Tsunami hits our town

You will not have escaped hearing something about the devastating earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Japan last week ... it is crazy to think this all comes almost exactly one year after the Haiti earthquake.

Looking at the Japan images and footage it all seems quite surreal. We have a team that arrived back from six months in Japan just yesterday ... their plea is that we pray for Japan ... for the Japanese people to realise that they need a Saviour and that Jesus is enough to be that saviour. Their plea is for people to respond to the call and be sent to the nation of Japan to reach it's people with the truth of the gospel.

If you've looked a map, Hawaii is part of the 'ring of fire' - around the pacific that is vulnerable to earthquakes and tsunamis ... so at 10pm on Thursday night last week the tsunami alarms started sounding. These sirens went off throughout the night, and the county and campus jumped into action. 

Here in Kona we are a costal town, vulnerable to tsunamis ... so much so that the town has road signs informing us you when you leaving the evacuation area. 

I did not have to evacuate my home as we are just above the evac line, but ended up being on campus until 2am, helping out at our hospitality facility as we housed people who had been evacuated from waterfront locations. All available floor space was utilized to give people a place to sleep in safety. 

Then we waited to see what, if anything, would occur at 3am - the predicted time a tsunami wave could hit us. Being so tired, I came home and went to bed, waking at 5am to discover our downtown ocean-front strip had infact been hit pretty badly. They estimate the repairs will cost millions of dollars. The local businesses are still assessing the damage and it will be some time before they are up and running fully again. People who were forced to sleep in their cars parked along the highway were able to return home by the afternoon on Friday. Over the weekend many YWAMers from the campus went downtown to help out with the clean up operations, and offer food and water to those who lost much.

Below is a video of our international visitors took not long after the wave hit. It shows how bad things were, but we are all so thankful as things could have been much much worse for us as a community. 

As I said, please continue to raise up a prayer for Japan.