I had three books I wished to present as a gift to a VIP Japanese friend. I intended to give them as is without any formal wrapping paper to cover them, but my Japanese secretary suggested that they be wrapped together in a bundle with decorative wrapping paper. The secretary had only a couple minutes for the job and it looked rather haphazardly done. “Just tell her you did it!” my secretary suggested.

Japanese people always make allowances for foreigners, and especially for Americans (including Canadians.)

I replied, “Well, I don’t want to lie and say I wrapped the gift when I didn’t actually wrap it myself!” But then it dawned on me that I could tell my VIP Japanese friend (who is conversant in English) the same thing using the Japanese language and yet not be lying!

You may ask, “How is this possible?” It’s because the Japanese language has no verb conjugation according to person or number as does most Indo-European languages. Not only it has no verb conjugation, Japanese also drops the sentence subject (who is speaking) when it’s supposedly understood! This means I could say in Japanese, “Isoide tsutsumimashita” (was wrapped quickly) which would be interpreted that I wrapped it in a hurry when it could also mean, “he”, “she”, even “they”, wrapped it in a hurry!

Politicians in the West often make what sounds to be statements of fact and yet are not saying anything truly meaningful at all. Using a language with no verb conjugation that also drops the sentence subject because it’s already assumed to be understood, think how much easier it is for a Japanese politician to do the same!

Japanese is much more specific when you put it in writing. Chinese characters are very specific in meaning. The characters at the top of the page are pronounced omikoshi, the ceremonial box the Japanese carry during the Obon festival. Many people believe the Japanese got that idea from people from Israel who migrated to Japan two centuries ago! It resembles the Ark of the Covenant!

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. — Genesis 1:1

What a profound statement the Holy Bible makes in the authorized version of the Holy Bible (King James Version of 1611) in its very first verse! The Creator not only made matter (atoms and molecules), He not only made space between them (heaven) but He also created TIME! — (in the beginning). I consider it a universal concept.. Even with my finite mind, I must grasp that there had to be a beginning of time. Some call it the “Big Bang.” I prefer to call this historical event,”Genesis Chapter 1.”

This post is not a theological disputation of what “time” is, but rather, (I hope) an amusing account of cultural differences of two different peoples of the meaning of the word of “time.”

Today a Japanese friend (who is conversant in English) asked me to do a favor and move out some rather large and heavy furniture (desks) from her attic. She did not intend for the furniture to be preserved, but to be destroyed.

“I’ll make time for it.” I replied. The entrance to the attic of her house was small. I knew the easiest way to move the large desks from her attic storage space (cheap furniture) was to break them apart with sledge hammer– a tool on hand — and to carry the lighter pieces of the broken furniture down through the attic entrance one by one. Japanese made furniture is not like that made in the West. It’s inexpensive fiberboard, not solid wood that lasts for generations as in American or European furniture. It is easily damaged and usually discarded after only few years (even one!) after its creation.

From what she said to me, I felt her saying, (as common for the Japanese people because they do not want you to go out of the way for them) “Don’t go out of your way for me!”

I replied again, “I’ll make the time!” But her reaction again seemed to me to be negative. Why on earth would a person who is asking a favor interpret what to me was a positive response to that favor such as “I’ll make the time” be as a negative? My conclusion: Cultural difference only. Me “making” time meant to her that I would be bothered to oblige her request. This is not true.

Another point: The Japanese often use the word “if” when asking a favor. “If you have time.” My response: “If you want me to do something for you, please don’t say, ‘if’, say ‘when.’ I can always find the time.”

I like to think of time as something you or “take,” or “grab,” or seize” such as the expression “Seize the Day”. I like that expression. Time is not something that “comes” to you. We all do what we consider to be our own particular priority.

When somebody says to me, “I’m busy. I don’t have the time to do what you are asking.” I understand that to mean, “What I am doing now is more important than your request.”

As for me personally, my goal in life is of servitude to others. I like to “make the time” to help others.

When I say to somebody, “I’ll make time to fulfill your request” I hope they consider that I am doing a service for the motivation of love for them, not for any personal gain on my own. This is what my blog is all about. 🙂

Benjamin Fulford with David Rockefeller

I just listened to a 4 part YouTube video clip of Benjamin Fulford’s interview with David Rockefeller.

