Report and Prayer Points for March 11th, 2013

Thank you for your ongoing support and for your prayers for Japan. The Japan Evangelical Association has posted a report on its web site, along with specific prayer points for the disaster-hit Tohoku region and its survivors. To read the report and prayer points, click here.

Christmas Outreach to Orphanage, December 22, 2012

Two YWAM Japan National Office team members went to Iwaki City, Fuskushima Prefecture, on December 22 to deliver Christmas gifts to 31 children at an orphanage. Each child received a Christmas stocking filled with a hand-sewn, stuffed animal reindeer, origami paper set, crayons/colored pencils, drawing pad/sketchbook, and a bag of mixed candies and cookies. We played a game of Bingo with the children, and then served homemade gingerbread cake, snacks, and orange soda/grape soda/ginger ale. While they enjoyed the snacks and drinks, each child was called by name and presented with the filled Christmas stocking.

Some of the hand-sewn, stuffed animal reindeer.

Okinawa & National Office Team Outreach to Ichinoseki, Iwate Prefecture, August 16-22

In mid-August, one Okinawa team member and one National Office team member volunteered to help clean and prepare a Christian facility for its future use as a community center in Ichinoseki, Iwate Prefecture.

For the National Office team member, this was the second outreach to this particular area of Tohoku. Her first outreach had been shortly after the March 2011 disasters. Nearly one and a half years later, she could observe the progress and what remains to be done. On one hand, much clean-up has been finished. Garbage and debris have been taken to local collection sites. New temporary housing units have been built for evacuees and survivors. New temporary stores are operating out of single-wide mobile homes.

On the other hand, no new building is permitted in the areas where the 2011 tsunami flooded the land. Road signs mark the beginning and end of areas where no new building is permitted.

Estimated tsunami inundation area sign.

Because no new building is permitted in the tsunami-hit areas, damaged public buildings have become memorial sites, as well as sites where ruined vehicles are dumped.

Ruined building and ruined vehicles in Rikuzentakata (August 2012)

 

Tokyo DTS Team Outreach to Tohoku (Interim Report) 2012

Since the spring of 2012, the Tokyo DTS team has participated in several outreach efforts in the disaster-hit region (Tohoku) of northeastern Japan.

In the spring, two team members went on a short-term outreach to meet with other disaster-relief network contacts.

In early summer, two other team members volunteered for one month, helping to build houses and assisting with other construction projects. One of these team members had received a vision of building homes in Tohoku and was able to see the beginning of that vision fulfilled.

In August, the Tokyo DTS students and some staff went on outreach to Tohoku. (Hopefully, some photos and details will soon be able for that report.)

YWAM Japan National Office Team Outreach to Iwaki City, Fukushima Prefecture, December 26-28, 2011

One YWAM Japan National Office team members went to the Global Mission Center in Iwaki City for a few days after Christmas.

Global Mission Center, Iwaki City

The outreach included taking a variety of supplies, participating in morning prayer drives along the devastated coast in the Usuiso area, taking provisions and gifts to an orphanage, and visiting evacuees now living in temporary housing units.

Concrete foundations remind us that there were once homes and buildings here in the Usuiso area.

Please pray for the remnant in Japan. Please pray for the pastors and ministers who continue to pour themselves out to serve others who survived the disasters. Please pray for those evacuees who have been relocated into temporary housing, that the love of God will be made known to them, that they will find fellowship and belonging in the local churches.