When Do We Go?

No doubt everyone would like to do something, anything to help here. Being right on site, we feel the same way. When can we get up there? Well, first the answer to the "how" question. There's been a Christian group that has responded to several disasters within and outside Japan over the years. Laura assisted with recovery after a quake through this organization several years ago. You can see her post and pictures on this blog if you go back to July 30 2007. CRASH is an acronym for Christian Relief Assistance Support and Hope. Their command centre is very active right now, and we're assisting them in the planning stages, and will move into the action stage when the time comes.


Here's what will answer the "When" question for us:

DEFINITION OF THE CURRENT RESPONSE SITUATION:

The following definitions were given to be helpful for understanding the aftermath of a crisis like this.

• Rescue: this is what is currently taking place. This is done by professionals, and we need to trust them with this phase.
• Relief: can be defined as the urgent and temporary provision of emergency aid to reduce immediate suffering from a natural or man-made crisis. There is a need to halt the free fall, to stop the bleeding, and this is what relief attempts to do. It targets those who are largely incapable of helping themselves at the time. The Good Samaritan bandaging of the helpless and bleeding man is an excellent example of this. Once the rescue work is done and access to the region is opened to the public, groups on the ground here want to be ready to have teams going in bringing relief and initial assistance.
• Rehabilitation: begins as soon as the bleeding stops. It seeks to restore people and their communities to the positive elements of their pre-crisis condition. The key feature of rehabilitation is a dynamic of working with the victims as they participate in their own recovery. This is a much longer term involvement. One way to engage with this is to get churches inside and outside of Japan to become sister churches with those in the affected zone, working through them to bring help in rebuilding the communities.

We've gotten inquiries from people in Canada about coming to help. Crashjapan.com will enable you to get started on the process, and many groups are channeling their funding through CRASH. Our colleague Carol Love is the financial director, and she's been very busy in recent days.