Canadian born Benjamin Fulford first came to Japan in the early 1980s to study at Sophia (Jesuit) University in Yotsuya Tokyo.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Fulford

“After receiving a B.A. from the University of British Columbia he returned to Japan in the mid-1980s to pursue a career in journalism. He worked in Japan as a correspondent for Knight Ridder, the International Financing Review, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun English edition, and the South China Morning Post before moving to Forbes magazine, where he was the Asian Bureau chief from 1998 to 2005.[2] After leaving Forbes he wrote a series of books in Japanese. He conducted an interview with the reclusive David Rockefeller in November 2007.”

My hat is off to Benjamin Fulford for learning Japanese so well and becoming a naturalized Japanese citizen. That is quite an accomplishment because it involves Japanese officials interviewing one’s personal relatives. But after listening to Benjamin Fulford for just a few minutes, I’ve come to the conclusion he is a disinformation agent.

He puts all the blame of the world’s troubles and woes on the USA. True conspiracy researchers know that America is just another pawn in the overall scheme of things. Benjamin Fulford talks about an Asian secret society called the “White Dragon Society” of which he is now the spokesperson for. Benjamin Fulford says the White Dragon Society is against the “Military Industrial Complex” for causing all the trouble and wars in the world. He says that the same are running out of money, and that March 11, 2011 East Japan earthquake and tsunami was an attack against Japan in retaliation for Japan’s banks not lending them money! Any true researcher of the NWO (AKA Illuminati) knows this is absolute rubbish because the NWO own the world’s central banks, print up as much money as they want to, and lend it to governments charging interest. This is what the American Federal Reserve bank is all about and what Thomas Jefferson warned of:

“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and the corporations which grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”
— Thomas Jefferson

Benjamin Fulford is not giving the overall big picture of Satan’s final attempt of control of every single person on the planet through economic pressure. He may be what is called a “gatekeeper”, a person who seems to be exposing the Enemy but who doesn’t go quite far enough to lead people into all truth about them.

And he (the Beast, AKA Antichrist) causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. — The Holy Bible Revelation 13:16,17

My opinion is Benjamin Fulford gives false hope to people who heed him. The answer is not with us. Only the return of Jesus Christ Himself will save planet earth and its inhabitants.

Finally, here’s a couple quotes from http://helpfreetheearth.com/news282_fulford.html that not only agrees with my view about Benjamin Fulford, but also exposes who Alex Jones really is and confirms what I’ve thought about why Jones would be willing to risk his neck when infiltrating the Bohemian Grove during a summer bash by the elite: He had permission to do so!

In 2007, Fulford became famous on the Internet and in conspiracy theory circles when he “miraculously” scored an in depth interview with David Rockefeller and delivered a threatening ultimatum to the elite that they step down peacefully or face the consequences. After the interview, Benjamin Fulford issued a letter of apology to Rockefeller.

Think about it. How could Fulford who publicly seeks to “take down the Illuminati’ score an interview with Illuminati crime boss David Rockefeller? The same way Alex Jones managed to infiltrate Bohemian Grove. They got clearance because they’re both Zionist shills. If Fulford and Jones were a serious threat to the ruling crime families, they would have been snuffed out long ago. Alex Jones and Benjamin Fulford are delivering a message that serves the ruling cabal. That message is that disaster is imminent. Expect it, focus on it. Be afraid…and by doing so, you attract it.

Another guy I have doubts about is somebody who calls himself Jim Stone independent journalist. Nobody knows who this guy really is! At least we do know who Benjamin Fulford is. How can any researcher or “truth teller” have any credibility at all if he or she is not willing to tell the world who they are? You can find out who I am if you want to.

In a post I wrote on February 7, I said I moved from Fedora 14 to Linux Mint Debian. Well, less than two weeks later I moved back to Fedora 14. I’m familiar with the Fedora way of tweaking the system, and I just couldn’t figure out how to set up certain things in Linux Mint Debian. Fedora is not only cutting edge, it’s more user friendly than Debian based distros for technicians in my opinion.

I’ve been with Fedora since Fedora Core 3 and have witnessed significant improvements with every new version. However because Fedora 15 comes with Gnome 3 as the default desktop environment, I had some misgivings when I upgraded. I knew that Gnome 3 is a radical departure from Gnome 2, but I wanted to at least give it a shot.

