The official website of YWAM Japan


	YWAM Friends Update (October-November, 2004) 1. Help for the Nigata Chuetsu Earthquake Emergency (An appeal by the Agape International Japan Emergency Team) 2. I Love America! - Peter Jordan (the director of YWAM Associates International) 1. Help for the Nigata Chuetsu Earthquake Emergency The Agape International Japan Emergency Team is presently doing relief work in Niigata Prefecture, because of the the Niigata Chuetsu earthquake. The following is their report. They are requesting prayer and other practical means of support. quoted from http://www.jhelp.com/ An Appeal for Help for the Nigata Chuetsu Earthquake Emergency The Japan Emergency Team has arrived in Ojiya City to conduct disaster relief activities in the aftermath of the earthquake disaster that occurred on October 23 in the Niigata Chuetsu region. There is a shortage of relief supplies and volunteers in the earthquake-stricken area. We kindly request your cooperation in this effort. RELIEF AID AND VOLUNTEERS ARE NEEDED! Your help is requested for Niigata Chuetsu earthquake relief operations! Needed items: - Canned goods - Water in PET bottles - Powdered milk - Rice - Medicine - Sleeping bags - Tents - Flashlights - Batteries, etc. We are truly sorry, but due to present difficulties with transportation, etc. we are unable to accept any donations of clothing at this time. Please send relief items to: P.O. Box 65, Azabu Post Office, Minato-Ku, Tokyo 106-8691 When sending a package, please write the contents on the outside of the box and send it from a post office. We cannot accept packages sent by other delivery services. If possible, please enclose in each box an envelope containing 1,000. This will be used to cover the cost of shipping to the earthquake disaster area. Please send money donations to: Japan Postal transfer account number: 00160-7-162438 (Yubin furikae) Account name:(Nihon Kinkyu Enjotai) People who would like to volunteer to work in the relief activities, please contact us by phone or e-mail. E-mail: team@jhelp.com Telephone: 03-5780-1111�, 03-5780-1113 (translated by Lois Hager) 2. I Love America! Peter Jordan (the Director of YWAM Associates International) And furthermore, I love Americans! This may come as a bit of shock if you know me. I can just about read the minds of some of my American friends... ... "What's Peter up to now? What's the catch? Is he trying to curry favor by toadying up to his American friends? Is he about to make a political statement with the US election just around the corner of this coming weekend? Is he planning and plotting and paving the way with US Immigration so that he can try for a Green Card? Or is he about to repent for some terrible thing he did to, or said, about the Middle North Americans?" None of the above.As anyone who knows me can testify, I have always been staunchly pro-Canadian (which is not to say that I've been anti-American, or anti-anybody else). It's just that I especially like to 'take the mickey'* out of my friends who live next to God's country. (*tease) So what gives? I've been reading a book about the war in the Pacific (back in the primeval days of the 1940s). Perhaps you already know that for 3 1/2 years I was a reluctant 'guest' of the Japanese Government in a Shanghai Prisoner of War Camp. I was just a little boy back then, and I really don't think the poor food and harsh conditions we encountered left any lasting damage (though some might argue that point!) But the experience was tough on my parents and other adults; in all there were 1800 inmates in our Camp. Along with many other nationalities, there were some Americans locked up with us, but I don't recall liking them more or less than any of the other 'foreigners' who happened to be caught in China when the attack on Pearl Harbor kicked off war in the Pacific. Japan, from its tiny, overpopulated and under-resourced islands, coveted economic power in Asia, and started by invading China and Korea. You may have read or heard about some of the horrifying atrocities attributed to the Japanese military throughout the Asia/Pacific region during those dark days. Through my 11 year-old eyes, I witnessed some of them. But don't focus on just the Japanese. Most of us have national - if not personal - histories that bring shame upon us. Think of the empire-building nations of Spain, Portugal, Britain and others. Were they motivated by pure and peaceful extension of their borders? Was it the simple thrill of adventure and the pioneering excitement of exploration? Or was it greed and exploitation? Read this chilling statement: "A great power must be, above all, one that controls more resources ... there has never been a case in history where such a pursuit is realized in peace." (Zhang Wenmu, China institute of Contemporary International Relations.) Watch out for China! It was the gold and the silver, the slaves and the cheap labor, the spices and the linens - and eventually the oil - that drove men to the far frontiers of our planet. Ethnic cleansing was frequently the most convenient way of settling new lands. Let's not think that this could only happen in places like Rwanda & Sudan. In the last couple of centuries, early Americans and Canadians attempted to sweep their continent clean of 'undesirable' peoples. America kept pushing west to Hawaii and as far as the Philippines. It wasn't pretty. It was horrific in its brutality. Japan watched all this and waited. In Manchuria 100 years ago, the Japanese tangled with Russia; biding their time, they hit on China in the '30s, struck a mortal blow at Pearl Harbor, while invading many other islands of the Pacific and most of Asia. Mass rape, massacre and even more repulsive viciousness followed - things too awful to record here. If ever there was a 'just' war, the United States waged it in the Pacific - along with some allies - from 1941-45. Yet I have to tell you that 'our side' committed atrocities too; horrendous ones. What then has brought me to suddenly confess my love for Americans in such a public manner? It's because I just read this book about the war in the Pacific. Japan held about 135,000 Prisoners of War throughout Asia, including many civilians like my little British missionary family, which had been caught in the right place at the wrong time. As the war wound down with frightful fire-bombing of Japanese cities, and culminating in the dropping of two atomic bombs, Tokyo's military hierarchy reluctantly faced the inevitable: defeat. Unknown to us, a last gasp of the sinking Japanese regime was to issue orders for the slaughter of all Prisoners of War. Happily, we didn't know about this. And on that blissful day of August 15th 1945, American soldiers flung wide the gates of our prison, and this little 11 year-old boy ventured past the barbed wire that had caged him up for all those years. It is only now, after all these years, that out of the blue my heart is filled with gratitude for the price America paid for my freedom; MY freedom. 100,000 Americans died in their advance across the Pacific. I know this is simplistic, but based purely on statistics, more than one American died in bringing freedom to me and my family. Here's a question for you if you're not an American: is it JUST possible that what is seen today as 'aggressive American imperialism' by much of the world... could be the means by which YOUR life has been, or will be saved? And that the American - and other - soldiers who have given their lives in Iraq and elsewhere, did not die in vain? Anyway, I love Americans. They're not perfect, but then we Canadians aren't either - yet! Maybe I'll start an "I Love Yankees" blog. God Bless America!