Tsunami recovery ministry setup trip: report 1 of 2
Published June 30, 2011 | 
Week one (Jun 23 – 30) of our ministry setup trip to Japan has flown by. The list of our activities below includes items related to our variety of ministries in Japan, not just our tsunami recovery ministry.
Jun 24. We met with the three Japanese pastors leading the Kanto Evangelistic English Program (KEEP), a partnership ministry between them and the EFC of Canada Mission. We had an excellent discussion, with clear affirmation to continue the program we started in 2008 in which North American short term missionaries (one year minimum) teach evangelistic English classes in the three cooperating churches. The Japanese leadership hat of KEEP rotated from one pastor to another. The best news was that one English student has become a follower of Christ as a result of KEEP and is now involved in one of the KEEP churches. Several others are close to believing in Christ.
Jun 26. We enjoyed worship and fellowship back at the English Department congregation of Musashino Chapel Center, the church we pastored for almost three years.
Jun 27-29. Dale devoted all his time to catching up in his leadership role as President of Japan Evangelical Missionary Association, a network of all evangelical missionaries in Japan from all over the world. This included:
Ann and Kristy at CRASH Japan office in Tokyo
* Touring the temporary Tokyo leadership offices of CRASH Japan, the missionary and local church relief network endorsed by JEMA. Kristy is volunteering at CRASH Japan this summer in the survivor care department.
* Learning about the amazing post-3/11 quake and tsunami ministry of CRASH Japan from its President.
* Leading the first executive board meeting of JEMA since 3/11. Some items we covered:
** Donations given through JEMA for CRASH Japan have exceeded US$2,500,000. Donations have come from all over the world. So JEMA will need to incorporate as a non-profit organization in Japan to insure proper administration of those donations. Dale will be giving leadership to that transition in Nov-Dec. (JEMA is already registered as a non-profit organization in the US state of Colorado.)
** JEMA is convening a consultation in November for all evangelical mission agencies in Japan for the purpose of networking and encouraging outreach ministries that are developing out of various tsunami recovery efforts in northeastern Japan. The consultation will be held in Sendai city. Dale is part of the planning team.
** The JEMA office will be moving to a new location in Sep or Oct in order to reduce our office costs. Dale will be making the necessary arrangements for the move next week.
This week we were invited to request funding for leadership logistics of our EFC of Canada Mission tsunami recovery ministry from CRASH Japan. Seeing as our EFCCM Relief Fund does not cover the costs of leadership logistics (with the exception of our tsunami ministry setup trip), this was good news indeed! Perhaps we can bring such a request to the CRASH Japan leadership team after we set up one or more specific recovery projects that have long term goals and show continuity in ongoing leadership.
Japan (Tohoku) Earthquake (4)
Published March 23, 2011 | New or modified items are in red. Older items that still have relevance are in black. News items have come from CRASH Japan News Headlines, the Center for Excellence (disaster management and humanitarian assistance), and our personal contacts in Japan.
March 23, 2011
GENERAL INFORMATION
The death toll from the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and its following tsunamis in northern Japan on March 11, 2011, is expected to be above 20,000. More than 9000 are dead. Almost 13,000 are missing. Rescue efforts are underway, with many countries sending search and rescue teams. But there are few stories of survivors. The tsunamis were far more deadly than the earthquake and its aftershocks. The tsunamis swept in so quickly that for the most part they were inescapable. People had mere minutes to find safety.
Most earthquakes leave pockets of destruction. By contrast, this quake and its tsunamis have left a trail of destruction that looks like a war zone. The part of Japan devastated the most by the quake and tsunamis stretches north over 350 miles along the Pacific Ocean coast (east side of Japan), starting about 100 miles north of Tokyo. The worst affected areas are the prefectures (states/provinces) of Miyagi, Fukushima, Iwate, Yamagata, Ibaraki, Chiba, Akita, and Aomori. The tsunamis infiltrated inland as far as 8 km (5 mi). The population in these areas before the disaster was almost 15 million, of which 1.6 million lived within 5 km (3 mi) of the coast. Particularly hit hard are areas east of Sendai city in Miyagi prefecture.
