Note: This post is a reprint of this article I originally posted on the main EmmanuelPress blog over the weekend: Post Tsunami Message from Missionary in Japan I think you’ll find it worth the reprint.

A tsunami wave washes ashore in northern Japan.

If you have seen any of the video coming out of Japan in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami this past Friday you cannot help but be moved at the incredible devastation that has been wreaked on the northeastern part of their country.

I know I’ve spent a bunch of time this weekend online watching videos and looking at photos of it all and I still can’t get my mind around how unimaginably horrific it must be to have entire cities washed away.

Of course it so happens that I have a good friend who lives in Japan as a missionary. And by good friend I mean that Kent was best man at my wedding. He has a site here on EmmanuelPress, the Muhlings in Japan, which I’ve been pestering encouraging him to use more.

Obviously he’s going to have his hands full in the next few months so I don’t expect him to be adding much to his website for a while yet.

Relief Training

Kent and his family were at the annual conference/retreat for their missionary organization in the mountains about 200 miles from the earthquake when it hit. The week before Kent attended an all day training on how to be prepared to respond and assist in the event of an earthquake.

Talk about Divine preparation.

Anyway I wanted to share with you in full the email Kent sent over the weekend to those of us who support their effort. I believe it speaks for itself.

Dear praying friends and family,

First, thank you for the over 80 replies to my last email!

I just finished reading them all, and I can’t tell you how encouraging it was to hear your love and concern in your words. Thank you. I am sorry that I won’t be able to answer them all individually (which I am normally committed to doing).

We continue to be amazed at the information coming in about what has happened. It is simply huge. Japan’s government takes great pains to plan for natural disasters, but this is on a magnitude that simply cannot be managed. It is chaotic — one only has to look at the news photos to see that.

CNN reported that the landmass of Japan appears to have shifted over about 8 feet. An agency in Italy reported that the earth actually shifted 4 inches on its axis. That is one whopper of an earthquake.

Last night there was a second earthquake, much closer to us, and big enough to wake us up. We have heard that because of the main earthquake on 3/11, the entire landmass of Japan is unstable and there will likely continue to be earthquakes until the shifting plates in the earth’s crust have re-stabilized. Japanese TV is reporting every earthquake or aftershock as soon as it is detected. There have been numerous smaller quakes or aftershocks, some merely minutes apart.

– Ooh, there was another one.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s email, our entire mission is gathered here in the mountains near Nagano (north of Tokyo) for our annual conference. Together we have a strong conviction that since we are here in Japan, we must respond in a direct, tangible way. Already we are in contact with an organization called C.R.A.S.H., which stands for Christian Relief Assistance, Support, and Hope. Their role is to coordinate Christian relief efforts in-country, and we have decided to take an active role. The church in Japan is small, but the love of Christ is big! We hope and pray the Christian community in Japan and worldwide will be able to demonstrate Christ’s love to the Japanese in a very visible, tangible way.

So, at this point, here is where we stand in terms of our own response:

1) Missionary personnel will return home at the end of our conference on Monday, as planned, assuming roads are reopened and train service has resumed.

Then, as soon as we get home, those of us who are planning to join the relief effort will begin planning and preparing. (First thing to buy is a good pair of work gloves and boots!)

2) We are waiting for C.R.A.S.H. to do their on-site evaluation, so we can understand the need better and know when and how we can get involved.

Some of the things that have to be figured out are: How will we get there? (The Sendai airport is currently under water, trains aren’t running, and some roads are damaged.) What areas are accessible and which aren’t? Where will we stay? Will we need to go fully self-sufficient, or will food and lodging be available? How can we best contribute to the effort — physical labor? Crisis counseling? Translation services for other agency personnel? Serving the local churches in their relief efforts? What other Christian organizations are sending teams and how can we coordinate our efforts for minimum confusion and maximum impact?

Then, as soon as we are able to, we’ll put a team together and go. That could be within a few weeks, but I really don’t know for sure.

3) We also plan to contact churches in our home town area of Sanda and invite them to participate in volunteer relief efforts, as we are planning to do. This is a potential opportunity to unite the churches in our community, and we are very interested in pursuing that.

4) Our mission, Asian Access, is setting up the “Japan Tsunami Relief Fund.” Our mission has relationships with several churches in the areas hardest hit, and we will send donated funds to those churches so they can contribute to relief efforts in their communities in the name of Christ, take care of their own members who have been affected, etc.

Also, some of the funds will be made available for our own folks who want to go and help in the relief efforts. At this point I and several others are planning to go, so those funds will help pay for our expenses (buying supplies, traveling to the site, etc.)

So again, the relief funds will be used to support relief efforts through our partner churches in the disaster areas, and also by our own personnel participating in the relief effort personally (hopefully including myself).

If you’d like to contribute to this effort, you can send checks payable to Asian Access and mark them “Japan Tsunami Relief Fund.” Mail checks to Asian Access, P.O. BO 200, San Dimas, CA 91773.

I hope you will prayerfully consider doing this.

Finally, please pray:

• That God will have mercy on the victims of this disaster.
• That God will give wisdom to leaders in the Christian community and in government.
• For the love of Christ to be clearly displayed by the words and deeds of God’s people.
• That many Japanese hearts would be softened, and that the assistance given in Christ’s name would lead to many opportunities to share the gospel of Christ’s salvation.
• For clear guidance as to what our part should be!
• Oh, one last prayer request for my family: Our children were shaken up by the earthquake, and when I told Caleb I would probably be joining the relief effort, he said to me, “But what if something happens to you when you’re there, Daddy? I don’t want you to die!” And then he started to cry. Please pray that God would comfort them with His love, and bless them with faith to trust in Him in all things, including our very lives.

