Shalom!
It has been such a painful week that we felt keenly the meaning of shalom.
As all of you know, there was the biggest earthquake of a magnitude-9.0 of Japanese history in the Northeastern area at 2:46 p.m. on March 11, which brought about three catastrophes of 15-meter-high tsunami, a number of aftershocks and explosion of nuclear power plant at once. To make matters worse, a cold wave has overwhelmed the hard-hit district since two days ago.
As of March 19, 6,900 are dead and 10,354 are missing, and roughly 500,000 have been evacuated. The death toll is on the rise every day - it will reach 20,000 if the missing are identified dead. This earthquake is the biggest catastrophe ever in Japan since the World War II, and people are terrified with radioactivity released from the nuclear power plant, and the aftershock that comes two, three times a day.
There is an exodus of foreigners taking place in Tokyo. There are a host of people lining in front of the Immigration Office for the reentry visa. We saw off a friend of ours on March 17, and the airport was packed with so many people who were waiting to buy tickets. The ticket price has soared four, five times. Many countries are evacuating workers and their families from their own national companies, and four or five people of our church have also gone back to their country.
Some of the Japanese are heading for the south from Tokyo, and a couple of kids from our daughter's class haven't attended school since the outbreak. I guess they've left Tokyo. Most people in Tokyo are remaining calm, and recovering from the shock, but the terror of the aftershock and radioactivity still lingers on.
We stay home and don't do any ventilation, and wear masks when we have to g out from the fear of radioactivity. People are back to work, but have difficulty purchasing groceries and gasoline. Rice, bread, water, and so on are all out of shock caused by people hoarding food and gasoline out of fear.
As for the downtown, electricity, gas, water, the Internet and post services are normal, but partial power outage is being operated, causing inconvenience of the subway, and blocking some of the roads. In addition, we're not sure when electricity and water will be cut off, so have stored as much water as possible, and done some cooking.
Since the outbreak of the earthquake and tsunami hit the northeast, fear has prevailed Tokyo, and we feel for the northeastern people.
We've cried out praying for this painful situation for the past week. Amid the fear of aftershock every night, we've repeated driving our kids under the big table, and putting them back to sleep.
There is a pressing need for all of us as one to pray and cry for Japan, for those in pain, grief and fear.
Our beloved friends, please pray for Japan as follows.
1) for God's grace to make new this land.
2) for this country to be overflowing with many souls blessed with salvation and new life
3) for the Lord's comfort, hope and life to reach those in pain and grief
4) for the love of Christians filled with the love of Jesus to be revealed among the Japanese in pain
And lastly, we urge you to make a list of three things you can do for our friend, Japan on the numbered space below, and put them into practice. And I''ll do all my best to help you if you ever need my help with your list.
1)
2)
3)
With lots of love,
in LORD Sumin Park
p.s. I'm going to post all the updated news regarding the earthquake in Japan on Facebook from now on.
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