Improvements over Fedora 14

• Since upgrading my AMD Phenom quad core CPU to a Phenom 2 six core CPU, Fedora 14 would often hang during boot at udev. I had to press the ESC key a couple times to continue the boot process. This doesn’t happen anymore in Fedora 15
• While playing music and running Skype at the same time in Fedora 14, a Skype login by one of my Skype friends would pause the music player. The next login by somebody else would start it again. Needless to say this was a bit irksome but now with Fedora 15 the problem seems to be fixed.
• So far I haven’t felt a need to install the third party proprietary Nvidia video driver for my Nvidia card. The default open source driver seems to be doing an acceptable job. It plays Youtube videos at full screen without obvious jerking of motion.
• LibreOffice seems better than OpenOffice in some ways. I used to get weird behavior from OpenOffice Calc of menus popping up though I was only filling in the cells with my data. This didn’t happen in LibreOffice. However, I could not read the Japanese fonts in a .docx file, a problem I didn’t have in OpenOffice.
• Startup and shutdown, especially shutdown, is significantly faster.

What I don’t like about the default Fedora 15

I think the developers of Gnome 3 made a major mistake in such a radical change from Gnome 2. All my cool Gnome 2 applets now gone forever! The coolest thing about Gnome 2 for me was that it was a mixture of the look and feel of both Windows and Macs. Gnome 3 is nothing like either. How can I therefore recommend Windows users to try it when I couldn’t even figure it out? Gnome 2 made it less painful for a Windows user to switch to Linux. The analogy of the Gnome 3 interface is that it makes it easier for users to access apps from smaller screens. Fine. Why not then have it only for hand-held devices? Why use such an interface now when PC screens as large as 24 inches have become easily affordable by most users? Hardly anybody these days has a screen size smaller than 15″, especially if they use a Desktop PC.

Alternatives to Gnome 3

I tried out KDE4 for a few days. It was certainly more intuitive and comfortable for me to use compared to Gnome 3. But KDE4 also seems slow at times.

I tried out XFCE which is similar to Gnome, but it seemed to lack certain features.

I also tried LXDE. It’s fast, has a Gnome 2 look (but still no Gnome 2 applets) and the default File Manager PCManFM seems to be better than Nautilus in some ways. It has configuration tweaks that Nautilus doesn’t have, and it sorts my Desktop Icons automatically every time I erase a file from my Desktop. Way to go LXDE developers! However it doesn’t seem to have a Favorites section for me to add frequently used software.

I’m back again to KDE4. Though its startup is slower than LXDE or XFCE, it seems to be the most configurable and easiest to use Desktop environment available now for Linux.

I was truly amazed and impressed by this talk by Dr. Bruce Lipton! He explains why modern medical practices are still based on old outdated 19th century science because it does not include the principles of quantum mechanics. The medical world, especially in the USA, is stuck in a rut because of the influence of pharmaceutical companies and their monetary motivations. If you have a chronic illness of either a physical, mental, or spiritual nature, please do yourself a favor by taking 30 minutes to sit down and listen to this talk.

Harold Camping

It was called to my attention just the other day that the date of May 21, 2011 was circulating around the Internet as being the day of the second coming of Christ, i.e. “the Rapture” of the elect as Jesus talked about in the New Testament Book of St. Matthew, chapter 24. Today I learned the prediction was made by American Christian radio host and president of Family Radio, Harold Camping. Some may be surprised to find that I only knew about this prediction very recently. I’ve been insulated from lots of false teachings in the religious world having lived in Japan more than half of my life with very limited contact with American Christianity.

People like Mr. Camping have been deceived by the un-biblical teaching of “Pre-tribulation Rapture”. They believe that Christ will return in secret, to call His followers up to Heaven. What makes me especially upset about this false doctrine is that because of it, non-believers and atheists are now again mocking Christians, God and the Bible. For the record, the Bible doesn’t teach a secret coming nor a secret rapture of the elect.

Revelation 1:7  Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him. Even so, Amen.

Mainstream evangelicals in America and most of the English speaking world follow the eschatology of Cyrus Ingerson Scofield, author of the Scofield Reference Bible, a man who abandoned his wife and children and refused to support them. Scofield’s erroneous interpretations have influenced most of the mainstream evangelicals in the English speaking world. Only people who truly read and study their Bibles know the truth. Christians who believe a pre-tribulation secret rapture have not a single verse of Holy Scripture to stand on. The honest ones can only say, “I believe in pre-tribulation rapture because my preacher told me so.”

Osama Bin Laden

I do not believe President Obama is telling the truth about Osama Bin Laden supposed demise yesterday.

