Pray-Listen-Act: the Strategy of Transformation

The story of 3/11 Fukushima must not end as tragedy. It is only the beginning, and that's what I keep hearing from the local churches we've been visiting. The course of history in Fukushima is changing because of these faithful followers of Christ.

As I was listening to people's stories here in Fukushima and watching TV programs on the 1st anniversary of the disaster, one thing was very clear to me. The faces of Christians are brighter with smile and joy and their voices carry determination of hope and strength coming from Jesus. There is no energy of anger and bitterness. Of course people remember the day, March 11, with great sorrow and grief. But a true lament before the living God, the righteous and true loving Father, gives birth to a new life of hope as the author of Lamentation wrote several thousands years ago.

I'll never forget the trouble, the utter lostness,
   the taste of ashes, the poison I've swallowed.
I remember it all—oh, how well I remember—
   the feeling of hitting the bottom.
But there's one other thing I remember,
   and remembering, I keep a grip on hope.

(Lamentations 3:19-21, The Message translation)

This week I've been privileged to hear some of the precious stories of transformation, small seeds of sacrificial love growing in Fukushima. I will share stories in the next few days, but here are some faces shining with gratitude and joy. 

Two brothers, thankful for a new family of faith

A pastor excited with prophetic imagination to rebuild an entire village

A fearless mother encouraging other mothers to not fear radiation

A community volunteer and church leader, giving thanks for losing (!) his job on March 10, 2011 as it was God's providence for making him available to serve his suffering neighbors

A relief worker who finds joy in listening to stories of victims finding encouragement through her love and care

Midori and her colleagues have been faithfully walking with these local churches for the past year by praying and listening together as a way of discerning where and how to act.

We would like to offer the same tool to many others as we are all part of this grand story of God's redemptive work in our hurting world. I would specially like to invite you readers to join us in prayers this weekend, as a group of us gather in Fukushima for a very special day of prayer and listening. Please click here to download a prayer guide for Fukushima, the Healing of the Land.

The Death of Trust

Asahi poll shows that most Japanese people distrust their government (click here to read). 

Fukushima has surfaced back on world media as Japan held the 1st anniversary of the disaster as a nation-wide commemoration of the 1st anniversary of the disaster. Here's an well crafted article, The Death of Trust in the Economist (click here to read) In that article,

Mr. Noda [Prime Minister] says, rather blithely, that “everyone has to share the pain of responsibility” for what happened at Fukushima. Indeed, much of society, excluding an anti-nuclear fringe, happily accepted the “safety myth” that enabled Japan to cram 54 nuclear reactors on one of the world’s most earthquake-prone archipelagos. But if people bought the myth, it was because successive LDP governments, ministries, big-business lobbies, media barons and university professors sold it to them.

Safety Myth. 
That is one side of the double-edged sword in dealing with aftermaths of this triple-disaster. Everyone simply believed that it would be safe. Most evacuees we met on this journey to Fukushima told us how powerless they have felt when this myth shattered a little over a year ago and when TEPCO and the government kept silent and moved slowly.

Censorship.
The other side of the double-edged sword is the deceit and delay of communicating information on radiation. The same article above mentions below:

Possibly the most sensitive source of popular disquiet relates to information on radiation. This was partly held back to avoid causing panic. In some instances that may have been justified—though experts like Tatsuhiko Kodama, head of the Radioisotope Centre at the University of Tokyo, say there was no excuse for the bogus assurances that there was no risk to public health. “What makes me most angry is the censorship,” he says.

The anti-nuclear protests that have been spreading like a brush fire in the whole country carry a lot of anger, bitterness and resentment not simply because of what happened in that devastating disaster, but more importantly because of how the disaster response was handled by the government and authorities.

Nowhere to turn for help, not even to the government elected through democratic processes.  In the eyes of most secular Japanese that's what this one year has been, and how they feel when 'the gods of nature' cruelly punished the humanity. And it is only we humans needed to look after ourselves.

Is that the end of this tragic story one year after the triple-disaster?

Fukushima, in the Eyes of the World (3)

Continued from NHK News 7 (English) on March 11, 2012

Anti-nuclear power protests spread throughout Japan

Fukushima, in the Eyes of the World (2)

Continued from NHK News 7 (English) on March 11, 2012

A nation-wide problem of storing radioactive waste

Fukushima, in the Eyes of the World (1)

One year after the Great Tohoku Disaster, here's the latest numbers:

Death: 15,854 (1,605 in Fukushima, no death from radiation) 
Missing: 3,155
Evacuees: Over 60,000 households
 
The following clip is from NHK News 7 (English) on March 11, 2012

Nuclear accident according to TEPCO 
and the problems of radio-contamination.

