Jesus, the Greater Power Than the Tsunami

April 20, 2011 - Iwaki city.

A flurry of visitors came to the church while we were meeting with Rev. Sumiyoshi at Nakoso Christ Church, located in the southern end of Iwaki city, nearly 70 KM away from Fukushima Dai-chi. A few women came to pick up some vegetables and canned foods from the piles of relief goods. Some elderly men came to see the pastor because they were curious about these fearless Christians. Two of the old men sat with us for awhile and we stopped our meeting and started listening to them.

They had been coming to the church to pick up foodstuffs and other items a few times since the earthquake and tsunami from this small church they had found through the word of mouth. A church in the small neighbourhood which no one had ever paid attention to its existence for years until March 11.

When the disasters hit, these elderly people had only a short moment of feeling relieved in knowing that they were saved from the devastating disasters. But the real fear began flooding in their hearts when they heard about the explosion of the nuclear plants and radiation. After March 11, communications stopped, shops closed, no gas available for cars, and the government services were out of their reach. Neighbours, especially young families with small children, started leaving the town one by one because of the fear of radiation. The real battle for survival in a small old town, which began rapidly shrinking, came with the rising fear and anxiety among those who decided to stay – or, more precisely, those with no choice but to stay. For such powerlessness they started experiencing, it was beyond their imagination to hear the small church not only staying but also serving sacrificially to its neighbours. “I wanted to know what kind of power they have that is greater than this tsunami,” one of the old men said.

Rev. Sumiyoshi and his wife first got connected to a para-church relief coordinating centre that started delivering goods and food stuffs to the disaster-affected towns. In Iwaki city, there were about 30 churches before March 11, but some of them evacuated, others were merely surviving. Nakoso Christ Church was one of the few that stayed and opened the church doors to serve as relief distribution centre for the local community. More and more people started coming to the church not only to receive relief goods, but to ask the same questions one after another:

Where do these Christians get the power to live in times like this and what kind of power does Jesus have to give them?

Their curiosity about the greater power than the tsunami led them to come out of their doors and drive 20 to 30 KM in search of answers. I shared what I had witnessed in Thailand with the two elderly men. How Thai people had started knocking on the doors of churches in Phuket because of the unstoppable fear and nightmares the tsunami victims had been having. They could not understand why their Christian neighbours had been so different. The real paradox had become the moments of baptism of these new believers. The fear of water which had made them question about life and death could only be calmed by going under water again – to die to their own fear and anxiety and to be born again to a new life in the Prince of peace.

After these visitors left, we carried on with our meeting and the pastor told us his dream.
“I had a very vivid dream one night soon after the tsunami. I saw Jesus walking toward the nuclear plants. With that dream, I could not leave Fukushima. It was a call from Jesus that I must stay. I need to be where Jesus is and go where he goes.” He now has a very high vision to see the reign of Jesus Christ come to every corner of Fukushima in this time of great suffering.

“I want to understand the theological meaning of this nuclear disaster and why Jesus walked toward the nuclear plants. That must be the way of Cross he took for our sins. We Japanese Christians must repent our national sins, especially the sins of the Second World War, the wrongs we’d done to other nations, and idol worships like Yaskuni Shrine."
The pastor couldn’t stop telling us about his vision from Jesus why he and his church must stay and serve this dying neighbourhood in fear of radiation and the aftermath of the disasters.

That moment, Midori looked at me and told the pastor, “My friend, Soohwan, is a Korean and she discovered a book of Yaskuni Shrine yesterday at the house where we went to see the tsunami affected areas. I explained what that meant to Japanese and we were wondering why God allowed her, a Korean, to discover that in the pile of tsunami’s debris.”

After Midori finished summarizing all that in English for me, we all became silent. Then I told my team and Rev. Sumiyoshi that I had to come to Fukushima precisely because I am a Korean and it was a call from God I could not resist. Then he shook my hands with a big smile on his face. I did not understand his Japanese, nor did he understand my English, but we knew that we’d somehow find ways to support for this tsunami recovery work together from both nations in future.