Pakistan’s President Musharraf said in January 2002 that Bin Laden was already likely dead due to kidney trouble. He took two dialysis machines into Afghanistan. Think he could be on dialysis hiding in some cave with no electricity? Even if he brought a generator to the cave to power the dialysis machine, could he have remained undetected for so long considering the noise such a generator would make? A person with failed kidneys needs daily treatment with a dialysis machine or they will die.

Benazir Bhutto said in in interview with British journalist David Frost in 2007 that Osama Bin Laden was murdered, and David Frost didn’t even question her further about it! If Frost is supposed to be such a good journalist, why on earth would he let Bhutto’s comment slip by him like that? You can hear her say it yourself:

Listen to another viewpoint from a gentleman who has some interesting things to say about what could result from Osama Bin Laden’s supposed death at the hands of the US.

A friend sent me an interesting article from the Asia times about what could be the reason for the mess in Libya right now. I believe it could be true. The Central banking system is not part of the government, but a coporation that creates huge profits for the investors. The real reason why the world’s economy has gone down is because the central bankers have fleeced the people.

Over the past few weeks well meaning relatives and friends have sent me articles on how to prepare for the radiation from the Fukushima power plant meltdown. Some people have sent me web articles with statements from “scientists” such as Leuren Moret, full of gloom and doom calling the meltdown, “tectonic nuclear warfare” against the USA! This is total nonsense, hype, fear mongering, and disinformation. I wonder whose payroll she is on?

For the record, I never once doubted that the Japanese are more than capable of handling the nuclear power plant disaster. I am proud to live in Japan among the most wonderful people in the world. They behaved so well in the face of disaster. They are clean, decent and for the most part, honest people. You cannot deceive an honest people for long, and the Japanese government is well aware of that. Many people have their own Geiger counters, and they report that radiation levels in all populated areas are well below the danger level.

Related external link: Fukushima panic breaks completely free of the facts!

One reason why the Japanese people have such low crime, and are so honest and hardworking is because the Japanese culture was heavily influenced by New Testament teachings over 1500 years ago. This knowledge was lost when all historical records in a certain place were burned in a fire. For more information about the hidden Biblical roots of Japanese culture, please see:

Japan’s Christian Heritage

Last night at 11:32 PM while in bed in my home in Niigata near the Sea of Japan, I felt a relatively strong earthquake. The building shook for a considerable amount of time. It is not common for earthquakes to occur on the west side of Japan, and because of the duration of the quake, I thought it may have occurred on the Pacific side near the previous earthquake of March 11. A radio report confirmed it.

Increased frequency of earthquakes is one of the signs that Jesus said would precede His return to earth.

Matthew 24:3  And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?
Matthew 24:4  ¶And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.
Matthew 24:5  For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.
Matthew 24:6  And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.
Matthew 24:7  For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.

There are 66 books, 1,189 chapters and 31,102 verses in the Bible. It’s interesting to note that in the 19 times and 16 verses the word earthquake in either its singular or plural form appears in 9 books and 14 chapters of the Bible, it appears 7 times in 5 verses in the book of Revelation, more often than in any other book of the Bible. The book of Revelation is the last book of the Bible and the book that most people associate with the last days just before Christ’s return to earth.

This is a photo I took of my little girl, Lily, then 4 years old, when we lived in Kamakura city Kanagawa prefecture. The photo is on the Shonan coast, near Inamuragasaki. I was taken with black and white film, and developed and printed personally by me. Back in those days I did a lot of B/W photography with my 35 MM Minolta SLR, and had the availability of a darkroom.

Lily Arendt, 4 years old, Kamakura city Kanagawa prefecture, Shonan coast, near Inamuragasaki, 1989.

I would like to thank Darryl Rollins in the USA for sending $20 toward the relief fund. This is the first donation via Paypal from a person who saw this web site.

Darryl’s donation will be part of other donations listed on Help Japan 2011 of which yours truly is the webmaster. I previously had my Paypal button on that site, but was asked to take it off because my Paypal account is not registered with the Leap High 28 NPO. They are hoping to get their own Paypal account.

Charles Begley before van stocked with food and goods for friends in Sendai

On March 26, Charles Begley and I drove to the city of Sendai to bring supplies to a small Christian community of 6 adults and 7 children. It was a 4 hour drive along the Banetsu and Tohoku expressways and was through Fukushima prefecture. As you see from the map, the Tohoku expressway is about 58 kilometers or 36 miles from the two troubled nuclear power-plants in Fukushima.

