the hours between 2:46 pm (Japan Time) and 1:46 am (the approximate time i went to sleep) were 11 of the scariest, confused, and nervous hours of my life.
i had never been in a natural disaster before.
natural disasters don't happen around me. they happen in far away countries. oh wait. i'm IN a far away country now. i'm in a country smack dab in the Pacific Ring of Fire, in a city sitting atop 3 grinding tectonic plates. not very comforting.
i had come home from our student center intending on taking a nap before our dance team sleepover (this no caffeine thing is killing me). i had just settled into bed when i felt the first rumblings. we've experienced small tremors here and there since i arrived in Japan, so i assumed this one would stop after a few seconds and i could resume my nap. but it didn't stop. it kept growing. and growing. and growing. i was alone in my apartment on the top floor of the building. i had never done an earthquake drill in school (Texas doesn't have earthquakes!) and had no idea what to do. i grabbed my phone as it rattled off my desk and tried calling my roommates (both from Cali) but they wouldn't pick up. about this time i started getting really scared. the shaking kept getting worse, and amidst the sounds of things crashing to the ground in the apartment, i crouched between my bed and desk and prayed that God would make it stop. i seriously thought the building might collapse. it was only about 5 minutes, but it felt like an eternity. the shaking finally began to subside, but over the next 11 hours we were still feeling aftershocks. in fact, as impossible as it is for me to believe, i'm feeling an aftershock as i type this. at least, i hope it's an aftershock and not a foreshock of another earthquake. they classified the 3 earthquakes that happened before the big one as "foreshocks" even though those themselves were each above 6. the earthquake that hit at 2:46 pm was an 8.9. if it had hit any closer to the mainland, it would have destroyed us. but it did plenty of damage, along with the tsunamis it caused to ravage the coasts. the Japanese media are saying the death toll is at least 1,000 by this point, and is expected to rise. 3 out of the 4 main Tokyo power plants lost power, leaving over 4,000,000 homes and buildings without electricity. thousands of Tokyo residents were stranded as all the trains were shut down. fires broke out in many areas, including Chiba and Odaiba (about an hour from Tokyo). Sendai was hit the hardest by both the quake and the tsunami. the Prime Minister has declared a state of nuclear emergency due to reactor failure.
never in my life did i think i would be a part of something like this. praise the Lord that myself, my team, our staff, and as far as i know all our students are safe. but i think of the 993 people out of those 1,000 who did not know Jesus. who died without a knowledge of eternal life. i pray that the Lord would use this disaster to wake up the Japanese, to open their eyes to the knowledge that their lives are finite, that they are not as secure as they believed, and that they have a very real need for a Savior. i remember a few months ago having a conversation with a teammate, saying that people in Japan are so comfortable that they see no need for God, that it might take some huge national catastrophe to wake them up. i wasn't praying for it, but it happened. may this give the world a new passion for mission in Japan. may this be used for God's glory.
"God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling." - Psalm 46:1-3
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