Landscapes of Fukushima - Radiation, Tsunami, Gospel

I had a short five day long visit to Fukushima last week. Even after having visited Ukraine just recently and learned about the Chernobyl disaster from people directly affected by it for the past 20 some years, Fukushima does not seem any less complex or devastating.

Perseverance. That is probably one most necessary thing right now.

My focus of this visit was two-fold (besides some organizational matters):

• Listen to the voice of the voiceless - this time, I intentionally focused on capturing the voices of ordinary people who were affected by the disaster. I will post these stories soon after I get Japanese translated. 
• See with my own eyes and feel the landscape of some of the areas that were most affected by the disaster. I am posting a few photos below as a summary of my reflections. 

Before I left Vancouver the history of Fukushima stayed on my mind for a long time (see the blog entry on the meaning of the name). So I prayed that I might be able to get a glimpse of the faith of those martyrs, on whose blood today's churches in Fukushima firmly stand. I started reading about the history of Christianity in Japan and discovered that the sixteenth century is called "Christian century" because of the dramatic growth of Christianity after Xavier and other Jesuits arrived in the land. I found the map below in A Vision Betrayed: The Jesuits in Japan and China 1542-1742 (by Andrew C. Ross). The shaded areas indicate strongest growth of Christianity, and I marked the areas which were hit by the Tohoku disasters on March 11, 2011. 

The shaded area is actually is a mountain range near Aizu area where there had been thriving Christian communities in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries until the tragic martyrdom took place. While we were driving on the road stretched along the mountains from Koriyama to Fukushima city, I couldn't help but thinking of those martyrs, and their journeys from the southern tip of Japan, Kagoshima where the gospel had been brought in the mid-sixteenth century.

How beautiful on the mountains

   are the feet of those who bring good news ! 

(Is 52:7)

On September 30, the Japanese government lifted the "stay-home" order within the 20-30KM areas from Fukushima Dai-ichi. This means several things at the local level - residents no longer need to be prepared for 'evaucation at any moment'; schools and other public services would start functioning again once cleanup was complete; businesses started coming back to town. People were told that they could carry on with normal activities of life again. But can life really go back to normal?

We went to "the 20KM boarder" in Minami-Soma, north of the plant. As I was walking close to the boarder, I took a picture of the landscape outside the 20 KM zone. The fields were left abandoned because no farming was done as everything had to stop after March 11.  What will this land look like after the winter?

There were policemen keeping security control strictly as vehicles with special passes only are allowed to enter the 20KM zone. Even evacuees are not allowed to go in.

Every road to the crippled nuclear plant is under strict security control and this boarder continues to the fields invisibly - these fields are not divided at all in any other sense. I stood where the 20 KM Stop sign was on the road and took pictures of the landscapes on both sides of the stop sign. The photo below shows the landscape inside the 20 KM zone. For the next 20 or more years, this part of the land will continue to be out of human touch. 

All the news that fills media about Fukushima has to do with the nuclear power plant or radiation. We have nearly forgotten that the devastating tsunami hit not only the nuclear plant, but many villages along the coast.

Usuiso is a coastal village in Iwaki and it is completely destroyed by the tsunami. Before the disaster there were about 800 people (240 households) lived in this small fishing village. 125 people were killed and most homes were destroyed. The below picture of Usuiso was on a newspaper on April 27, 2011, a month and a half after the disaster. 

I had seen tsunami before, just as powerful as this one, but killed 10 times more people than this one (over 250,000 people were found dead in the tusnami in South Asia seven years ago). But what shocked me this time was the level of inaction here in Japan, the most advanced economy of the world and with an aging population. In Thailand, it didn't take six months until people started moving on to rebuild their lives. The choice was rather simple; whether back to the old place and back to old jobs they knew best which was fishing and farming, or to unknown but new places (most of them went to hill sides) looking for new livelihoods to go as far and away as they could from pain and suffering they had to bear by living near the coast. Because people did not have much expectation on the government and those Thai fishermen and farmers had to rise up again on their feet as fast as they could.

