Alberta Japan Network Archive

Friday, May 13, 2011

Miracles in Japan: Four-Month-Old Baby Found Alive

Amid the silent corpses a baby cried out—and Japan met its tiniest miracle.

On March 14, soldiers from Japan's Self-Defense Forces went door to door in Ishinomaki, a coastal town northeast of Senda, pulling bodies from homes that had been flattened by the earthquake and tsunami. More accustomed to hearing the crunching of rubble and the sloshing of mud than sounds of life, they dismissed the baby's cry as a mistake. Until they heard it again.

They made their way to a pile of debris and carefully removed fragments of wood and slate, shattered glass and rock. And then they saw her: a 4-month-old baby girl in a pink woolen bear suit.

A tidal wave literally swept the baby from her parents' arms when it hit their home on March 11. Afterward, her parents — both of whom survived the disaster — took refuge in their wrecked house, worried that their little girl was dead. Soldiers managed to reunite the baby with her overjoyed father shortly after the rescue.

"Her discovery has put a new energy into the search," a civil defense official told a local news crew. "We will listen, look and dig with even more diligence after this."

Ahead of the baby's rescue, officials reported finding at least 2,000 bodies washed up on the shoreline of Miyagi prefecture. How the child survived drowning — or being crushed by fallen trees and houses — remains a mystery.

In a nation short on good news, other rescues have buoyed morale too. In Iwate prefecture, a devastating tidal wave swept away an elderly woman along with her house — but it didn't extinguish her will to live. Rescuers found the 70-year-old alive inside her home on March 15, four days after the wave wiped out much of the region.

Osaka fire department spokesman Yuko Kotani told the Associated Press that the woman is receiving treatment at a local hospital. She is conscious but suffering from hypothermia.

News story

Operation Safe: Healing for Tohoku’s Children

Tokyo, Japan- March 25, 2011 – After a traumatic experience like the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, anxiety disorders that create prolonged psychological trauma can become common among survivors, especially children. Symptoms of these anxiety disorders, like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), include re-experiencing, avoidance and hyper emotional arousal. For children, these symptoms can also include fear of separation from loved ones, anger or aggression and re-enactments of the trauma experience through play.

CRASH Japan is establishing Operation SAFE – a child-friendly space for children to come and begin the healing process. Crafts, songs, stories and games are made available and used by experienced Christian volunteers who help the children deal with the difficult emotions they are facing through Operation SAFE’s five important principles, including “I am Not Alone,” “Be Strong and Courageous” and “You are Loved.”

“These campgrounds are an oasis of peace and shelter,” said CRASH Japan director and founder of

Operation SAFE, Jonathan Wilson. “In these child-friendly spaces, children can receive child-appropriate trauma care through the Operation SAFE program.”

CRASH Japan is currently in discussion with other child-focused relief teams to implement Operation SAFE throughout the Tohoku area to bring hope and healing to Japan’s children. For more information about Operation SAFE, please visit opsafeintl.com

Operation Safe

Facebook Posting Outfits Two Baseball Teams

by David Sedlacek

On March 11, 2011, 25 of the 30 members of a Little League baseball team in Onagawa, Japan lost their homes to the tsunami. But not only their homes―their baseball equipment was washed away as well.

In the nearby town of Rifu, a friend of one of the team's baseball coaches called Oasis Chapel for help. Could the church replace the team's baseball bats and gloves? Pastor Makito Matsuda posted the need on Facebook.

Pastor Matsuda had a new Facebook friend―CRASH volunteer Yoshi Ehara, who had worked out the arrangements to lease Camp Morigo from Oasis Chapel to serve as CRASH's Sendai area base.

Ehara saw the need posted for baseball equipment, and emailed me to ask if we could do something about it. The CRASH Logistics Department was extremely busy―coordinating container shipments of relief supplies, arranging vehicle rentals, obtaining a warehouse, etc.―but this was a specific request we definitely wanted to do something about.

We started looking around Tokyo for baseball equipment to supply two baseball teams. Soon we found a sports outlet that was willing to give a huge discount on the basic supplies―10 bats, 50 balls, three large boxes of gloves, even all the catcher’s needs. But not only that... they donated additional equipment that they would ship up later for free.

So on Thursday, April 14, we loaded five boxes of baseball equipment into my car to take to Sendai. When we arrived at Camp Morigo, we met Pastor Matsuda and passed the equipment on to him. I chose to add a special personal gift for the coach―my 2010 World Series edition Texas Rangers hat. With that, our job was done. We had worked through the Church in Tohoku to bring help and hope to the people of Tohoku.

Two days later, on April 16, the coach of the Little League team in Onagawa came to Oasis Chapel to receive the equipment. He had only asked for gloves and bats, but was delighted to get far more than he had imagined.

The coach believes these children who lost so much will benefit from being able to play baseball again. What provision, that a church in their neighborhood could bring them this joy!

Facebook Posting Outfits Two Baseball Teams

Story of Mika Takana

Mika Takana was cooking in her second-floor Sendai apartment when the earthquake struck. As everything started shaking and falling, she remembers some things vividly.

She watched a 31-story downtown building swaying and saw the communications tower on its roof fall over. She saw the power poles swaying and the power lines moving like jump ropes. But mainly she remembers a strange sound – the buildings around her were literally groaning and crying.

“It was a strange sound that I’ve never heard in my life. The buildings were moving so hard, they were making a sound like crying,” she said.

Mika ran out of her apartment, without shoes. “Next time, I will take shoes,” she said with a smile.  She wound up in a nearby cold, dark school gym with 1,000 others, including tourists who had just arrived from Europe. The earthquakes continued, she said, with about two days of seemingly continuous shaking. “We were always afraid the next one would be even bigger,” she said.

The cheerful, outgoing Mika, a well-known Christian musician and worship leader, immediately began making friends and reaching out to others in the makeshift evacuation center. She was able to return to her apartment sooner than the others, so she went back and brought her blankets and pillows to others who had none.

She even began volunteering at the center, helping prepare food for her fellow evacuees with whom she had occupied a cold, dark gym floor. As she has reached out with the tangible love of Jesus, some of her fellow shelter dwellers have already become close friends, including Chie Nakajima. Chie said that as her apartment rattled, she believes she heard a voice telling her to move out of the center of the room. So she grabbed her husband and moved against the wall, just as the ceiling collapsed where they had been standing.

Three weeks after the earthquake, Mika is still opening her electric-powered home so that her new friends who lack gas can have a hot shower.

“Mika is a great example of how people can show the love of Christ no matter how difficult the situation,” said Paul Nethercott of CRASH.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Regions of Japan Index

Tokyo and Designated Cities

A city with a population of over 500 thousand is considered a "designated city." Excluding Tokyo (which is a prefecture of its own), there are seventeen designated cities in Japan.

Other Cities