Jeremiah 29 for Relief Strategy

Grace Garden Chapel - Koriyama City, Fukushima

“From today we will stop being victims, but we will become helpers!”

Two Sundays after the disaster in March, Pastor Sanga announced to the congregation. Koriyama, one of the major cities in Fukushima Prefecture, is located 50 KM west to Fukushima Daiichi. It was affected by the earthquake but damage was not as devastating as other cities on the coast. A few members of the church were affected by the earthquake and expatriates were concerned whether they should return to their home countries or not due to the rising fear of radiation. The co-pastor couple knew the only way to get rid of fear and uncertainty was turn the congregation from passive by-passers to active workers.

Many evacuation shelters were set up in Koriyama and one of the largest ones in Fukushima was opened in 10 minutes distance from the church. Toyomi and several members of the church started visiting shelters and delivering supplies to victims. Toyomi, a mother of two children, teamed up with a few other women went to the shelters, especially looking for mothers and children whose needs were not being met by the services in the shelters. Toyomi explains the background of how their Life Support Program came about.





Build houses and Plant Gardens: a Vision for Life Support Program

Toyomi and her team surveyed 100 families from thousands of evacuees they met. Most relief programs focus on meeting the needs of evacuees while they were at the shelters, but the Grace Garden Church team had a very clear vision. The vision came from Jeremiah 29, the text Toyomi’s father gave her and her husband at their wedding before moving to Fukushima. Instead of trying to serve many people at the shelters, the ‘Grace team’ had a clear strategy: to provide meaningful support to the few they could actually minister with quality of relationship. The most important criterion they screened during their survey was, “Do you desire to get back on your feet, and do you wish to get well?”

The Grace Team knew keeping the evacuees too long in the shelters would only further the damange than help. They started planting the vision of a new life among evacuees and this is how the Life Support Program was birthed.

The three phased program looks like this:

1. Home Start-up and basic living support kit: This includes basic appliance sand electronics that evacuees could set up their homes upon arriving at the temporary housing.


2. Living and hygiene Kit: this includes basic items like toiletries, hygienic items and cleaning supplies.


3. Food supply kit: This is only provided to the household with problems of mobility or access to groceries and markets. At this stage, the Grace team includes a nurse who checks on health and emotional conditions of the evacuees.

For a church of 50 some members, this is a huge task but it is carried by their huge faith in Jesus, as I heard the testimony of one member who has been actively running the survey and building relationship with evacuees. Midori and I went to visit the team for an interview on Wednesday and met with Rie Matsumoto, one of the staff members. Though it was in front of a recorder and camera, Rie could not stop sharing the stories she’s heard from many evacuees. Midori was actively listening while I was looking at Rie over the camera viewfinder and I could tell how deeply moving those stories were as Rie’s eyes were soon filled with tears. (After trying a few times, Midori suggested that we should keep the story short. We apologize for the short summary, rather than the detail translation).


Relief Worker's Testimony



"My name is Rie Matsumoto and I am a staff member at Grace Garden Chapel. When the disaster happened, I felt depressed whenever I was watching news or hearing stories of the disaster victims who died because most people faced their death without knowing their destiny. A week later, our church began the relief work, and I wondered about my own ability to deliver such work with my own weakness. But as the work went on, [by serving the victims] I recovered from the depressing feelings I was under in the first few days.

I collected many stories of victims while doing the survey as the baseline of our Life Support Program. Many people had their family members washed away and lost everything they had. I want to meet each one’s needs. I feel helpless but I am hopeful in Jesus. Everyone I met said, “we never expected this level of disaster would happen in our life time.’ I pray that the light of Jesus will illuminate the darkness, and Fukushima will be healed.

God's Purpose for the Church in Disaster Affected Communities
I want to be closer to each family we met and am trying to focus on building relationship with them, not simply delivering the supplies. I believe this must be God’s providence for our church that we are not located too close to the plant that might have affected us much worse, but close enough to be able to serve the victims. Mission of the church is not too far, it is very close to us."


Disaster relief work is always reciprocal. It blesses both ways: to victims and to workers. When it does not create this reciprocal blessing, it creates patronage and dependency, or becomes dehumanizing transactions. I have seen many situations of disaster relief work and some end up in worse than the disaster itself when relationships are not carefully fostered. Rie never worked in disaster relief work before, nor did she get professional training in humanitarian aid work. Her faith in Jesus is bringing light to the evacuees and the service has brought her out of despair and feelings of depression.

After our visit to Grace Garden Chapel, Midori was filled with heavy emotions from the stories Rie shared, but more with joy from the strong faith Rie shared with us.