Here in Japan, the government is waiting to collect people's opinions, and victims are waiting to hear the government's plan. No one is moving a step towards recovery even after eight months. Everyone is waiting to hear what the other would do first.

Mr. Suzuki was a fisherman before the disaster, but now he lost not only his fishing boat but also his family and his house. Shimi, one of the volunteers from Global Mission Center (GMC), has been instrumental in helping Mr. Suzuki regain his hope to get back on his feet and carry on with his life. Mr. Suzuki, who was not able to come back to see his home village for a long time after the disaster, joined us in the trip to Usuiso last Friday. As he was standing on the empty ground where his house once used to be, he said to us:

"Because these Global people (local residents in Iwaki calls the members of GMC Global-san) are praying for me and for the village, I thought I should come along with you guys today and see with my own eyes."

Seeing with my own eyes.  What Mr. Suzuki saw was not simply the landscape where the power of nature devastated many people's lives and livelihoods of those who survived. It was more than what was left after the destruction. It was about what can be done and what must be done when a committed church comes alongside to rebuild the life together. 


Mr. Suzuki seemed to have gained strength just enough to face today. That's all that matters. Facing the aftermath of the tragedy once again is hard but perhaps the right step forward on this long road to not simply rebuilding what was lost before, but Gospel-led transformation of Usuiso village.


Hope of living. There is a mysterious power in it that rejuvenates a person from within. But we can never generate such hope with our human strength, it comes from the high above.

From Chernobyl to Fukushima

A full circle. That's how I feel.

The Chernobyl Museum was built largely with donations from Japanese people who shared similar suffering in Hiroshima and Nagasaki 40 years prior to the Chernobyl disaster. Today, people of Chernobyl share their resilience with people of Fukushima.

I also have a few things to share from my short trip to Ukraine to people of Fukushima as I prepare for my third trip to the Land of Good News (福島). 

• First of all, truth matters. People suffered great deal in Chernobyl. Physical harm, loss of homes, loss of work and community, that's what people remember from their suffering. People also remember with anger and bitterness about being lied to, and being hidden from the truth of what happened. 
• Second, because of the way information was handled and communication was controlled, people generally showed a low level of trust on their governments, both the old and the new. This is where local churches filled the gap and rose as the source of trust, hope and community.  
• Third, the work of local churches always vary according to each unique context. The mystery of God works both in the church local and the church global. In 1986 when the Chernobyl explosion happened, the church in Ukraine existed largely underground - under the persecution. But in 1988, the millennium celebration of the Church in Ukraine brought much needed attention from the outside world - the Church Global. And Soon after that the USSR collapsed and the Church Local began to fill the gap in remarkable ways to care for the poor and the needy in Ukrainian society. 

What role do we specifically play as the Church local, wherever you are, and the Church global, to wherever brothers and sisters are hurting because of disasters, oppression, poverty, injustice, anything else in our deeply broken world? 

I will probably bring more questions than answers to Fukushima on this upcoming visit from Monday. My listening ears must go closer and closer to the ground where ordinary, small, quiet churches began to take big steps of faith and action.

Anatoliy Glukhovski is the Principal of the Ukrainian Evangelical Theological Seminary, where my visit to Ukraine was initially planned for. He shares his testimony of churches working together globally after the Chernobyl disaster, and this time, with churches in Fukushima.

We Remember... Or fifth Disaster?

November 11, 2011 - Vancouver, Canada (11-11-11)

It's Remembrance Day in Canada today. We remember the two wars in the last century and many lives given to save lives.

Today is also 8th month day since the March 11 triple disasters happened in Fukushima. 8 months.

"Fifth Disaster in Fukushima" (Fukushima Minyu News - July 25, 2011)

This is the worst natural disaster Japan has experienced in several centuries. The nuclear crisis in Fukushima in addition to the earthquake and the tsunami marks the worst national crisis in Japan since the WW II. This local newspaper captured the sentiment of local people in Fukushima as the forth and fifth disasters: 

First, there was an earthquake;

Second, a massive tsunami followed;

Third, a major nuclear crisis began; 

Forth, rumors of radiation fear swept the wounded hearts again;

Fifth, the world has moved on. The victims are left behind, forgotten. 