Thank you, thank you, for your love and concern, your encouragement, and your prayers.

Love in Christ,
Kent

If you are looking for a way to donate to the Japan tsunami relief effort I encourage you to consider donating through Asian Access, the organization Kent mentioned. And here is more information about their Japan Tsunami Relief Fund.

I will follow up with information from Kent as I am able to receive it.

You can find more great articles at SuccessCREEations.

I don’t usually get into politics around here. While I like reading about political stuff on my own time I have found over the years that some people take political stuff a little too personally. Besides, people come here for info on social media, not politics.

So I generally keep it off the blog here.

Sarah Palin speaks in Savannah

But then yesterday I did something I’ve never done before. I went to hear a live political speech by a national level figure. I started a new Twitter account to talk politics stuff on because I do find it interesting. One of the oldest folders in my bookmarks, from back before the days of feed readers, is one I labeled “Propaganda” and it’s where I keep links to my favorite politics web sites along with links to the news sites I frequent.

Yeah. I am a bit cynical at times.

I took a while to decide if I wanted to join the conversation about politics for a number of different reasons. Mainly I figured that many of the people who follow me at places like Twitter did so because of my social media focus. And they may not be at all interested in my politics.

The solution I came up with on Sunday was to open another Twitter account where I could focus on politics stuff. That way those who are interested can follow me there and the rest can ignore it if they like. So I’m now tweeting on things politics @CREEativeRight (and I’ll let you guess which way I lean.) It also helped me with a little social media experiment I was doing which I’ll share more about later in the week.

Anyway…

So I found out about Sarah Palin coming to town via @CREEativeRight and decided that there was enough hubub around her in the election that I’d go downtown and check it out.

Between live Tweeting her speech, taking photos, chatting with Jeremy Davis who ended up next to me, and getting text messages from friends who couldn’t be there I kept pretty busy.

The whole reason for the event was to promote the reelection of US Senator Saxby Chambliss who is in a runnoff election today with his opponent. I won’t go into the politics of what all she was talking about here.

But I would encourage all of you who are in Georgia to go vote today. Turnout for runnoff votes tends to be much lower than for general elections. Your vote will count that much more because today as a result.

I posted some more of my Sarah Palin photos on Flickr if you are interested.

You can find more great articles at SuccessCREEations.

Bed Head Day 34

A few months back I ran a series of posts I called the 40 Days of Bed Head. The idea was fairly straight forward.

Each morning shortly after I woke up I took used the web cam on my laptop to take a photo of myself. And my bed head.

Yes my hair sticks up in the morning. It’s always sticking up, but hardly ever in the same way twice.

I’ve gotten a lot of feed back on the project, and lots of laughs. Folks have been telling me that I should bring the photos together all in the same place.

So I finally put together a little photo gallery with all the photos in one place. One glorious frightful display of wild hair captured for your amusement.

So go check out all the bed head photos. Click though to the individual posts if you want to see what other folks had to say about the photos. And feel free to add your own comments.

Enjoy!

You can find more great articles at SuccessCREEations.

This is the final entry in my 40 Days of Bed Head project. We set out to explore the wonderful world of bed head and found it to be, well, um… mostly silly.

Before we get to the final entry, here are a few highlights of some of my own favorite photos from the series.

• Vertical Peaks Bed Head
• Reverend Jim Bed Head
• Varmint Bed Head
• Swamped Bed Head
• Up-do Bed Head
• Wizard Bed Head
• Donald Trump Bed Head
• Surfing Bead Head

Coming up I’ll put all these bed head photos into a gallery so y’all can look through them all in one place. In the meantime here’s the last entry for your viewing pleasure.

Enjoy!

Bed Head Day 39

You can find more great articles at SuccessCREEations.

We’re in the middle of my 40 Days of Bed Head project.

We’re getting close to the end of this silliness but I still got the vertical action here.

Bed Head Day 38 | Bed Head Day 40

You can find more great articles at SuccessCREEations.

We’re in the middle of my 40 Days of Bed Head project.

The anti-gravity is set on low today. I think that’s a sign I should have stayed in bed longer.

Bed Head Day 37 | Bed Head Day 39

You can find more great articles at SuccessCREEations.

We’re in the middle of my 40 Days of Bed Head project.

We took a break for a few days while I was on vacation because I had spotty internet connections. But now I’m back home, refreshed and ready to finish out this silliness.

Of course it is always a bit challenging to get back in the saddle after being out for a bit. I’m had a bit of a challenging time getting back up and running.

But we’ll get there.

Bed Head Day 36 | Bed Head Day 38

You can find more great articles at SuccessCREEations.

Internet connections have been a little on the spotty side during our trip this weekend so I’m temporarily suspending the Bed Head project until I return home in the middle of the week.

But never fear, Gorgeous and I are spending our time in places like this:

Glenwood Springs is just the sort of place we needed to find to clear our heads and unwind. The hot spring pools are totally relaxing.

And anyplace that needs a warning sign like this one is my kinda place!

You can find more great articles at SuccessCREEations.

We’re in the middle of my 40 Days of Bed Head project.

Gotta do some last minute packing this morning before we catch our flight out. Hope I don’t forget anything!

Feel free to add your captions in the comments section.

Bed Head Day 35 | Bed Head Day 37

You can find more great articles at SuccessCREEations.

We’re in the middle of my 40 Days of Bed Head project.

I think I might be allergic to mornings. Sometimes they’re just plain scary.

Feel free to add your captions in the comments section.

Bed Head Day 34 | Bed Head Day 36

You can find more great articles at SuccessCREEations.