Japan (Tohoku) Earthquake (2)
Published March 15, 2011 | March 15, 2011
The death toll from the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and its following tsunamis in northern Japan on March 11, 2011, is expected to be above 17,000. The Miyagi prefectural police (Sendai city area) have announced an expected death toll of above 10,000 in that prefecture alone. The actual body count in Japan currently stands about 2500. Rescue efforts are underway, with many countries sending search and rescue teams. But there are few stories of survivors. The tsunamis were far more deadly than the earthquake and its aftershocks. The tsunamis swept in so quickly that for the most part they were inescapable. People had mere minutes to find safety.
The part of Japan devastated the most by the quake and tsunamis stretches about 300 miles along the Pacific Ocean coast (east side of Japan), starting about 100 miles north of Tokyo. Most earthquakes leave pockets of destruction. By contrast, this quake and its tsunamis have left a 300 mile trail of destruction that looks like a war zone.
Nuclear power plants just north of Tokyo are now malfunctioning. The possibility of radiation leakage has added to the fears of the people of Japan. Tokyo and its surrounding prefectures have been placed on rotating blackouts to conserve electrical usage.
Japan (Tohoku) Earthquake (1)
Published March 12, 2011 | March 12, 2011
God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble. So we will not fear even if earthquakes come and the mountains crumble into the sea. Let the oceans roar and foam. Let the mountains tremble as the waters surge! … Be silent and know that I am God! I will be honored by every nation. I will be honored throughout the world. (Psalm 46:1-3, 10 NLT)
A massive earthquake of 8.9 magnitude hit northern Japan on Friday, March 11. This was the largest quake in Japanese history and the fifth largest in the world since records have been kept. The monster quake was followed by a devastating series of tsunamis that have left tens of thousands dead. (Miyagi Prefecture police have announced a death toll above 10,000 in their prefecture alone.) A nuclear power plant just north of Tokyo has malfunctioned with an explosion.
Cape Town 2010: Day 6 (Oct 24), final day
Published October 26, 2010 | The theme of Day 6 was “church partnership.”
Ramez Atallah, General Secretary of the Bible Society of Egypt, Honorary President of International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES), and Program Chair for this Lausanne Congress, spoke from Ephesians 6:10-24, reminding the Congress that our enemy is the Devil—not ourselves or even the world.
“It would revolutionize the way we look at life and mission if we stopped looking at people as our enemies.”
David Ruiz from Guatemala, Associate Director of the WEA Missions Commission, spoke on the necessity of humility for partnership in our day when the scope of missions extends “from all nations to all nations.”
Patrick Fung, General Director of Overseas Missionary Fellowship (OMF), headquartered in Singapore, emphasized that making disciples of Jesus Christ must be our most urgent goal. One way we can do this is by partnership.
“The foundation of all Christian partnerships is reconciliation.”
“People who were once enemies because of political or racial conflicts, can now work shoulder-to-shoulder to proclaim the message of reconciliation. This message is to be lived out by God’s new community, and the fragmented world needs to see it.”
Cape Town 2010: Day 5 (Oct 23)
Published October 23, 2010 | The theme of Day 5 was “church integrity.”
Calisto Odede, pastor of a Nairobi Pentecostal Church in Woodley, and former leader of IFES in Kenya, preached from Eph. 4:17 – 6:9, telling us that Christianity is losing credibility. Our lifestyles do not support the things we say, our relationships with others, or the way we handle money. Many of these issues discredit us.
Christopher Wright, International Director of Langham Partnership International and chair of the Lausanne Theology Working Group, reminded us that our calling as Christians is both evangelistic and ethical. He prophetically taught that the greatest problem God has in his mission is his own people:
“The idolatry in the church of power, prosperity, and wealth, is the biggest single obstacle to mission.”
Cape Town 2010: Day 4 (Oct 22)
Published October 22, 2010 | 
View of Cape Town from Table Mountain
The theme of Day 4 was “world priorities.”
Vaughan Roberts, rector of St. Ebbe’s Church in Oxford (UK), reminded us from Ephesians 4:1-16 that our two priorities as Christian leaders are first to love God and one anther, and then demonstrate that love to the world. According to Roberts, one way we show that love in the context of today’s starvation for the Word of God is to “keep the ministry of the Word the main thing.”
