Aiding Japan

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Since the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, I have been constantly checking the news on the latest developments. The first person I thought about was a fellow co-worker, Taka, who I trained with at AMI. My company has an office in Tokyo and Taka works there. Our company sent out an email the morning of the destruction and confirmed that everyone at the office was safe. I received an email from Taka this week and found out a few things. Him, his wife and kids ( a 3 year old little boy and a 4 month old little girl) were all okay and not effected much by the disaster. His parents and brothers, however, live in Sendai, close to the epicenter of the earthquake. They are all safe, but their house is gone. They are staying at his father's office in a school where they have shelter, but no power. His wife and kids have traveled to Hiroshima where his wife's parents live to escape the thread of radiation leaks from the nuclear plant. He said it is really bad, but they are surviving.

Yesterday I was able to be a part of aiding Japan. A 6 year old little girl from our church saw the devastating pictures on the news and asked her mom what she could do to help. Her mom asked her what she is good at and she said she is a good artist. So, the little girl went through the stacks and stacks of paintings she has done and decided to sell them and raise money to send to Japan. In a few days, she had already raised $300! Her mom called the christian educator at our church and they decided to help her out. Last night, after Wednesday Night Supper, all the kids and youth got together in the church gym and painted. The kids all had a wonderful time and they really seemed to understand why they were painting. All of the paintings have been posted to Ebay and the donations will go directly to the Red Cross to help Japan. Wow, all of this happened because of one little 6 year old girl! Amazing!

Someone at work really put things in perspective for me this week. He asked how can we complain about paying 10 extra cents for a gallon of gas when people in Japan wish they still had their car to put gas in! Sometimes we really need to stop and think, "is our situation really that bad?"

Please continue to pray for Japan. Prayer works!