Ministry Updates and News from the Mehns
It has been 5 months since the 3.11 triple tragedies in northeast Japan. Many asked me has it returned to normal there yet. As I was working and hanging out with friends in the neighborhood of Ishinomaki I was pondering that question. Today we also drove by the port and through town. Things have changed at least on the surface, much has been cleaned up, more things are working but it is far from normal.…
INTENSIVE PRAYER TEAM John and Elaine Mehn Accelerating Spiritual Renewal and Church Planting Movements Converge Worldwide (BGC) Missionaries to Japan August 2011 This will be short as we are both still technically on vacation. Thanks for praying for us through July. We have spent a few weeks in the US celebrating John’s 90th birthday (a bit early), visiting with our new granddaughter Molly (who is as wonderful as we were told), having a Pickett (Elaine’s…
OTHER HELPFUL WEBSITES TO PRAY for JAPAN http://groups.google.com/group/Pray4Japan TO GIVE to Japan Relief TO GO or SEND Teams www.convergeworldwide.org/japanmission
Japan is not the same and may never be again. We in Christian work talk about this being the “new normal.” What we will be doing in Japan has already changed and probably will continue to change. Four months after the triple disasters there are still many without their homes, many are still to be found, and people continue to suffer physically and emotionally. But the good news is that spiritually people are very open.…
Andrew Klaus works for Samaritan’s Purse as a church liaison. He recently wrote his reflections about one local pastor doing his best to meet the needs of people affected by the disaster. Our last team was privledged to work briefly at two distribution events handing out futons and also food and supplies. Today I want to briefly write about one of the workers in Tohoku, Pastor Kishinami from the Kurihara Bible Baptist Church, a church…
Dr. Ritsuko Narita was on our last team to Shintate Ishinomaki City. She wrote about one family that she had met. This story is still fresh in my mind as well. Mrs. Matsukawa and her son, Ren, came to Mrs. Komatsu’s house where we were working. She told me that her husband, Mr. Matsukawa, passed away there when the Tsunami hit. They visited the place after 100 days passed. On March 11, Mrs. Matsukawa was…
Before and After (but not over pictures)
A friend sent me this link to an article on 3 months after the triple disaster on 3.11. Several of these places I have worked, one with Elaine. We have seen a lot of change in the cosmetic nature of the disasters but for many people they are stressed, some even more so, as time wears on and wears them down. As the article said there are billions of dollars that will take to repair…
Pray for our ministry partner Dean Bengtson, Lutheran Brethren Missionary. Today I was pointed to a nice article and photos of our ministry partner Dean Bengtson associate with Samaritan’s Purse. I have known Dean and his wife Linda for many years but we never teamed up for ministry before. http://www.samaritanspurse.org/index.php/Samaritans_Purse_Today/post/equipped_to_help/ Several photos in this article include people from both Converge Worldwide/Rengo teams that ministered in Shintate in May and June. You may recognize some of…
Thanks to God we are doing well. These last few months have been far from normal. Living in a country where the largest natural disaster has occurred changes normal significantly. For many people here their lives and businesses are ruined and they have to start over. We have been doing our best to mobilize our Converge Worldwide family along with our Rengo partners to be engaged in this process of transforming Japan. This has led…
A high school assistant principal, an artist, a business woman, and an engineering student made up the first Converge Worldwide disaster response team. Workers were based at the Samaritan’s Purse’s Tone base and worked with missionary Dean Bengston and Mr. Abe of the Ishinomaki House of Prayer in the Shintate neighborhood of Ishinomaki City. Team members have taken out walls, floors and removed mud from homes affected by the tsunami. Also the team cleaned yards,…