He looks on the earth and it trembles; He touches the hills, and they smoke.
Psalm 104:32
Kumamoto? Whatś that? After last night, the 2nd of two major quakes to strike Kumamoto, quakes of the same intensity as that of the Fukushima earthquake, the name Kumamoto might seem more distinctively familiar. Will there be more aftershocks or even bigger earthquakes next few days. Possibly. And prayerfully, Kumamoto does not play out the 2nd part of Psalm 104:32, for sitting near her is the very alive volcano, Mt Aso
You Who laid the foundations of the earth, So that it should not be moved forever.
Psalm 104:5
That is the hope and prayer for the people of Kumamoto and her surrounds on the beautiful island of Kyushu. It is possible that the fault lines and resultant devastating tremors will be a thing of the past in the near future?
For thus saith the Lord of hosts: ‘Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens and the earth, and the sea and the dry land.
Haggai 2:6
This morning at our prayer meeting, a dear bro in Christ shared about two of his friends who are now in Kyushu Island. It was their first earth shaking experience, and at that juncture of fear, nothing matters except to pray.
The world we live in today is very focused on self rather than God. The pursuit of wealth, health, right to go where one carnality desires, does it all truly matter when your world is about to open up and swallow one up?
Kumamoto might seem pretty distant for most of us. But God can allow the same shaking in our lives, wherever we are, for our souls are at stake.
Why put me in Kumamoto when I had much better choices in the rest of Kyushu Island? That was the question I asked our Lord back in May 2013, when I decided to obey His call to use property investments to create empowerment through work for the Japanese who have lost hope. Abenomics, was the desperate response a month later to kicks start not just a moribund but an economy that was about to keel over then.
Never thought that I will see a earthquake of this magnitude in the Southern part of Japan, for it is unprecedented. But I was quite apprehensive then because Kumamoto was very near Mt Aso, a live volcano. But God also showed me that Kumamoto was strategically placed between the two holiest mountains where the Japanese worship regularly their deities.
A good place to begin the dismantling of the spiritual bondage over Japan. A spiritual tundra since the short but intense flowering of Christianity back in the 16th Century, which then dies a quick death, when Christians were persecuted from 10% of the population to officially 0%.
These past two days, I have been asking our Lord, why Kumamoto and why now?
The latter is of particular pertinence to me as in obedience to His call and provision, I was about to ramp up my involvement in Japan, in business ministry.
He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High. Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
Psalm 91:1
One goes where God sent us, no matter how illogical or foolish it might seem to us or the world.
Yet God will shelter us in the midst of the storms that we find ourselves in.
For how can one minister to the flock from a distance. It is in the midst together with the sheep, that we lead by example, by looking to and totally depending on the Lord our God.
I am physically not in the midst of the rubble. But the relationships cultivated over the past 3 years has now opened a window for me to minister to my Japanese friends on the ground.
Does their well being matter more than the state of my property? Thanks be to God, I have come to learn to look from His perspective.
But why a major temblor in Kyushu? At the onset of ministry in Japan, I have come to realize that the bastions of Christianity in this well watered but spiritually dry land was interestingly down South in Kyushu and up North in Hokkaido. Christianity entered Japan in the 16th Century through Nagasaki in Kyushu Island, by way of the Portuguese mercantile fleet. And down from the North in Hokkaido as the modernization of Japan, with the Meiji Restoration, brought with it American agriculturist skilled in developing sustainable agriculture. And many of these Americans were also committed Christians.
It is a fact that Tokyo and the Nagoya region where most of the population of Japan and her industry are based is overdue for a super earthquake. The technology of man has been proven to be insipid in the face of the wrath of nature.
It was a thought in my heart when our Lord first called me to Japan was to prepare the ground in Kyushu, the logical landmass that can receive the future refugees of a mass migration from the next Tokyo earthquake. Hokkaido in the eyes of the Japanese was Siberia and not ideal.
Man plans, God directs. So why not Tokyo but Kyushu now?
How can one receive with love when one does not know the God the source of all comfort and grace?
Is this shaking now in Kyushu the beginning of a mass revival in Southern Japan. As hearts are made ready even as our Lord lay the ground for the mother of all shaking in Tokyo?
Has my fertile imagination gone awry?
The only thing I am certain is that since May 2013, the month of my first foray into Japan, what was once a very hard ground has been softening. The Spirit of God long subsumed in the hearts of the Japanese populations is being stirred. And yet time is short, as the bad old spirit of nationalism and that of the samurai is reawakened as well as the Japanese government seeks to revive the old glory days, to shake the economy out of its 25 years stupor.
Godś promise is for the Christian population to reach 10% from a mere pittance of less than 1% at this juncture.
With men, it is impossible. With God, all things are possible.
God Blesses, and sayonara not to Japan, but to the days of disbelief.
Do join me in Japan as God leads.
Eng Hieang
16 April 2016