Route from Niigata to Sendai

Charles’ van was completely filled with supplies, thanks to friends in Niigata and a donation of money from the director of NPO Leap High 28, Yoko Ishikawa, with whom I am working with in building the Help Japan 2011 web site. In all we took approximately 80,000 yen or about $1000 US worth of food and goods. This included 105 kg of rice, bags of white radish (daikon), potatoes, carrots, eggplant, onions, noodles, curry and stew ingredients, can goods, 24 packs of nattou, 2 camping stoves, 35 cans of can fuel for the stoves, 90 liters of kerosene for heating, clothes, blankets, and shoes. Most of these items are now hard to find or buy in Sendai, a city of one million people, the largest city of northeast Japan and the closest to the epicenter of the earthquake on March 11th in the Pacific. Some materials like clothes, shoes and blankets were not immediate needs of my friends in Sendai, but items they would distribute to others in need.

Cars lined up to get gas at the Bandaisan service area on the Banetsu expressway in Fukushima

The Tayama family was very grateful for the food and the means to cook it. They had no vegetables the past two weeks. Until a few days ago, they had no electricity. They still have no running water or gas.

Visual impressions

Much unlike my visit to the city of Ojiya in Niigata after the October 2004 earthquake when I saw destruction in any direction I looked, I saw no destruction or damage of anything whatsoever. The roads were not broken as they were in Niigata, and no houses fell. The only sign that something had happened was many convenience stores where closed. That is not to say there was no direct destruction at all from the earthquake. One friend reports his apartment was damaged to the point of becoming unlivable which forced him to move. But the overall direct damage from the earthquake seemed to be minimal. The real destruction was caused by the tsunami along perhaps 500 kilometers of the Pacific coast, up to 10 kilometers inland. This is roughly 5000 square kilometers of devastation!

It was cold and snowy in the mountains of Fukushima, but there was no snow in Sendai and not too cold in my friend’s house even without the heaters on. But it was still daytime with a clear sky. The sun helps warm the houses. The Pacific side of Japan has a much higher percentage of sunny days than the west coast along the Sea of Japan. I’m sure it does get colder at night, and all that donated kerosene will be used for heating.

We came to a point in Sendai about 14 kilometers or 8 miles from the Pacific coast. My friend Charles did not want to purposely drive close enough to see any destruction. He said he saw enough of it on TV.

Photos after arriving in Sendai

Happy recipients of goods

Mrs. Tayama with one of the three 30 kilograms of rice donated by friends in Niigata

Charles with the Tayamas

Yours truly struggling to hold the 30 kilogram bag of rice waiting for Charles to figure out how to use the camera.

The children rejoicing over the box of bread products donated by a bakery in Niigata

The Tayama family with some of the supplies they received.

Testimonials from Friends in Sendai

Mrs. Tayama: “I work as a maid in a large hotel in Sendai. I was on the 10th floor in standing in front of the elevator when the earthquake hit. As soon as I pushed the down button to call the elevator, the building started to shake. It shook so bad I couldn’t stand up without falling. I crouched down on the floor and stayed there till the shaking stopped.”

Mr. Tayama: “The night of the earthquake we all slept with our clothes on. Tremors continued through the night. We knew we all may have to evacuate the building at any time. ”

Tomorrow, Saturday March 26th, Charles Begley, the director of Begley Productions and I will travel to the city of Sendai, the largest city in northeast Japan that was affected by the earthquake, to bring supplies to a large family of 4 adults and 7 children. They are sitting in a cold house wearing their winter coats for lack of kerosene for heating.

So far we have acquired,

• 4 containers of kerosene holding 18 liters each equaling 72 liters.
• 60 kilograms of rice
• Boxes of macaroni
• Vegetables such as cabbage, carrots and onions

They also requested we bring can meat, fresh meat, natou, and ingredients to make curry and stew.

It’s unfortunate that we cannot bring more kerosene to this family. That 72 liters may last them only a week. But it will soon be April and warmer weather.

Sixty kilograms of rice is enough for at least two months of meals. By then it may be easier for them to buy rice locally.

The route to Sendai will take us within 57 kilometers of the nuclear power plant in trouble in Fukushima. But this is well outside the danger radius. I’ve heard people within 20 kilometers of the nuclear reactors have been evacuated.

