Facebook group focuses on prayer, relief for Japan earthquake victims

Jonathan Walter Straker, his wife, Michiko, and their children.

A Facebook group designed to help streamline Church of Christ relief efforts for victims of the Japan earthquake has grown to more than 1,300 members.
Jonathan Walter Straker and his wife, Michiko, started the Facebook page, called “Working And Praying for Japan Earthquake Victims.” The page contains firsthand accounts of needs and experiences from Japanese church members.
“Michiko and I met in Sendai, Japan, where I was on a Church of Christ mission team with Ben Berry, Joel Osborne and Crimsen Ruhnke,” Jonathan Straker told The Christian Chronicle. “My first contact with Sendai was in 1998 on an LST (Let’s Start Talking) team. We worked there full time from 2002-2007 and have been back twice during the summers.”
One of the Facebook group members, Dan Harris Lovejoy, has created an interactive Japan map to help Christians understand what areas were affected and where Churches of Christ are located.

Dan Lovejoy has created an interactive map.

“Right now I’m working on adding every Church of Christ to the list,” said Lovejoy, a member of the Memorial Road Church of Christ in Edmond, Okla.
Jonathan Straker is an M.Div. in Missions student at Abilene Christian University in Texas and serves as interim young adult minister for the University Church of Christ in Abilene. He is the son of Walter and Shirley Straker, who serve with the Bramalea Church of Christ in the Toronto area. (I was blessed to stay with Walter and Shirley during a 2009 reporting trip to Canada.)
The younger Straker recommends that North Americans who want to give directly to churches route funds through these two congregations, which will send the funds to the Mito Church of Christ in Japan:

Park Avenue Church of Christ

ATTN: Dwight Albright

5295 Park Ave

Memphis, TN 38119-3543

USA

Phone: 901 682-1220

• • •

Bramalea Church of Christ

ATTN: Walter Straker

750 Clark Blvd.

Brampton, ON L6T 3Y2

CANADA

Phone: 905-792-2297

• • •

Other Japan earthquake coverage:

– Prayers needed for ‘quite desperate’ situation in Japan, former missionary says

– Christian relief organizations prepare to respond to Japan disaster

• Feedback
  Thank you for posting this Bobby. In 2005 my husband, Dr. Clark Roush and I accompanied 40 members of the York College Concert Choir on a tour of Japan. We spent a week in Sendai and then moved all over the country singing and doing mission outreach type work. The tour was a dream of Jonathan, Joel, Ben and Crimsen because they had all graduated from York College and they had all sang in the choir. After graduation, they went as a group to Sendai, Japan, as missionaries. This recent devastation has been such a personal horror to witness. We are on our knees in York, Nebraska.
  For more information about the 2005 trip, the link is http://www.york.edu/alumni/heritage/summer05.pdf

  Sue Roush

  March, 14 2011

  Interesting! Thanks for sharing that, Sue.

  Bobby Ross Jr.

  March, 14 2011

  Thanks for writing us such developing stories important to Christian ministry. We have many we love in Japan and our hearts yearn for them. We are praying.
  Gailyn and Becky

  Gailyn Van Rheenen

  March, 14 2011

  I have the Jesus film in Japanese for evangelizing. [email protected]

  ken hargesheimer

  March, 15 2011

  The earthquake Japan is experiencing now is the worse for magnitude at 9.0 but not in loss of lives and buildings. The Kanto (Tokyo) earthquake of ’23 had a loss of 140,000 lives and a lot of Tokyo. This one may surpass the Kobe Earthquake of 1995 when 6,300 lives were lost. Hopefully more survivors will be found. I was a missionary in Japan for 45 years and drove through the affected area many times. God bless and protect those who are working through this disaster.

  Ernest Faber

  March, 15 2011

  We are praying and emploring others to join us!

  Wayne and Darlene Baker, York College

  March, 15 2011

  I just got an email from the Jesus film project that they are helping in Japan and sending 50,000 copies of the Jesus film.
  I have the legal right to reproduce it and have deleted the “sinner’s prayer”. We must help physically but even more so spiritually.

  ken hargesheimer

  March, 15 2011

  Fellow Christians,
  Let’s all help at lest in prayers for our brothers and sisters in Japan who are sufering the effects of a quake, tsunami and possible radiation fallout. Above and beyond our personal capabilities to assist, let us reach out to our heavenly Father who is in total control and whose love is limitless.
  Central Church of Christ
  Quezon City, Philippines

  Felix Garlitos

  March, 15 2011