In this very moment in Fukushima (November 12th, Saturday), the Japanese Government opened the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi for one day to media journalists from all over Japan and some foreign media as well. We will be able to see and hear more about the disaster again soon in the news, but the real question is this: How long will this suffering continue?

We remember... Truth matters.

That's one big lesson from Chernobyl after 25 years. I found this interesting piece on Chernobyl on You Tube - Chernobyl Memoirs.

Memoirs of Chernobyl (7) - Tuzhar, Chernobyl region

When we arrived in Tuzhar, Pastor Aleksander Bogdan welcomed us with a big smile, especially when he was surprised by the visit of an old classmate of his from their theological training days in Kiev.

The Church of Christ for Everybody was planted in the village of Tuzhar some time before Pastor Aleksander moved up there 7 years ago. Small but active church presence reminded me of the churches I visited in Fukushima earlier this year.

When Pastor Aleksander was first called to shepherd this church in Tuzhar, a village located on the boarder with Belarus and also close to the Chernobyl nuclear plant, he received a promise of God's healing on the land from the Old Testament. It is clearly demonstrated - not only written in the wall, but also in his life together with his congregation.

"If my people, who are called by my name, 

will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, 

then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place."

(2 Chronicle 7:14, 15)

Before we sat down to listen to the stories of two ladies in the village who lived through the whole time since the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl, we were very warmly received with delicious local Ukrainian food, cooked with vegetables all grown locally. They loved their locally grown produce - a sign of God's promise of healing on their land.

(from left to right) Pastor Aleksander, Maria and her neighbor, myself and Myroslava

I had simple two questions.

• What do you remember about the disaster? What happened? 
• Why did you stay instead of moving out?   

But, I knew the answer was not that simple - Home.
"It's our home. We have nowhere else to go."

25 years after the disaster, Tuzhar is now gaining vitality as a community again with the increasing number of families with young children. As we were leaving the church, we saw a couple of boys riding on their bicycles. Pastor Aleksander greeted them as one of them came to wave at us. Another sign of God's healing on the land.

Memoirs of Chernobyl (6) - Travel Companions

Pastor Vacilli works as a taxi driver and he loves the fact that he has such a flexible job that he can meet his church members whenever they need him wherever they might be throughout the week, not just on Sunday service. He had worked in a shoe factory before the Soviet Union collapsed and remembers 'the old days' when persecution of the church was normal and believers would meet in forests, sing hymns quietly and share the word of God secretly. When you see the big smile on his face today, it seems pretty hard to believe such a past existed in the land where it now seems to be the source of vibrant church movements going on in all corners of Ukraine. Perhaps, I wonder if the suffering they went through in those early years provided a fertile ground on which today's younger generation can stand, like Myroslava, my translator on this trip to Tuzhar, who loves her theological studies in the seminary where I was visiting earlier in Kiev and wants to sing jazz in New York city for God's glory.

Pastor Vacilli

Myroslava

In Pastor Vacilli's taxi, three of us drove over 500 KM to get to Tuzhar from Ozadivka, then back to Kiev on one day. We shared many stories, and heard Mira sing Ukrainian folk songs for us and enjoyed the full moon together on the way back to Tuzhar.

Ozadivka (pointed with pen), approximately 200 KM away from Kiev (marked in red in the center of the map)

Tuzhar, 100 KM north of Kiev and near the 30 KM zone from Chernobyl nuclear plant.

Poverty and isolation.
That's what appears first on the surface of the land of former communist countries.

But its people, made in the image of God, fulfilling their God-given call on their lives bring out the beauty of God's good creation all together; whether a local church pastor driving a taxi or a seminary student dreaming of singing Jazz in a New York stage.

