And yet for thousands of people in Japan March 11 is a date that will stay in their minds for a long, long time. It is true that a lot of good stuff has happened since then: debris has been cleared, roads have been rebuilt, airports are up and running... and Japan is no longer on our TV screens. "Business back as usual", or so we think.
But for a lot of people life, even a year later, still means living in temporary housing, isolation from the nearby communities and little if any entertainment, ruined job careers, children in desperate need of schooling and seemingly very little hope for the future.
I am convinced that God can bring good things out of the most terrible situations, and so since the earthquake I have found some consolation in the fact that people's hearts might have been moved to look to God and ask deep questions about life and death. Tonight, I came across a testimony from a Japanese Christian which was published on the OMF Japan website some time after the tsunami. Here is what he wrote in response to the question "Do people ask you 'Why does God allow these things?' or 'Where is God when this happens?'":
"I don’t get asked those questions," he writes.
"We Japanese have known that big earthquakes would happen sooner or later ... When earthquake happens, there is almost always Tsunami. We know that too ... We are all aware of the risks of nuclear power plants. There have been accidents at other plants in the past. There were casualties.
"Why don’t I get asked those questions? It’s because they don’t know the God of the Bible. In the world of eight million gods, things are arbitrary. Gods might punish us, but when things happen, it’s up to us to clear the mess. Those of us who are Christian tend to ask these kinds of theological questions."
(For the full article click here)Of course one testimony can't speak for all Japanese and one can't assume that nobody in Japan asks themselves deep questions about God. But this testimony is a good reminder that in Japan people just think and do things differently. It also brought me back to this stark reality: the majority of Japanese people around the world know nothing, if extremely little, about the gospel.
I am not talking about people who have rejected the gospel here. I am talking about people who have neither heard, seen, encountered or considered even exploring any form of Christianity.
Take France for example, also known as one of the hardest places to reach with the gospel. Barely 2% of the French population would call themselves followers of Jesus. BUT France is a "Christian country"; there are churches and bibles everywhere. My mum even has a New Testament at home, and she's not a Christian yet. Jim Eliot's quote perhaps still applies to those so-called Christian countries, "Their condemnation is written on their bank books and on the dust of their bibles." In Japan, owning a bible or going to church even just at Christmas or Easter is completely foreign and unusual.
Our Japanese brother continues:
"One of the reasons why 99% of the population is not Christian is that Christianity is still seen as something from the west, not Japanese. If people think in this way, for them, becoming a Christians is becoming un-Japanese, which is very problematic ...
"Buddhism arrived in Japan in 6th century. Protestant Christianity has only been here for a little over 150 years. Our Creator and Redeemer can use this crisis so that Christianity become something more than a superficial veneer.
"It is up to us, His labourers, to make Jesus meaningful for those who desperately need Him."So, this spurs me on to pray even harder. What the government and aid agencies have done so far in terms of relief work is quite honourable, and much needed. But while shools and roads can be rebuilt in a matter of months, weeks or even days, hearts are a different business. Love, a sense of community and belonging, hope and healing is what Japan needs. And Christians are the ones who can offer that.
As I was praying for Japan this morning, the Lord gave me these words: "It is time... It is time for Japan to seek the LORD." I wept. It is time indeed.
--S
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