Or Am I Just an Optimist?
By Gary
They are only little things but I think/hope they are significant things.
For example: Last night (Sat 19th) we had yet another earthquake. It was a fair shake but generally speaking I feel like we are having fewer aftershocks.
We aren’t getting woken up through the night by so many aftershocks. We aren’t getting woken up through the night by so many local gov’t announcements warning us of earthquakes &/or tsunami or anything else. Of course I suppose it could be that we are just sleeping through them…? Nah! I don’t think so!
Have you ever been roller skating for a long time or on a boat for a long time and then even when you stop you feel as if you are still on skates or on the boat? Well most of us have been feeling something similar with these earthquakes. We feel “phantom” earthquakes sometimes even when nothing is happening. I can’t explain it any better than that. It’s weird. But the good news is: I am feeling fewer and fewer of these fictitious tremors.
The rolling blackouts are now either a.) actually happening when they were scheduled to happen or better yet b.) being cancelled! So life isn’t quite so disrupted and chaotic as before. We are finding there are upsides to having no electricity. For example: during these times when nothing else works, we can pray!
Although public buildings are still closed to conserve energy so my English classes have been cancelled, we are going to try holding one of them here in our house and see how that goes. (That will be Tues 22nd. Please pray. There is a conditional blackout scheduled for that time. This means that if necessary they will cut our area’s power. Mid-day temperatures are quite pleasant: 13 ~ 17 degrees C. but my English class runs from 7:00 – 9:00 p.m. and it will be cold and dark if we have to rely on candles.)
There have been long lines of cars backed up waiting for petrol at the petrol stations as soon as they get petrol supplies. Now those lines are shorter: this morning only 5 or 6 cars long. I’ve heard that two of my local friends were able to find petrol and fill their tanks up. (Some petrol stations were limiting sales just to “members” and/or limiting sales just to a certain amount of yen.)
Ruth and I have been walking more.
It’s been warmer weather.
Did we tell you that we have had more contact from some of our dear friends from Sendai? We have and they are roughing it but they are alive and well. Hallelujah! One family says they have water and electricity and gas and a certain amount of phone and food shortages but no sewerage and of course no gasoline. Another is melting snow for water or going long distances for water but has a certain amount of petrol, no electricity or phone but plenty of firewood.
Have you heard of the miraculous rescues? There have been a few. One turned out to be mistaken (the media said it sounded too good to be true and in fact it was!) but others seem to be genuine bright glimmers in this otherwise bleak situation. You can probably find these for yourself on the internet so I won’t elaborate here but it has been helpful to hear. We just heard of another two just tonight! Ten days after the earthquake!
The crew of power plant operators, technicians, engineers etc who are risking their health and possibly their lives trying to fix the Fukushima nuclear reactors are being dubbed: “the Fukushima Fifty” even though they probably number well over double that. Hopefully you saw my post from yesterday saying that among these are a number of Christians and others have Christian wives. Can you imagine if these heroes did save the day and it became public knowledge and a media event to link their deed to Jesus?! In this country with less than 1% Christian, what an impact! Please pray.
Our fellow OMF’ers are an inspiration to us. There are some shining saints who are doing great work here even in these difficult circumstances.
Of course we are thanking God we are even alive. We have been spared. We have an even greater sense of being here for a purpose. The words from the book of Esther about being specifically placed in a position “for just such a time as this” continue to resonate in my mind.
In all these little (?) ways I THINK I can see progress towards recovery.
…….. Or am I just an optimist?
No comments:
Post a Comment