Memoirs of Chernobyl (5) - Maria, an evacuee from Chernobyl (Part Two)

(continued story from the last entry)

Loss of home and being told to move out with no preparation and no plans. Maria tearfully recalls her painful journey she had been on for the last 20 years.

Church is our new home.
Maria shares her hope in Christ for people in Japan.

"Take good care of your health, and have patience too. It is difficult," as she painstakingly remembers.

After our brief meeting, Maria gave us a bagful of walnuts she picked from her yard as we were leaving her house, one of many identical buildings laid in rows of this relocation village in the middle of full autumn foliage.

Memoirs of Chernobyl (4) - Maria, an evacuee from Chernobyl (Part One)

After the short visit to the hospital building that was turned into a children's camp facility, we headed to the neighbourhood to meet with a family who moved from Chernobyl.

Maria lives alone now and started coming to church a few years after she moved to Ozadivka at the end of an year long struggle with her health and healing from that illness. She shared with us her memory of what happened in the community when the Chernobyl explosion happened.

Memoirs of Chernobyl (3) - Ozadivka, Berdychiv District, Ukraine

Bishop Petro Zaliznii met us in Kiev and drove to Berdychiv on Tuesday evening of October 12. He is well known in Berdychiv district and he's particularly known as "a man of charity" because his commitment to love God and love neighbour. Having been a pentecostal pastor for a long time, including significant years of leading underground churches before the Iron curtain fell, Pastor Petro understands very well what it means to lead congregations through suffering and dark times in history. After Ukraine became independent, he continued his church work with much zeal and freedom that came through the political changes in the nation. He started a charitable organization in his district of Berdychiv to help children relocated from Chernobyl area. Ozadivka is a village in Berdychiv district, about 200 KM southeast of Kiev. This is where the government (the former Soviet Union gov't in this case) moved a whole village from Chernobyl area (near the 30 KM zone of exclusion) nearly 20 years ago.

From Berdychiv district town to Ozadivka village was about an hour drive through vast fields.

 
After the communism collapsed the Ukrainian government divided and distributed all of its land to everyone; some too poor to farm alone or to rent heavy equipments and sold their land to somewhat richer folks. Mostly unable to think individualistically - the fact that life depends upon their own ability to plan, utilize and control resources. People seemed to be quite nostalgic about the old days; neighbours working in collective farms; someone else (the government) worrying about their future. People I met and talked to seemed to remember the disaster with much pain and also with bitterness toward the government that the government did not, still does not do much.

As we were approaching to the village, there was a small garden dedicated to the 25th anniversary of Chernobyl disaster. 

The old Soviet government promised people with housing, schools, and a hospital in the new village, but after the collapse of communism, the new Ukrainian government was too weak to keep up with all the promises. There we went to the old unfinished hospital building that the Ukraine government could not finish. The local government sought after Pastor Petro as they thought he could put it to a good use for local community so they sold the building at a lower price to the church. Since then the church has been operating camps for children and also has a vision to move forward.

Memoirs of Chernobyl (2) - Chernobyl Museum (Part Two)

On December 15, 2000, more than 14 years after the explosion, the nuclear plant was finally shut down. 

The plant stays closed for over 10 years now, and the zone of exclusion (30 KM zone) is now being reopen for tourists soon, but  not in October when I was there.  The lives of many people have changed for ever. Many lives were lost and many still suffer. As a photo journalist put it, it was an act of self destruction by the humanity. 

This poem below was written by Launa, an unknown poet. It is poignant.

Uprooted: Yet from these strange ashes hope will rise

By Launa

If a man’s thoughts dye his soul

What kind of stain do his deeds leave?

