"Crash" Course from a Disaster

One Veteran Proves Vital for Many Volunteers’ Effectiveness

So much has happened in the world in recent months—“Arab Spring” developments, the killing of Osama Bin Laden, Greek protests over austerity demands—that the event which so dominated the news last Spring has faded from our collective memory.

 

Remember?

 

On March 11, a 250-mile-long and 100-mile wide section of the Pacific tectonic plate suddenly crashed under the plate on which Japan sits. This violent shifting of the Earth’s crust set off the tsunami, battering more than 500 miles of Japan’s northeast coast, reaching heights of up to 130 feet, and penetrating inland as far as six miles. It also set off the nuclear crisis at the Fukishima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which operators are still struggling to get into a cold shutdown. The quake and tsunami left an estimated 22.6 million tons of rubble in the coastal towns. This disaster claimed nearly 20,000 lives (including the more than 4,000 who remain missing eight months later).

 

It’s not only outsiders whose memories of the vast disaster appear to be fading. Many from Japan’s ravished northeast feel that the rest of the country, including the Tokyo political class, is already forgetting. Recovery is proving to be painfully slow. Out of the nearly half a million people displaced, more than 80,000 remain in temporary locations.

 

An encouraging exception to this amnesia has been the short-term volunteers from churches abroad. Some 1,400 volunteers—from the U.S., Germany, Singapore, South Korea, and elsewhere—have been channeled through a movement with the unlikely acronym of CRASH (for Christian Relief, Assistance, Support & Hope). It began as a network grappling with disasters in Haiti and elsewhere, and has since become legally constituted in Japan as an NPO (non-profit organization). CRASH Japan works in partnership with the Japan Evangelical Association and the Japan Evangelical Missionary Association (JEMA). Its volunteers’ tasks in the affected communities are determined by them, and have included: distributing supplies and donated goods; cooking meals for survivor groups and individuals; cleaning debris and sludge out of houses; recovering, cleaning, and sorting personal belongings; doing basic mechanical and construction work; and restoring and replanting gardens. When possible, volunteers tell survivors they have come on behalf of the nearest local church.

 

But the survivors’ deeper wounds are internal. In a nation that values soldiering on (gambaru), many have yet to discuss their experiences with people and thus begin the healing process. CRASH staffers—predominantly young Japanese—take seriously the biblical instruction to rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. They are trained in emotional care techniques: building relationships with survivors, setting up portable cafés, doing hand massages, listening to their stories, and helping them view their experiences rationally and with hope. The ravaged Tohuku coastal region area is one of the least churched areas in Japan. Where local churches exist, CRASH is there to strengthen and empower the national pastors and believers.

 

CRASH Japan founder Jonathan Wilson admits that the first weeks after last spring’s disaster were chaotic. Hundreds of volunteers, rotating in and out on one- and two-week stints, needed to be scheduled and positioned. Relief supplies, pouring into Tokyo from World Relief, World Vision, Samaritan’s Purse and other agencies, needed to be dispatched to the Tohuku region. Mushrooming new staff needed stop-gap training. The ongoing staff bordered on burnout.

 

The man of the hour, with experience gained from other disasters, and provided by the World Evangelical Alliance, was Canadian Mark McLeod. He functioned as chaplain, providing spiritual perspective to exhausted staffers and helping smooth internal stresses. But Mark doesn’t speak Japanese. To help bridge cultural and linguistic gaps between staff, the Japanese church, volunteers, and the disaster survivors, CRASH desperately needed experienced missionaries.

 

Ray and Ruth Anne Leaf had returned to Wheaton in mid-2009 from a 37-year-long missionary career in Japan. Bypass surgery for Ray preceded their actual retirement. So, taking health concerns and the expense of trans-Pacific flight into account, they assumed they’d never return to Japan.

 

But after disaster struck last March, Ray realized that their fluency in Japanese and insider knowledge of the Christian community (Ray served as JEMA president for three two-year terms) equipped them to make a singular contribution. They felt compelled to return and—once concerns about a possible blood clot for Ray were dispelled—did so in August and September, dipping into their own savings.

 

They arrived intending to work directly with survivors. But Mark, recognizing Ray to be an experienced resource, quickly drafted him to serve as assistant chaplain, coordinating relations with the Japanese churches, helping “parent” and build a spiritual ethos for the new Japanese staff, and evaluating the performance of the bases CRASH had established in the affected region. Ray was able to fit visits in to three of the five bases, and report on them. While in Tokyo, he contributed to morning staff devotions and led a communion service.

 

Ray’s assistance proved so strategic that CRASH urged him to return as a chaplain with a two-fold mission: 1) train staff members in emotional care and initially accompany them as they fan out to meet with survivors from the base cities of Hitachi, Nasu, and Sendai; and 2) review with the CRASH staff at Tokyo headquarters the biblical values required to keep their assistance distinctively spiritual.  

 

Ray’s return is scheduled for November 20–December 18. Ruth Anne will not be joining him, and Ray says he’ll sorely miss the warmth of her one-on-one people skills. This time CRASH is covering Ray’s in-country expenses, and College Church is helping with his airfare.