safe in the Guch

Praise the Lord I am fortunate enough to begin this blog with such a title. First and foremost, I want to reassure everyone back home that I am safe and sound here in Japan. Your emails and facebook messages were truly touching as I could feel your concern and prayers from thousands of miles away. I am so very blessed to have people like you in my life who love and care for me.

Again, blessed by God, I was far from the chaos and destruction caused by the earthquake and tsunami. Here's a map made by my friend Brandon to help better clarify my whereabouts.

Being so far away from everything, it almost feels as if nothing has happened. Construction workers were still out early Saturday morning, building up a new set of houses; families were out to the malls and grocery stores of Yamaguchi. Honestly, if I hadn't been at the BOE on Friday afternoon, I probably wouldn't have even known there was such a tragedy. I recall my boss getting a phone call at around 4pm on Friday, March 11, 2011, and then frantically barking orders to my supervisor and other office mates. Before you knew it, everyone was running around every which way, calling up the different schools to let them know the news while at the same time dialing up their loved ones on their personal cell phones to make sure they were alive and well. Then came the haunting sounds of the sirens which echoed throughout the streets and a direct announcement completely in Japanese. It felt like we were in a war. I had no clue what the announcement was saying but followed everyone downstairs where a TV displayed the unbelievable footage from the tsunami.

As of right now, it is believed that over 10,000 people have been killed. Many people are missing and many more are being found dead on the northeastern shores of Japan. The earthquake is said to have measured 8.9M, the greatest magnitude ever recorded in Japan (in comparison, the Great Hanshin earthquake of 1995 measured 6.8M), and the tsunami about 10 m high (33 ft). There's already a wikipedia article entitled the 2011 Sendai earthquake and tsunami. Hundreds of thousands of people are without food, water, and shelter, all the while searching for loved ones.

Praise the Lord all my friends are safe and accounted for. Two of my friends were at Tokyo Disneyland together during the earthquake. They were kept overnight in the park and had to sleep in a restaurant relying on cardboard boxes and garbage bags as bedding. They've since returned to Yamaguchi and are safe.

It's crazy to think that that earthquake/tsunami could have hit anywhere. I could have been teaching a class and pondering my dinner plans one moment, and then be gone the next. It's times like these that remind me that every day is a precious gift from God.


Please keep the people of Japan in your prayers.


Before-after shots of the Tohoku region of Japan:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/13/world/asia/satellite-photos-japan-before-and-after-tsunami.html

American Red Cross relief efforts for those who want to help:
http://www.redcross.org/