The Disaster in Japan

I make my blog into a book every year, so this is a post that I want for history's sake. 

On March 12th, Sendai, Japan was hit with an 8.9 earthquake followed by a massive 13 foot tsunami that left complete destruction in its wake. 

I was in St. George when my phone rang at 6 am.  It was my sister, in tears, telling me the news and describing the destruction she was watching.  We turned on the television and watched in horror.  This area is further north from where I served my mission in Nagoya and Osaka, but the scenery is the same.  Same cars, same type of homes, same good people. 

These pictures just break my heart.  The destruction is simply unimaginable. Can you imagine having 4 minutes to just run from your home and everything that is you?  Only to return to find this?!? 

I was driving in the car this week when I heard President Obama address this disaster.

"Over the last several days, the American people have been both heartbroken and deeply concerned about the developments in Japan.

We’ve seen an earthquake and tsunami render unimaginable -- an unimaginable toll of death and destruction on one of our closest friends and allies in the world. And we’ve seen this powerful natural disaster cause even more catastrophe through its impact on nuclear reactors that bring peaceful energy to the people of Japan...



...As I told Prime Minister Kan last night, and reaffirmed at the Japanese embassy here in Washington today, the Japanese people are not alone in this time of great trial and sorrow. Across the Pacific, they will find a hand of support extended from the United States as they get back on their feet. After all, we have an alliance that was forged more than a half century ago, and strengthened by shared interests and democratic values. Our people share ties of family, ties of culture, and ties of commerce. Our troops have served to protect Japan’s shores, and our citizens have found opportunity and friendship in Japan’s cities and towns.

Above all, I am confident that Japan will recover and rebuild because of the strength and spirit of the Japanese people. Over the last few days, they’ve opened up their homes to one another. They’ve shared scarce resources of food and water. They’ve organized shelters, provided free medical care, and looked out for their most vulnerable citizens. One man put it simply: “It’s a Japanese thing. When hard times hit, we have to help each other.”



In these hard times, there remains, nevertheless, hope for the future. In one small town that had been flattened by the tsunami, emergency workers rescued a four-month-old baby who had been swept out of her parents’ arms and stranded for days among the debris. No one can say for certain just how she survived the water and the wreckage around her. There is a mystery in the course of human events. But in the midst of economic recovery and global upheaval, disasters like this remind us of the common humanity that we share. We see it in the responders who are risking their lives at Fukushima. We show it through the help that has poured into Japan from 70 countries. And we hear it in the cries of a child, miraculously pulled from the rubble. In the coming days, we will continue to do everything we can to ensure the safety of American citizens and the security of our sources of energy. And we will stand with the people of Japan as they contain this crisis, recover from this hardship, and rebuild their great nation. "

I found myself driving around with tears streaming out of my eyes, just thinking of the amazing Japanese way.  Truly, they are an incredible people.  There are no reports of looting, only of good. 

This is a line to receive food & supplies.  Where would you ever see such respect for one another?  They all patiently stand in a ridiculous long line waiting for their turn.  There is no pushing or shoving, just waiting.

Just yesterday, a friend sent me the link to this article posted on the msnbc world blog:

In Japan, the Mormon network gathers the flock

By Kari Huus, msnbc.com senior reporter

The only thing that rivals the Mormon church’s ability to spread the word is its ability to cope with emergencies.

 Within 36 hours of the earthquake striking off the coast of Sendai on March 11, the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced that all 638 of its missionaries in the country -- 342 Americans, 216 Japanese and 80 from other nations – were safe.


Within a few days, the church also had accounted for all but about 1,000 of its 125,000 members in Japan.

 “Whether it is Haiti or Japan,” said David Evans (my first mission president), a senior leader in the church who serves in the missionary department. “This is how it works everywhere.”
Chalk it up to a culture of discipline and emergency preparedness. The church has a detailed hierarchy and network that works in ordinary times to maintain cohesion among followers, and in disaster to locate them.


Worldwide, some 14 million members of the church are divided into thousands of units, most of them made up of 300 to 400 people. A bishop presides over each member unit, which keeps detailed records—address, phone, work address and other information on each member.

 “When you break it down to that small a group, it’s not as if anyone has to contact thousands of people,” said Richard Hinckley, executive director of the church’s missionary operations. “With four or five calls from a bishop — using phone trees — we can locate any one of 14 million church members in the world in a matter of minutes.”

 In emergencies, if communication systems are out of order -- as they were in large swathes of Japan after the quake and tsunami — an intricate church network kicks in.

 Under what they call the “home teaching program” each church assigns a member four to 10 people to visit at least once each month, checking in on their physical and spiritual wellbeing. So essentially everyone checks in on others and is checked in on themself. That means when a disaster hits, church members know exactly where to look for the folks that are normally part of their rounds.

 The missionaries — young men and women who work in pairs – all have cell phones, but with cell networks down in most cases, they instead followed disaster plans that directed them to predetermined locations. Most of the young evangelists were accounted for within 18 hours. The last four, who had to walk out of one of the most devastated areas of Sendai to reach their assigned site, were contacted within 36 hours of the quake, church officials said.

 As the threat of radiation emerged, the church network swung into motion again, quickly shifting 72 young evangelists out of harm’s way to missions in Hokkaido in the north and Nagoya in the south of Japan.

“We’re very confident that we have moved everybody far, far away,” from the radiation leaking from the Fukushima nuclear power plant, said Steve Allen, a public affairs officer with the church. Not only did they do so for safety reasons, he said, but for practical reasons — to get them out of the way of relief efforts.

 Now the church has shifted into the next phase: relief operations.

 Under a separate organizational system, the Mormons have dispatched a team to Tokyo to determine how they can actually deliver aid — not only to followers but the devastated region at large.

They quickly inspected 50 LDS church buildings in the disaster-stricken coastal areas — all but the one in Sendai, because the earthquake damage made it impossible to reach — to determine whether they could be used for relief efforts.

On the relief side of the operation, the church is not just focused on its own flock

 The church has made substantial contributions to the Japanese Red Cross and is coordinating with other aid organizations to assess the need for food, housing and fuel in the disaster zone.

“We strive to help people whenever there is a disaster,” said Allen. “Our desire to help is not based on religious affiliation or any other affiliation.”

 The elders say that none of the missionaries has asked to leave Japan, and if anything the evangelists—most between 19 and 21 – are itching to return to the areas where they have been working to help. But the relief effort doesn’t really require evangelists, whose job it to share the Gospel.

 “We would love to have missionaries be involved in any way they can be helpful,” said Allen. “But they are not equipped to be particularly helpful. They are better deployed elsewhere until they can come back in and not be a burden on the relief effort.”

I feel truly blessed to be a part of such an incredible network.  I know these people are so grateful for our thoughts and prayers, but can we do even more?  Yes, they are a modern country with a stable government and economy, but I can't even imagine what it's going to take to rebuild these people's lives.  There are many great organizations to donate to, and if you are in a position to do so, please donate here or to see all the charities accepting donations from a simple text, go here.

I know we will hear many incredible stories of courage, generosity, selflessness, and love...because that, too, is the Japanese way. 

All pictures from abcnews.com