CRC Missionary in Japan

[Chris Meehan <cmeehan@crcna.org>]

CRC Missionary Preaches Christ Amid Japan’s Devestation

March 15, 2010 — Rev. George Young, a missionary called by Cascade
Fellowship Christian Reformed Church, is happy to be alive following a
massive earthquake, followed by a tsunami and then ongoing problems at
nuclear power plants north of his home in Japan.

Like so many others, he is paying close attention to reports of what will
develop following the damage to reactors from a tsunami created by the
earthquake that hit Japan late last week.

In an email message sent this week to Christian Reformed World Missions
officials, he says life is difficult and confusing in the aftermath of the
major disaster in the northeast portion of Japan, where he lives. For one
thing, he finds he has to try to make sense of the reports and rumors that
he is hearing about things that are happening.

"The realtor who represents our landlord came to check the house for
structural damage. In the conversation he told me that Public Television
advised people in coastal areas to be aware that there is a 70 percent
possibility of an aftershock as large as 7.0 on the Richter scale within the
next three days," says Young.

If that is true, he says, he wonders if there is any "use trying to attach
furniture to the wall, which I should have done before, until things have
calmed down. I wonder if my return to Hasaki (where he lives) was premature,
and whether I should return to higher ground."

After the earthquake hit last week, he knew it was bigger than anything they
had yet experienced. He dove under the dining room table, which is made of
sturdy planks.

"As soon as the major shaking and rocking subsided, I knew I had to seek
higher ground. Six blocks or so from our house is a hill, maybe thirty feet
above sea level, which I climbed, and was soon joined by many others," says
Young.

They saw fishing trawlers steaming out of the harbor at full speed, and they
saw the sea drawing back and a "small" tidal wave wash over the breakwater  …
We all waited about 45 minutes for the estimated arrival of this big one,
but it did not arrive."

After about an hour and a half of waiting, he returned home, packed up and
left for the Ushibori Bible Camp that is 45 minutes northwest of his home,
located on top of a hill. He teaches English Conversation and Japanese Bible
twice a month at the camp.

Sunday morning, he led a small worship service in the home of a family that
lives in Ushibori and are members of the local Choshi Church. He also
visited two others who are shut-ins in Ushibori.

"As the aftershocks became smaller and smaller, I decided to return to
Hasaki on Sunday afternoon," he writes.

Now that he's back, as he said, he wonders if he should leave again.

"The whole town is on edge, and the fires in the industrial district of
Kamisu City, just north of Hasaki where I live, are still burning. Reports
of the explosion, radioactive leaks and efforts to contain the damage, and
at the same time of evacuations from the area of the nuclear electric plant
in Fukushima a couple of hundred kilometers north of us, complicate the
situation."

Fearful as the situation is, he relies on his faith in God and asks for
continued prayers for God’s love, mercy and grace for families of those w ho
died in the tsunami near Sendai and other parts of the Tohoku in the region
of Honshu northeast of Tokyo. He says he continues to rely upon and preach
about Christ.

"I urge you to pray for the people of Japan as a whole, that tragedies like
this will change their hearts, and move them to seek Christ, the Savior who
is seeking them."

>—Chris Meehan, CRC Communications

>--
>Chris Meehan
>News & Media Manager
>Christian Reformed Church in North America
>1-616-224-0849