A hazardous spill on himself and upon the laps of others

Who share the same air

Breathing in and out

In and out

Now there’s bitterness that abounds

In the bread basket to the north

Uprooted family trees with forgotten people

In yellowed photos dangling down

Wooden cradles set ablaze

In the forest

Where blue light sprang from place to place

Luminescent

Deadly beautiful

Reminiscent of sparklers

Cracking at a May Day parade

The rain has become hot tears pouring down

Falling down

Dropping to the earth

The fragmented rivulets on a musical score

Splash on these paper lives, fragile and all to brief

The muffled sobbing is a melody

But only to the ears of Him unseen

It’s an aria of the heart that sings a Capella

The high pitched notes of pain

Yes he who suffers much speaks a wordless language

It transcends dialects, country lines

And political ideologies

Uprooted, yet not alone

I have seen lives irrevocably changed

In one moment in time

From one thoughtless choice, a careless decision

Leaving ancient villages empty

Doors are swinging on squeaky hinges

For all eternity plus seven years more

And the plastic dolls of stolen youth

Sit on dust covered window panes

Vacantly gazing at the loss…

Uprooted, yet not alone

Heartbreak and tragedy

Are no respecter of persons, traditions, religion

Or plans 

It is blinded by skin color

And the coins in one’s purse

I have been told that fear is like rust

That eats away hope, little by little

Corroding all confidence

This invisible acid obliterates desire

Until we are mere shells with nothing left inside…

Uprooted, yet not alone

I believe that love is a salve

To be spread on the wound to heal and soothe

Able to mend the innermost places

That are hidden from man

Faith causes that page to turn

Just because today’s sunshine is blocked out by the clouds

Doesn’t mean the sun is gone

If God seems silent

It doesn’t mean he has left us

Or doesn’t hear our cries

Perhaps we are the ones who are not listening

To the voice that is gentle and low

Tender and always near

We must be quiet and still

He is here

And anxious to woo us to Him life a lover

He will be revealed once more ….

Uprooted, yet not alone

There is a day that dawns upon all of our broken lives

That we are able to see clearly

If we look with unjaded eyes

We can see that we are all people with ruined dreams

With unrealized plans

Yes, somehow they can fit perfectly

Into His bigger picture

And will be breathtakingly beautiful

In time…

Uprooted, yet never alone

From these strange ashes

Hope will rise!

Memoirs of Chernobyl (1) - Chernobyl Museum (Part One)

I had a chance to visit Ukraine for three days last month for another project I am working on at the moment. After my official visit at the Ukrainian Evangelical Seminary, I spent the second half of my time covering about 500 KM of road travel (map) on a whirlwind tour between three places related to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986. My purpose was to see what lessons I might be able to pass to Fukushima and it was indeed a very fruitful trip and worth being on the dirt road for 10 hours or so.

The three places I visited are:
First, the Ukrainian National Chernobyl Museum in Kiev, the capital city of Ukraine. 
Second, Ozadivka village in Berdychiv District, about 200 KM southwest of Kiev. This is one of the areas where the former Soviet government relocated residents within the 30 KM zone from the Chernobyl nuclear plant.
Third, Tuzhar village in Chernobyl region, 100 KM northeast of Kiev and close to the 30 KM zone from the Chernobyl nuclear plant.

I am only writing this nearly a month after my visit as my preparation for my third visit to Fukushima in a week. Fukshima disappeared from the international media for a while and now it started to surface again. Why? I will gradually write about this as the dates come closer for me to be in that Land of Good News again!

This week, I will focus on remembering Chernobyl and I will start with the Chernobyl Museum.  An interesting fact to note is this - it was built last year and largely by donation from Japan. Why? The last nuclear crisis of this scale the world had experienced before Chernobyl was Hiroshima and Nagasaki. People of Japan offered significant assistance. It was built last year, a year before 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. Who could have imagined that people would come to this place again, but now to seek a voice of wisdom and experience from the shared experience of deep suffering and pain?

Remembering. Truth matters.

Just like Holocaust and other tragic events in history, the most important thing is to remember what happened.  I took a few photos and recorded a few video clip in the museum.

This is what happened on the early morning of April 26, 1986. (A film made with a replica of the plant)

The government did not disclose the accident immediately and started evacuating people a few days later without giving them full information. May Day Parade took place 4 days after the explosion and even in high risks of radiation poisoning. Foreign media started to cover the issue.