Local Pastor’s Relief Efforts

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 about 1 hour inland from the coast.

It is my estimate that a large majority of churches in Tohoku (the northeastern part of Honshu, the main island of Japan) that have been around for a while have Baptist roots. This is due to historical reasons. Protestant missionaries first came to Japan from the year 1859, and while most denominations focused on work in the larger cities, the Baptists purposely focused their work in rural regions like Tohoku. Some of those churches became part of the Kyodan churches after the war yet still have Baptist roots.

Anyway, Pastor Kishinami is one pastor whom Samaritan’s Purse has supported in the relief efforts. Even though he runs a used car dealership, the senior pastor from his church told him that he can focus his efforts on the tsunami regions, and so he also entrusted his business to others, and has spent the majority of his time in Tohoku from Ishinomaki up to the Kesennuma.

Part of his church has been used as storage and distribution center to take in, sort, and store items until they are taken out.
Earlier efforts focused on getting supplies, many of which were supplied by SP, out to the communities and evacuation shelters, and through that he has been gotten to know and speak to many people.

One method that Pastor Kishinami uses for outreach is the “takidashi”. Takidashi is a common Japanese word used in these emergency times, and the dictionary defines it something like “emergency food feeding to disaster victims”. Many non-Christian Japanese groups who come to help employ it by coming in groups of 20-30 to a neighborhood or small part of town, bring in some very large pots and portable burners, and make either a lunch or dinner, and then serve it to all in the area.

Pastor Kishinami has sought out some more remote and hard hit areas, and where he has made contacts, to do Takidashi, and he will do these at most one or twice per week. Typically these will last 3 hours, which includes an invited church group to sing/talk/do plays etc, the eating of the meal, and a 30 minute Bible message. Often some needed supplies as well a Bible/tracts will also be passed out to each participant at the end. SP usually helps him out by providing the food, and sometimes volunteers to help set up and prepare and serve.

Ask God to strengthen these pastors and church members. This is exhausting work and the needs are not going away. Ask God to send out more workers into his harvest field!

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