How to pray for Japan

This is from Don Wright of “Reaching Japanese for Christ”

There is an old adage that goes like this, “Well, I guess all that we can do is pray…” I approach prayer quite a bit dif­fer­ently and per­haps so should you. Prayer always comes first – before we can even attempt to do our “lit­tle bit” we should make sure that we have called in the “big guns”. I orig­i­nally wrote this prayer list for the earth­quake in Haiti. If it is help­ful in orga­niz­ing your thoughts feel free to join in and pray with me.

1. Pray for those in need of res­cue that it will come swiftly.
   There are many who are in need of mir­a­cles. That teams would arrive an hour sooner, that dogs would catch a faint scent amidst the stench of death, that the right piece of con­crete would be moved. For all the train­ing and effort that the coura­geous res­cue teams put in, at this point they need mir­a­cles more than any­thing else.
2. Pray for the res­cuers – safety, rest, encour­age­ment, in the midst of hor­ror and unre­lent­ing pain.
   The job that the res­cue teams face is com­pletely over­whelm­ing and they will fail many more times than they will suc­ceed. Res­cue teams suf­fer great per­sonal trauma and often become sui­ci­dal months after an event. Pray for these coura­geous men and women now and after they return.
3. Pray for fam­i­lies that have wit­nessed the unthink­able, are wor­ried about loved ones, and fear­ful for their own safety.
   For every per­son who is miss­ing, dead or severely injured in the quake, there are ten more who care about them and find them­selves unable to do any­thing about it. Pray that emo­tional needs would receive atten­tion amidst all of the phys­i­cal needs.
4. Pray for chil­dren who need com­fort and safety, hugs and reas­sur­ance – even if they are phys­i­cally “fine.”
   Chil­dren are the most vul­ner­a­ble amidst the after­math of a dis­as­ter. Every child whose world has been dis­rupted, seen the death of another per­son or lost friends or fam­ily is in need of emo­tional care, even if they have not suf­fered phys­i­cal harm themselves.
5. Pray for gov­ern­ments and author­i­ties that all red tape would dis­ap­pear and cor­rup­tion would cease.
   Inter­na­tional relief efforts are often ham­pered by red tape and gov­ern­ments can find get­ting relief to local areas dif­fi­cult because of cor­rup­tion. Pray for aid to go unhin­dered to the peo­ple that need it most.
6. Pray for relief agen­cies to have wis­dom and com­pas­sion to make a last­ing dif­fer­ence.
   The earth­quake is a great oppor­tu­nity to make for­ward progress. But long last­ing change will come through coura­geous and wise deci­sions that deal with the source of problems.
7. Pray for those around you that they would respond not just with what they can do, but also with their heart.
   The temp­ta­tion that we all have is to give a small dona­tion and call it the best that we can do. We all have many rea­sons why we can­not give more. Pray that hearts would be moved and that peo­ple would be truly gen­er­ous. For those of us using social media like Face­book or Twit­ter, this means that we should get involved, make con­nec­tions and let it be personal.
8. Pray for your­self that you would have a heart of com­pas­sion – start now and it will grow. A true heart of com­pas­sion is not just ready to give when the need arises. A true heart of com­pas­sion seeks out ways to help even when no one else notices that there is suf­fer­ing. A true heart of com­pas­sion will allow itself to continue car­ing long after the world has lost interest.

Once you fin­ish pray­ing, ask your­self two ques­tions.

• How can I become per­son­ally involved with help­ing the peo­ple?

• How can I finan­cially sup­port some­one who is per­son­ally involved?

It is impor­tant in the early stages of a dis­as­ter to fill up the cof­fers of those orga­ni­za­tions that do res­cue and relief work. They will use that money to stay ready for the next dis­as­ter that comes. But in the age of Twit­ter and Face­book, find some­one who is giv­ing their time, energy and life to help those who are suf­fer­ing and give gen­er­ously or become that per­son and give your heart to those who need it most.