Stories tagged with: japan

• In Japan, 'ground presence' makes impact

  by Susie Rain, posted Thursday, June 30, 2011 (11 years ago)

  

  (BGR photo)

  KAMAISHI, Japan (BP)--The woman closely examines the handmade doll. On one side, the doll's face sports a big smile and exudes happiness. She flips it over and sees the facial expression is a frown, symbolizing sadness and grief. Read More

• 6.7 Japan quake buffets Baptist workers

  by Bonnie Pritchett, posted Thursday, June 23, 2011 (11 years ago)

  ISHINOMAKI, Japan (BP)--A 6.7-magnitude earthquake struck at 6:51 a.m. June 23 off the northeast coast of Japan -- rattling the communities devastated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami as well as a nine-member Southern Baptists of Texas Convention disaster relief team. Read More

• Weeks later, Japan survivors still beg: 'Please help us!'

  by Susie Rain, posted Tuesday, May 10, 2011 (11 years ago)

  ISHINOMAKI, Japan (BP)--The handwritten note practically cries out: "Living here! Please help us!"

  

  The volunteers from Tokyo Baptist Church almost miss the dirty scrap of paper, attached to the battered door. It blends in with the rubble and debris left behind by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

  

  Major parts of the house are gone, washed away a month ago by the crushing tsunami waves. Not really believing anyone will answer, volunteer Satomi Ono calls out to see if anyone is there.

  A young mother cautiously pokes her head around the corner. When she sees the volunteers' warm smiles, relief rushes over her and she excitedly yells to her father. They are the only two left in their family. Her two children were swept out of her arms in the tsunami wave. Her mother and husband also died on that fateful day.

  The young woman invites the team inside. Despite broken dishes standing up in the mud-caked floor, Ono can see that the pair had worked hard, cleaning their disaster-stricken home. Piles of papers, toys, rotting clothes and splintered wood are ready to be bagged and deposited on the street for garbage crews.

  The volunteer slides off her backpack and asks if there's anything they need ... Read More

• Japan fireman searches rubble to ease pain

  by Susie Rain, posted Thursday, April 21, 2011 (11 years ago)

  

  SENDAI, Japan (BP) -- Masayuki Yamaki slowly picks his way through the slippery black mud toward his crew of yellow- and orange-clad firefighters. He deliberately tries to stay off the debris. It would be easier and faster to walk on the piles but he just can't bring himself to do it. Read More

• FIRST-PERSON: Flowers amidst the rubble

  by Naomi Paget, posted Monday, April 18, 2011 (11 years ago)

  Naomi Paget, a Southern Baptist disaster relief specialist, reflects on her desire to help Japanese people see the beauty that is Jesus in the midst of ugliness caused by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. Read More

• Japan relief: 'Let's do it together!'

  by Susie Rain, posted Friday, April 15, 2011 (11 years ago)

  

  TOKYO (BP)--It's a lot different this time. So much so that Southern Baptist disaster relief specialist Don Hargis looks incredulous if you try to compare Haiti's earthquake or even the 2004 South Asia tsunami to Japan's March 11 triple disaster. Read More

• In Japan, weekly relief caravans, training under way

  by Mark Kelly, posted Thursday, April 14, 2011 (11 years ago)

  

  A Baptist relief worker listens as a Japanese boy shares his heartache over losing his dog in the tsunami. Southern Baptists working in the disaster response after Japan’s March 11 earthquake and tsunami report that weekly caravans are now making their way into the disaster zone and that training efforts are helping Japanese Baptists mount effective relief initiatives.

   

  ISHINOMAKI, Japan (BP)--Japan's Baptist leader has expressed heartfelt gratitude for the assistance Baptists worldwide have provided in the aftermath of his country's March 11 earthquake and tsunami -- and has made specific requests for continued prayer.

  Southern Baptists working in the disaster response say they are pleased that weekly caravans can now make their way into the disaster zone and that training efforts are helping Japanese Baptists mount effective relief initiatives.

  "Please accept my deepest gratitude for your kind expressions of comfort, encouragement, prayer support, and love offerings, following the earthquake that has wrought devastation to Japan," Makoto Kato, executive secretary of the Japan Baptist Convention, said in an April 1 letter. "The warm response from Christian brothers and sisters around the world has sustained our broken hearts. Japan Baptist churches appreciate the marvelous support system of Baptists around the world united in prayer for Japan."

  The increased availability of gasoline has made it possible for "the most critical necessities for human existence, such as water, food, clothing, gasoline, and kerosene," to be delivered into the disaster zone, Kato said. The Japan Baptist Convention has placed temporary crisis management staff in the area to support the work of local churches in helping ease the emotional trauma disaster survivors are experiencing.

  Baptist Global Response, an international relief and development organization, and its partners are moving to establish bases of operation in the primary impact areas of Sendai and Ishinomaki, said Jeff Palmer, BGR's executive director.

  "We have partners committed to establishing and staffing bases of operations in Ishinomaki and Sendai, and plan to build housing in Sendai for Japanese Baptist volunteers coming out from Tokyo," Palmer said. "The operation now has the capacity of feeding hot meals to up to 3,000 people at a time, and our stateside disaster relief specialists have trained Japanese Baptists in areas of disaster response administration, grief counseling and logistics." Read More

• Aftershocks keep Japan's disaster survivors on edge

  by Susie Rain, posted Tuesday, April 12, 2011 (11 years ago)

  ISHINOMAKI, Japan (BP)--Things appeared to be getting better in Hirasuka Kiiko's neighborhood on the outer edge of Japan's tsunami disaster zone.

  Cleanup crews hauled off mounds of debris blocking the entrance to her home. They even towed the pile of cars deposited in her driveway by the March 11 tsunami. Her children shoveled out the mud and muck left in the ground floor of her two-story house.

  When electricity finally returned to her neighborhood April 7, Kiiko slept inside for the first time in a month. She'd been too scared to stay by herself in the dark, not to mention the threat of another earthquake. On her first night back home, she stayed on the second floor, "just in case another tsunami hits." The water level reached more than halfway up the front door, so the top floor seemed safest.

  The middle-aged Japanese woman couldn't contain her excitement about the next day. Utility workers promised the community their water would be turned on. She went to bed dreaming about taking a hot bath and washing clothes, something she's been unable to do since the earthquake and tsunami.

  Then, at 11:36 p.m., a 7.6-magnitude aftershock rocked the area. A low rumble built to a dull roar. The shaking lasted less than two minutes but felt like eternity. Everything in Kiiko's house moved straight up and down, a sign the quake's epicenter was directly below the region.

  An eery silence descended as more than 1 million people were, once again, without electricity. Kiiko picked up her thin futon mattress and the pile of blankets. She felt her way down the stairs in the dark and joined her neighbors outside in the cold. No one got much sleep as aftershocks continued to ripple through the area. Read More

• Japan relief makes 'God-sized' impact

  by Mark Kelly, posted Friday, April 08, 2011 (11 years ago)

  

  BGR photo

  TOKYO (BP)--Yongala and her husband Junkichi couldn't believe their eyes. Their 145-year-old family business was swept away in a moment by the March 11 tsunami that struck Ishinomaki, Japan -- hard on the heels of a massive earthquake. Read More

• Food, water, 'mud-out' top Japan needs

  by Mickey Noah & Terry Barone, posted Friday, April 08, 2011 (11 years ago)

  

  ALPHARETTA, Ga. (BP)--The sight of Japanese citizens surviving on a can of tuna, one piece of bread and a serving of noodles a day doled out by the government dismayed John Hayes. Read More