What should the church do when disasters strike?

Over the years here I've been sent by Partners International to quite a few disaster sites to assess how we should respond. I went to Indonesia, India and Sri Lanka after the tsunami of 2004 that killed 230,000. The Kashmir earthquake of 2005 that killed 75,000. The Yogyakarta earthquake (Indonesia) of 2006 where 6,000 died. The Haiti earthquake that killed 316,000. And most recently, the Japan earthquake and tsunami, arriving just 10 days after it hit.  

What should the church do amidst such mega-disasters? What should your church do if there is a big disaster in your city? Churches don't have the millions of dollars needed to feed large numbers of people for weeks or months or to rebuild housing. Only governments or huge aid agencies can raise that kind of money.

But the church can do what the big boys can't. They know their neighborhoods. They can send teams of young people to help dig the tsunami mess out of someone's house. They can sit with people and hear their hurts, like the lady in Japan who said to one of our partners, "I just need to cry, the tears keep coming." Or the one who said, "I don't have anybody left, I'm alone now," and became silent.  n nnnnnnnnn who mn

In Japan now, it's the time for this, for the small Japanese church to get outside their walls and serve. And they are trying. The average size church there is only 30 people. The church is almost invisible. What better moment will the believers there see in their lifetimes to show the love of Christ? If not now, when? And what better time for the worldwide church to stand with them, not worrying about big projects we don't have the money or equipment to do, but helping them do what they can do best: loving people.

 Photo: Japanese Christian young people mapping out where their teams will go in their neigborhoods to help earthquake and tsunami victims. If you can't see the photo, click on the link above to view this post online.