3/11, 2:46 pm - Iwaki Station, Fukushima

Japan observed the nation-wide 1 minute silence today at 2:46 pm to commemorate the anniversary of the Great Tohoku disaster. Midori and I stopped at the train station in Iwaki after church.

Iwaki Station Square, view from the street

Nagasaki - a detour en route to Fukushima

March 8, 2012 - Nagasaki, Japan

It's my fourth visit to Fukushima and this time it includes a detour in the south via Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Why Hiroshima and Nagasaki? We want to learn how Christians engaged in restoration of communities and cities after the atomic bombing at the end of World War II and bring that learning to and for Fukushima.

Today Midori and I spent most of the day to walk around the city of Nagasaki to learn its history, culture and people and visited a couple of museums, including the 26 Martyrs Museum. The museum was opened in February 5, 1961, on 364th anniversary of the crucifixion of the 26 saints in Nagasaki. It was the very first official persecution on Christians in Japan, and only to be followed by thousands and thousands more shortly after that.

It was an inexplicable moment. Horror, sorrow, awe, reverence, and gratitude. This is best I could describe the movements of my emotions. St. Paul Miki, one of the 26 martyrs, a Japanese Christian said to his offenders as he was dying on the cross:

All of you who are here, please, listen to me. I did not come from the Philippines. I am a Japanese by birth, and a brother of the Society of Jesus. I have committed no crime, and the only reason why I am put to death is that I have been teaching the doctrine of Our Lord Jesus Christ. I am very happy to die for such a cause, and see my death as such a great blessing from the Lord. 

At this critical time, when, you can rest assured that I will not try to deceive you and I want to stress and make it unmistakably clear that man can find no salvation other than the Christian way. The Christian law commands that we forgive our enemies and those who have wronged us. I must therefore say here that I forgive Taikosama (Hideyoshi). I would rather have all the Japanese become Christians. 

(From Luis Frois, Martyrs Records, 1597)

Soon after this tragic event took place on the hill of Nagasaki, the rich and the powerful started to build a tight control over foreign trade as they were afraid of Christianity being further spread to Japan. So they built an artificial island, Dejima, to keep all foreigners (Portuguese first then Dutch as part of their East Indian Company trade) on that small area of 120 m x 75 m (9000 square meters, a fan-shaped island with only one bridge to the mainland) and controlled all the trade routes to a small port in Nagasaki. They wanted science, technology, education, weaponry from the West, but no Christianity. 

Japan was a newly unified nation by the warlord Hideyoshi who invaded and kept the war with Korea for seven years, with an ambitious plan to take over the mainland. He died only a year and a half after he ordered the 26 Christians to be killed in Nagasaki. Since mid 17th century Japan closed itself to the rest of the world for over 200 years in fear of the growth of Christianity in its homeland. Some Christians fled to Macau and majority of other Christians went underground. Because of this persecution, Japanese Christianity quietly grew in its unique and authentic form during this dark age. Bibles that were translated to Japanese were all burned and there was no priest to shepherd this secretly growing community. They often carried Buddhist symbols with Christian symbols hidden deliberately so their faith would not get exposed to outsiders.

I stood on the second floor of the captain house in Dejima, where captains of Dutch East Indian Company trade ships would come and stay. Looking though the window, all I could tell was the passage of time. The small artificial island is now completely locked in by the expansion of the city, after surviving the atomic bombing.  I could only see the hills behind the Nagasaki Customs building as if this hidden history is now completely surrounded by the modern urban noise.

 Midori and I walked to the warf and wandered around a bit along the water. This quiet water is enclosed by gentle hills. Honestly, it is hard to believe how much this little narrow port carried the tragedies and silence for the last 500 years or so.

 

On the plane coming to Japan last weekend, I was overwhelmed by the thought that it's been only twelve months since the disaster happened last March, and we've experienced so much and Japan has been going through a quiet crisis again. What will the future hold? We do not know. 

One thing I am grateful though is that Nagasaki already taught so much about the resilience and unwavering faith of our forefathers and mothers who gave us more than enough to find ways for Fukushima's future, and perhaps for the rest of us, too.