3/15/11 Update from Country Director, Dan Iverson:

I copied the following from MTW's web site.

Three of us went north into the devastated areas Sunday at midnight with a packed two-ton rental truck with 1,000 liters of water, gasoline, blankets, food, warm clothes, etc, that many people donated.  We distributed supplies to a small church, an elementary school housing displaced people, and drove around town (Ueda town, Iwaki City, Fukushima Prefecture) giving water to people.  We found that people were so desperate for water that when we ran out, they wanted the not-so-clean  spill-over can water.  It was very sad to run-out with people still coming with plastic bags and trash cans and anything they could bring to get water.

I could not help but think:

-May the Japanese people come to thirst like this spiritually, and be this desperate seeking Living Water (Isa. 55:1-2;  John 4).

- May they flee to higher ground . . . to The High Rock (Ps. 61:2).

- May a tsunami of grace, wave after wave, flood Japan (Ezek. 47; John 1:16)

We now have two Japanese churches in the affected area to possibly partner with long-term in their area to help them in their witness as we serve people in their communities.   

More later, but wanted to get this out to you.

Dan

*** Another good source of information from the field comes from Wayne and Amy Newsome's blog (link in the left-hand column below, scroll down).