Sunday, March 13, 2011

God saves Mormon missionaries in Japan while allowing thousands to die or suffer unimaginable loss

From the area presidency in Japan:


地域会長会からのお知らせ
愛する日本の兄弟姉妹,

わたしたちは日本のすべての宣教師の所在と安否を確認できたことを皆さんにお知らせします。安否が確認できずにいた最後の二人の宣教師の所在も土曜日の夕べに確認することができました。わたしたちはこの度の地震の発生から,宣教師の安否を確認するために継続して働いてくださった建岡伝道部会長に心から感謝しています。また,この働きに協力をしてくださった多くの会員たちに感謝しています。多くの教会職員が管理本部に夜を徹してとどまり,土曜日もほとんどの時間を割いて,この緊急事態に支援を提供してくれました。彼らの奉仕に心から感謝をしています。わたしたちは今後,日本のすべての会員の所在と安否を確認するために全力を注いでいきます。会員たちの状況について知っていることがあれば,皆さんの神権指導者にお知らせください。地域福祉部長のダーウィン・ハルヴォーソン兄弟が,これまでのほとんどの働きを調整してくれました。引き続き,ハルヴォーソン兄弟が地域全体の福祉の必要を確認し,調整していきます。

これまでの働きは,主によって結集され,奇跡的な結果をもたらしました。このような結果をもたらしたすべての出来事を目の当たりにし,わたしたちは心を鼓舞されています。天の御父が注いでくださっている憐れみと祝福に感謝し,日本全土の会員の所在と安否を確認できるよう祈っています。

ゲーリー・E・スティーブンソン

崔崙煥

青柳弘一


Notice from the Area Presidency

Dear Brothers and Sisters of Japan,

We are pleased to inform you that we have now confirmed that all of the missionaries in Japan have been found and are safe. The last two missionaries in Sendai were located on Saturday evening. We sincerely appreciate the efforts of Pres. Tateoka who has worked continuously since the earthquake to account for his missionaries. We also thank the many members who have helped in this effort. We had a large number of church employees who stayed in the Area office building overnight and most of Saturday to help in this time of emergency and we greatly appreciate their service. We will now make every effort to locate and evaluate the condition of all of our members in Japan. Please inform your priesthood leaders of any information you have on the condition of our members. Brother Darwin Halvorson, our area welfare manager, coordinated much of the effort today and will continue to evaluate and arrange for welfare needs throughout the area.

The outcome today really is a miraculous result orchestrated by the Lord. We have been uplifted to have observed all that has taken place leading to this result. We give our thanks to Heavenly Father for his mercy and blessings this day and pray that we now find our members throughout Japan alive and well.

Gary E. Stevenson
Yoon Hwan Choi
Koichi Aoyagi

Nice to see that God isn't just concerned with paintings of Jesus.

4 comments:

  1. Let me add that I am glad that the missionaries are safe and protected. I just have real issues when people wish to declare that God has worked miracles for them, while others apparently suffer and/or die from God's apparent apathy or unwillingness to do the same for others.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I will re-post what I said on facebook. Just because one person receives a miracle, it doesn't mean that another is hated by God. Everyone may/will receive miracles at different times and those miracles will manifest themselves in different ways. There is no rule that God must give the same miracle to every person/group at the same time.

    And they don't define the saving of missionaries as the miracle...they define the "today's outcome" as a miracle. That may be more of being able to contact or find the remaining missionaries in the chaos and give definitive answers to families abroad.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I also notice that the Church has as of right now (11:45pm CST Sunday) not given out any information through its various web portals on how members can make any particular targeted donations to Japan. But don't worry, the missionaries are safe.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Here is a much better response from the Church http://tinyurl.com/686oja3

    ReplyDelete

Please provide a name or consistent pseudonym with your comments and avoid insults or personal attacks against anyone or any group. All anonymous comments will be immediately deleted. Other comments are subject to deletion at my discretion.