Yuko Shiotsu was excited to start a new chapter in her life. In just eight months she would fly to the United States to study at Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, Pa.

The 2000 Geneva College graduate had worked in the Detroit area until she returned to Japan in 2004. She was ready to come back to the U.S.; Shiotsu quit her job in Jan. 2011 and began praying for the Lord to show her how to fill her time.

Everything changed on Mar. 11, 2011.

The Land of the Rising Sun shook like never before. Forty-three miles off the coast of Tohoku, Japan, the earth literally moved, causing the most powerful known earthquake ever to have hit Japan. It was one of the five most powerful earthquakes in the world since modern record keeping began in 1900.

Ocean waters swelled across the globe, and tsunami waves reached heights of 133 feet. The resulting devastation included extensive structural damage to roads and railways, widespread fires, a dam collapse, and numerous nuclear accidents—most notably the level 7 meltdowns of three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant complex—and the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of residents.

A Sept. 2012 Japanese National Police Agency report confirmed 15,870 deaths, 6,114 injured and 2,814 people missing across 20 prefectures, as well as 129,225 buildings totally collapsed, 254,204 buildings nearly collapsed and another 691,766 buildings partially damaged. The Tohoku region was hardest hit in the coastal cities of Sendai and Fukushima. Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan called it the toughest, most difficult crisis for the country since World War II.

Yuko was empathetic, for she had lived through the devastation of a quake 16 years earlier. “Since I’m from Kobe where the Hanshin Earthquake hit in 1995 and knew that many people helped us back then, I wanted to do whatever I could to help,” she explained. The Lord used that desire to take the Mukonoso (Kobe, Japan) RPC member on an unexpected journey.

“I first contacted Food For the Hungry Japan, since I knew it was a Christian organization and they were receiving volunteers in the disaster areas,” she recalled. “But, just around the time I applied, they had to move their base to a smaller facility, so they had to stop accepting volunteers for the time.”

They suggested Yuko investigate other Christian relief organizations, which brought her to CRASH Japan. Yuko waited a month after submitting her application before hearing back from the nonprofit—a month critical in the Lord preparing her heart to serve.

“God used that month to make me realize I wanted to go because I wanted to go, not because He wanted me to go,” she confessed. “As soon as I was able to say to Him, ‘I’m willing to go wherever You want me to; but if You don’t, I will not go anywhere,’ I received an email from CRASH asking whether I was willing to go to their Nasu Base, which served the center and western part of Fukushima prefecture.”

Yuko said when she applied she likely would not have accepted the assignment due to its proximity to the nuclear power plant meltdowns. “But because of that talk with God, I was ready and left home within a couple of days.” She headed off to join CRASH Japan as a finance administrator and an assistant to the base camp leader.

CRASH (Christian Relief, Assistance, Support, and Hope) Japan is a nonprofit disaster relief organization based in Tokyo that equips churches and missions to be ready to respond with aid. It mobilizes Christian volunteers to work with those churches and other local ministries when disasters strike.

CRASH responded to the Mar. 11 triple disaster by setting up five bases in the disaster zone and mobilizing volunteers. They have sent more than 2,700 volunteers to the Tohoku area to help clean up, rebuild, distribute supplies, listen to survivors, plant crops, distribute flyers and help out at mobile cafés.

“The core of the Christian response to the Tohoku disaster has been more than just bringing supplies or rebuilding homes. It’s been being with these people in their time of trouble,” said Director Jonathan Wilson, adding that mobilizing volunteers who carry the hope of God with them wherever they go is the primary mission of CRASH Japan.

Yet today many survivors are still alone, living in fear and without hope. “In the areas I serve, the disaster is still ongoing,” Shiotsu said. “Many people are still in the middle of it: living in temporary housing, parents worried about their children’s future and health, people not sure if the air, food and water they breathe, eat and drink each day are safe.”

Christian volunteers like Yuko also tend to emotional and spiritual needs by bringing the love of Jesus Christ. “There are increasing numbers of people feeling the sense of hopelessness, especially in Fukushima prefecture where no one knows when or if they can go back to their own towns,” she said. “I don’t think we can do anything amazing to immediately change the situation. But I think we can be a testimony of God’s love to them just by being with them, listening to them and walking alongside them. And all our hope lies in the love of God.”

Outreach activities include praying, performing concerts, serving food, helping children with homework, playing with children, listening, cleaning and crafting.

Yuko has learned some valuable lessons during her time with CRASH. “I realized that the mission field is not just overseas, where I wanted to go, but it’s also in many parts of Japan,” she said.

“I have also learned there are many other ways to communicate the gospel of Jesus Christ than verbally preaching to people. People’s hearts must be softened and cultivated by actions of unattached love—meaning we don’t do things just to get them to church or to believe—for them to accept the gospel.”

Her service also has deepened her relationship with the Lord: “Now I know more how hopeless I am and how amazing it is that God loves me enough that He gave Himself for me.”

Please pray for:

• The people in Fukushima prefecture, that they would not remain in hopelessness but find the true and lasting hope in the love of God.

• Volunteer and support needs being fulfilled.

• The safety of the children, asking that they will be filled with hope for their future.

• The parents to feel peace and have the wisdom to know what to do.

• There to be no after-effects of nuclear radiation in the health of the children.

• Salvation and healing to be brought through the local churches, including those ministering with CRASH Japan.