Paul Eshelman, Vice President of Partnerships for Campus Crusade for Christ and director of the JESUS Film Project, noted that we at this Lausanne Congress represent 5 million local churches and 12 million believers from around the world. He then challenged us to consider the unreached people groups of the world by asking,
“Where is the church not present, and what are we going to do about it?”
Cape Town 2010: Day 3 (Oct 20)
Published October 21, 2010 | 
Lausanne Congress 2010, typical plenary session
The theme of Day 3 was “world faiths.”
John Piper, Pastor of Preaching and Vision at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis Minnesota (USA), preached on Ephesians 3. God reveals his wisdom and glory through the Church that is to proclaim the death of Christ to all peoples—including people of other religions. The cross of Jesus is necessary before God the Father can extend his grace because it is through that cross that the “wrath of God” is appeased. Without the cross of Christ, all humanity would suffer in hell for eternity. Piper declared,
“We evangelicals care about human suffering, especially eternal human suffering.”
Piper then explained: If we feel uncomfortable with the last part of that sentence, then we have a defetive view of hell. On the other hand, if we feel discomfort with the first part of that sentence, then we have a defective view of the human heart [where evil lurks].
Benjamin Kwashi, an Archbishop of the Anglican Church in Nigeria, described the horrific story of the rape, burning, and blinding of his wife by those who hated her Christian faith (and who lives to tell her own story). Kwashi has himself been threatened with death on several occasions. He testified,
“The gospel is worth living for and it is worth dying for.”
Michael Ramsden, European Director of Zacharius Trust and lecturer at the Oxford Centre for Christan Apologetics, grew up in Saudi Arabia. He reminded us that
“It is difficult to preach the gospel with words, but it is impossible to preach it without words.”
Cape Town 2010: Day 2 (Oct 19)
Published October 20, 2010 | 
Typical crowd of delegates at Lausanne Congress 2010
The theme of Day 2 was “reconciliation.”
Ruth Padilla DeBorst, General Secretary of the Latin American Theological Fellowship, preached on Ephesians 2, reminding us that the church needs credibility in the eyes of the world and that Jesus has broken down the barriers between the multiple ethnic groups within the Church.
Her sermon was followed by several speakers who shared about slavery and ethnic hatred in the world, including South African apartheid history and the Palestinian/Jewish tension. The majority of the 25 million slaves of the world are in India—the Dalit people who are considered the lowest of all because they do not even qualify as part of the caste system. Antoine Rutayisire, Dean of the Anglican Cathedral of Kigali in Rwanda, declared,
“Jesus on the cross bears both the sin of the oppressor and the pain of the victim.”
Cape Town 2010: Day 1 (Oct 18)
Published October 19, 2010 | The theme of the first full day of the Lausanne Congress in Cape Town (Oct 18) was “truth.”
Ajith Fernando, Director of Youth for Christ in Sri Lanka, powerfully preached on Ephesians 1. He observed that
people come to Christ to meet a personal need, but stay with Christ when they are convinced and know that he is Truth.
And he reminded us that although St. Francis of Assisi is frequently quoted as saying, “Preach the gospel—and if necessary use words,” he himself constantly used words of truth to portray the gospel. Fernando exhorted us to avoid using that quote from Francis of Assisi to excuse our silence in proclaiming the gospel.
Cape Town International Convention Center, location of Lausanne Congress 2010
Carver Yu, President of China Graduate School of Theology in Hong Kong, lectured on postmodernism’s challenge to the idea of universal truth, with the reminder that the relativism at the heart of postmodernism is inconsistent. That is, although postmodernism declares that all truth is relative, it assumes that that particular foundational truth of postmodernism is absolute rather than relative. This is self-defeating and demonstrates the logical implausibility of postmodernism.
Michael Herbst, Dean of the Faculty of Theology and Vice Principal of the University of Greifswald (Germany), presented creative and sometimes humorous insights into applying truth concepts at the practical level.
Os Guinness, well known author, international speaker, social and church critic, and co-founder of the Trinity Forum, provided six reminders that truth is important and foundational to Christian faith, mission, and evangelism.
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