Japan tsunami survivors still feel comfort of Baptist relief

TOHOKU, Japan (BP)—When Nobuko Tanno closes her eyes, she sees tsunami waves rushing in and destroying her village along Japan's northeastern coastline. She sees cars floating and houses moving off foundations. She hears the roar of the water and desperate cries for help.

Floyd Hansen holds a board for Chris Baker. The two members of Concord Baptist Church in Jefferson City, Mo., spent two weeks in Ishinomaki, Japan, rebuilding homes destroyed by last yearís March 11 tsunami.

Her normally stoic face contorts a little with the flood of memories, and she quickly opens her eyes. Remembering that fateful day one year ago still is hard. She fixes her gaze on the odd-shaped frame on the white wall in her refurbished home. It immediately brings a smile, and a contented sigh escapes.

The frame surrounds a section of the drywall where Baptist Disaster Relief teams signed their names and wrote Bible verses as words of encouragement. For the homeowner, it's a priceless masterpiece that she'll cherish for the rest of her life. It's a reminder that there is hope for the future.

"After the tsunami, my husband and I tried to clean up. By ourselves, we couldn't do much. It was overwhelming," Tanno explains. The entire first floor was damaged and piled high with debris lodged in toxic mud. "Then, the yellow shirts (Baptist Disaster Relief workers) came to my door. They treated my house like it was their own.

"Their attitude was 'thank you for letting us serve you.' I was really surprised at their servant heart," Tanno says of the five teams who worked on her home throughout the year. "Thank you. Thank you for what you did for my family."

Nabuko Tanno looks at Bible verses written on the wall of her home in Ishinomaki, Japan, by Southern Baptist Disaster Relief teams from five states who worked to repair her home. The homeowner says the verses were so encouraging that she couldn\'t cover it up with paint, so she framed it for all to see. She has a Japanese Bible, given to her by a team, with all of the verses from the wall marked and is learning the significance behind each.

Tanno points to a verse, Jeremiah 33, on the wall. "That is my favorite. It was the first one," she says. "I don't understand all of it, but I am learning."

Mickie Lee from Clovis Hills Community Church, a Baptist congregation in Fresno, Calif., smiled when her friend mentioned Scripture. Lee, who served with two disaster relief teams and stayed on to serve as an interpreter, remembers when the homeowner was skeptical.

She explained Tanno is not yet a Christian but is studying the Bible a team gave her, starting with the verses on her wall, so she can understand what makes these "yellow shirts" so different from other volunteers.

Baptist disaster relief teams, known in this part of Japan by the yellow shirts, hats or vests they wear, responded to the world's first triple disaster—a 9.0-magnitude earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis— within days. They have kept a steady presence ever since by working through the Tohoku Care ministry.

Teams from 15 states have done everything from mudding out houses and rebuilding to hearing survivor stories and hosting banana split parties. Others have made their impact from afar. A group of Girls in Action from Georgia made rag dolls so teams could distribute toys to children who lost all of their belongings. Women in Louisiana made 4,000 Christmas stockings, for IMB missionaries and Southern Baptist disaster relief teams from the United States to give to the tsunami survivors as a way to share the Christmas story.

Survivor Ryouichi Usuzawa said the Tohoku Care volunteers are different in that they meet more than just physical needs. They care about emotional and spiritual ones, as well. They often do this simply by listening to survivors, like Usuzawa, recount their harrowing escape from death or playing games to help them forget the nightmares.

An excavator demolishes the remains of a home in Kesennuma, Japan, damaged beyond repair by the tsunami. Site cleanup continues a year after the earthquake and tsunami struck the Asian nation.

Like more than 323,000 other Japanese, Usuzawa's home was destroyed, and he was forced to move into temporary housing. Any flat piece of land was used to set up the pre-fab houses. Many villages and families were split up, forcing most to deal with grief and depression on their own. Usuzawa's new community is among the largest with 2,164 households.

"After we all moved to temporary housing, we just stared at the floor. We had so much grief. It was such a pathetic situation that my heart broke. Then, the volunteers came and listened," Usuzawa said. He looked back at a new green building and added, "The reason this community building was set up was so people could come together and share their suffering—encourage one another."

Through the Japan Disaster Response fund, Southern Baptists provided three community buildings such as this one in different locations along the coast. Arkansas Baptists paid for decks to go up around the buildings, providing more gathering space for outreach events, and a team from Tennessee did the construction work. Usuzawa explained that these buildings provide a place for the next phase of Japan's healing—"heart care"—to begin.

"I see this building everyday, and it's a signal to me that Southern Baptists in America are telling us to 'hang in there' … that they care about us," Usuzawa said.

IMB emeritus missionaries Gerald and Brenda Burch stressed that the willingness of Southern Baptists to unselfishly give their money, time and prayers have survivors and fellow Japanese volunteers taking notice.

Missionaries say Tohoku (northeast Japan) has been closed to the gospel for hundreds of years. Less than 1 percent even claim to be evangelical Christians in the hardest-hit areas by the tsunami. This region is known throughout Japan as being home to "the coldest and hardest" people in the country.

"The steady flow of Southern Baptists since the tsunami has opened doors," Burch said. "Before, it was hard to talk to anyone. Now, when they open the doors of their small, temporary houses and see our faces and yellow vests, the countenance on their faces change. They are glad to see us. They invite us in for tea."

One Japanese homeowner made this drastic change right before the eyes of two Hawaii Baptist Disaster Relief workers. Leonard Higa from First Baptist Church in Pearl City and David Blair from Lahaina Baptist Church partnered with Samaritan's Purse through Tohuku Care in refurbishing the downstairs of this home.

Higa, a 70-year-old carpenter, speaks Japanese and at every opportunity, he tried to engage the homeowner in conversation.

"She was standoffish," Higa said, remembering the first few days. "I knew she wasn't interested in my message. So, David and I worked hard to plant seeds by caring for her physical needs. We knew the Holy Spirit would grow these seeds and God would send someone behind us to follow up."

As he and Blair cut boards, they teased the other volunteers and joked back and forth. Their laughter carried throughout the house and up the stairs to where the homeowner sat. Soon the joyful noises drew her downstairs. She listened from behind a corner.

When lunchtime arrived, she quietly brought in pumpkin soup for the workers. They thanked her profusely but she shrugged it off and went back upstairs. The friendly banter kept drawing her back, though. She eventually joined in the conversations and spent days sharing meals and her own story of survival and grief. At one point, she admitted that she wished she were an American so she could be joyful like them.

"We aren't happy because we are Americans," Higa responded. "We are joyful because we have Jesus in our hearts. You can have the same."

The homeowner looked at Higa for a second then nodded her head indicating she was ready to welcome that same joy into her heart.