John Departs with Converge Team

In a few hours our first Converge Worldwide disaster response team will head up north for the first assignment. The team of 7 people, all from different States, will be working in the Shintate neighborhood of Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture. Ishinomaki is one of the hardest hit areas where nearly one-half of the city was swamped by the tsunami. Over 5,000 people were killed or are still missing, making this city about 1/5 of the total…

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Iwate #2 Blessings

Last week John was with four of our Tokyo pastors, a lay couple, and Phil Tsai, short-term missionary, serving with a team in Iwate Prefecture. In John’s previous trip with the Nerima church they worked with the Iwate 3.11 Church Network. This time they stayed at Pastor Kondo’s church where he outlined his vision for church ministry throughout this prefecture. Iwate presents several large challenges to mission ministry. There are only a few existing churches…

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John Back to Iwate

John will be leaving today with Phil Tsai, short-term worker, to work with a Rengo Disaster Response team in Iwate prefecture from the 15th to the 19th. The eight member team will include Pastor Sasaki, Rengo Board member, Pastor Kurashima of the Masago church, Associate Pastor Yamauchi of the Chuo church, the Wakaos of the Ishikawa Kita church and Pastor Yokota of the Minami Urawa church. This team is loaded with pastors! John and Phil…

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John & Elaine Relief Trip

We are back home from the disaster area of Rikuzen Takata City Iwate Prefecture. We are safe but have lots of sore muscles. We worked at shoveling 6 inches to over a foot of dirt, sand, mixed with oil and other debris from the sidewalk that the elementary kids will walk on starting today. The school has been closed since the 3/11 disasters and is opening on Friday 5/6. The side walk is along a…

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Elaine & John to Iwate Ken

We both leave tonight (5/2) with Tom Ellison and 7 others from the Nerima Baptist Church on a volunteer team to the disaster area. We will be working in Rikuzen Takata City, Iwate Prefecture until May 5th. We will be cleaning damaged houses, ministering to people in evacuation centers and developing ministry to children. Due to the earthquake and the tsunami over 2/3rds of the population of Rikuzen Takata City are homeless. There is only…

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OTHER ITEMS FOR PRAYER

1. Along with efforts at disaster response are also our regular ministries to women, LeadNet coaching meetings, Elijah Group and other ministry. Continue to pray for balance in the midst of so many opportunities. 2. The first session of the personal evangelism training last month at the Crossroad Church was excellent. The next lesson is May 22nd. 3. Continue to pray for the CPI Leadership Team as we consider the implications of this large disaster…

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JAPAN DISASTER RESPONSE MAY

Last month John joined a team from the Kokubunji Baptist church that did volunteer work in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture April 17-20. Pastor Nakano from the Crossroad church also joined the team. There has not been time to develop a video yet, but some pictures and video with English are at the church webpage http://homepage2.nifty.com/kbch/new/tohokusupport/tohokusupport.html. The trip was very successful in completing several projects. John and a short termer from America will also be joining a…

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Easter in Hard-hit Area

Churches in Kessenuma Miyagi Prefecture celebrated Easter yesterday. For these churches there was a need for resurrection of their facilities to be able to use the church again. http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/japans-christians-celebrate-easter-amid-disaster Some of these churches were helped by CRASH teams and some from the B1 network that missionary Jeff Chapman has been working with. See my previous post http://www.gospelrest.com/churches-shattered/ In Ishinomaki the city where John volunteered the nearest church to the neighborhood he worked had water up…

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John with Makoto Fujimura in Ishinomaki

On 04/18 John Mehn talked briefly with famous Japanese artist Makoto Fujimura during his visit to this work site in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture. John and volunteer team member Roger Olson were removing the flooring to be able to clean out the mud that entered this house. There were other volunteers helping as well. John mentions to Makoto there were more deaths in Ishinomaki than in the Great Hanshin Earthquake in Kobe in 1995. Also that…

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Trip to Ishinomaki

PRAISE the Lord of Heaven that John Mehn and Pastor Nakano arrived safely in Sendai. They said the roads in Miyagi Prefecture were quite bad and driving them at night was scary but God brought them safely through. Today the Kokubunji Church Team is going to work in Ishinomaki City. The number of people killed or missing in this city alone equals the number killed in the Great Hanshin Earthquake. The Team has divided into…

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