New Christian finding way amid tsunami recovery

SENDAI, Japan—Akifumi Narita understands there is a reason God saved him from the ravages of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that decimated a large portion of his home town of Kamaishi and took the lives of his grandmother and uncle. The young believer is simply trying to figure out what that reason might be.

Narita traveled back to Kamaishi from Tokyo with a disaster relief team from the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention to help with the ongoing recovery efforts coordinated by Tokyo Baptist Church. Two weeks earlier the 19-year-old had been sent by his parents to the home of his older sister in the capital city in order to get away from the physical and emotional stress of post-tsunami life.

The SBTC DR team came to Japan on the heels of another SBTC team from First Baptist Church of Brownsville that was just wrapping up work in the same region.

The latter team, made up of nine volunteers, arrived in Japan June 20 and deployed from Tokyo Baptist Church on June 21.

Part of the team was sent to Ishinomaki while the rest traveled farther northeast to the coastal city of Kamaishi where Narita continues to seek God’s will in helping with recovery.

Via translator Ruth Harimoto of Tokyo Baptist Church, Narita recounted the experiences of March 11 and how, in the aftermath, he realized that he had family beyond the city limits of Kamaishi.

Only a year earlier, Narita had come to know the Lord as his Savior through what he described as a somewhat deceptive act by his sister, Keiko. She was a Christian, much to her parents’ disapproval, and was attending Tokyo Baptist. In the summer of 2010 Keiko registered her brother to attend a camp in Taiwan. He agreed to go, believing the venture might be a good way to spend part of his summer. But there was a caveat—Keiko had conveniently failed to inform him that it was a Christian camp sponsored by her church. When he discovered her lack of full disclosure he was mad and “had a big fight” with her that evening.

A day later Narita was at the airport with a bunch of strangers, he recalled.

“I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I stayed in my own shell,” he said. But that did not keep the other students from reaching out to him. Their acts put a crack in his shell. The worship music broadened the fissure.

“I like songs and singing,” he said. “Through the songs I was able to open my heart.”

By the third or fourth day of camp Narita admitted he was having fun. But in a small group session he was confronted with a serious question.

“Why are you here?” he was asked.

He had no answer but someone else in the group did.

“You were called here by God.”

Narita said that was the point where life changed for him. Forced to confront the reality of God in his life, Narita was born again. He said he felt cleansed.

Before that time, he admitted, he had been “trouble” for his parents. But his “clean” life produced a change so significant that his parents could not disapprove of his conversion because of the positive influence it had on his life. And the Christian response to the tragedy of the earthquake and tsunami helped Narita realize his family was bigger than the bonds of flesh and blood.

When the ground shook March 11—seemingly forever—Narita and his mother were home watching TV. They tried to leave the home but the outside walls began to crumble so they stayed in between the door posts. Once the earth stopped moving the tsunami sirens began to wale.

The public address system warned Kamaishi residents to prepare for four-meter waves and to head for high ground. Narita said his family’s home is about two miles inland and at an elevation that would keep them safe from such waves. He said they could not see the shore from his house but they did see the river “rising and rising.”

What was coming ashore was higher than four meters.

The magnitude 9.0 earthquake spawned a tsunami with a 10-meter wall of water (32.5 feet) that tore through communities on the northeast coast of Japan, ripping homes and lives from their very foundations.

Narita said it was two days before his family knew the extent of the damage and an entire week before he could go into the region to inspect his grandmother’s home. But there was no home to inspect.

They did not give up hope that she and Narita’s uncle who had been with her were somewhere among the living. They clung to unsubstantiated reports of sightings and searched all the refuge centers in the area. After a month of searching and hoping, the family reconciled themselves to the fact that their loved ones were gone, he said.

But for what purpose did God spare him?

Just like at camp, the young man had no immediate answer but one of his “family members” from Tokyo Baptist did. Narita is to help others beginning with those in his hometown who have lost everything. He shrugged at the suggestion.

For the present Narita said he wants people to understand one of the most significant lessons he had learned from the experience: no day is guaranteed. He asked that people watch the tsunami videos posted online and understand that life can be lost in a moment.