the stage.

The biggest thing that the church in Japan learned through the tsunami crisis was that what Japan really needs from us and has no other source of is hope.  The hope of the gospel must be clearly communicated to the next generation so that they can find purpose and strength to meet the crisis coming to this nation.