I received the following email from a friend about the situation of the nuclear power-plant in Fukushima.

Dear everyone,

I have an urgent request for prayer. Right now there are people who are giving their all to save our country, its people, and you and your family at the risk of their lives at Fukushima atomic power plant.
Please pray for the success of their work.

The Soldiers of Special chemical troop of Defense army (those who are working at the plant now) are volunteers who are above 55years old, who believe that their responsibility to their families (raising their children) is nearly over. They have volunteered to do this work. There are 50 such volunteers.

This is an excerpt from an article in JIji-tsushin：

Tokyo Electric Company has asked different cooperative firms for help of volunteers who would be a suicide squad to do the technical work inside of atomic power house.

One of the volunteers who has been working at an atomic power plant in West Japan for 40 years volunteered saying he would have only one year till his retirement and his children are grown up now.
His family couldn’t dissuade him. He is quiet but firm in his determination that such a difficult job should be done by veterans like him. His daughter said this is a side of her father that she has never seen before.
The next day, 20 more volunteers left their homes for this mission as if it was a usual morning of going to work.

Working under such conditions at atomic power plant, it is usual to be exposed to radiation. The allowed amount of contamination during such work is limited by the government to 100msv.
But this number was changed from 100msav to 250 msv because those volunteers have requested to lift the limit so that they would have enough time to do their work. So they were prepared to risk high doses of radiation.

The peace that we still enjoy now is due to their sacrifice….
Please everyone, pray!
Please pray that the mission can be completed.
Please pray that the future missions awaiting will be successful.
Pray for the safety of these workers.
Please tell all of your friends, family members, and as many people as possible
Ask them to join us in prayer for this.

Fukushima Daiichi (meaning #1) Nuclear Plant

My brother Mike sent me the following link:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/13/world/asia/satellite-photos-japan-before-and-after-tsunami.html

Each photo has a slider in the middle. Move the slider back and forth by putting your mouse pointer in the middle of the center bar and holding down the left mouse button, and you will see the tremendous difference and amount of destruction caused by the earthquake and tsunami. Simply awful! Seeing the difference of before and after is simply heartbreaking. I’ve been to that area frequently back in the mid-1970s. It was one of the most beautiful areas of Japan. Now it’s a wasteland.

The red line shows the route I took back to Niigata. The right arrow points to one of the nuclear powerplants in trouble.

March 16, 2011: While in Kobe I joined a NPO project and worked nearly all my waking hours for two days to setup a new web site, Help Japan 2011, to help raise aid for the earthquake victims. The next day I traveled back to my home in Niigata partly by train but mainly by hitchhiking. I started off at Kanda parking area on the Hokuriku expressway in Shiga prefecture. It was surprisingly cold and snowing the front license plates of the cars where covered with wet snow and unreadable. I brushed off the snow from several license plates to determine how far the driver may be going.

Parts of the Hokuriku expressway run very close to the Sea of Japan. There was no threat of tsunami danger as they rarely occur on this side of Japan. However, on 26 May 1983, 104 people were killed in close to the Sea of Japan in Akita by a tsunami after an earthquake.

You can see from the map that I traveled back to an area closer to possible danger. But I do not believe Niigata will be affected much even if the situation in Fukushima worsens.

God was good to me and I saved thousands of yen getting lifts as far as Uozu city in Toyama Prefecture in 5 cars. It was past dark by that time and so I took trains the rest of the way. To save money, I took local trains. However at Joestsu the trains were stopped due to a plastic sheet that had wrapped itself around a power-line of the train. In order to get home that day, I was forced to take an express train from there for which I was charged an extra 1150 yen express ticket to Nagaoka city. For some reason I wasn’t charged for an express ticket the rest of the way.

The first driver was a young man who listened intently to the Bible stories I shared with him. The second was a father and son who run a Buddhist Temple. The son was dressed in a Buddhist monk’s clothing and had a shaved hear. They asked me to explain who Jesus Christ is and what He means to the world, and of course I was more than glad to do so.

You may wonder why I would talk of matters of faith at such a time of crisis as Japan is in now. Most Japanese are very apathetic to matters of religion, but now they are seeking comfort, and are open to hearing answers from the Bible about their problems. One man even told me to pray for the earthquake victims!

One of the drivers was a young single lady, Kana Chan, who lived in Australia for two years. Thank you Kana Chan for the ride!

The left arrow points to my location and the right one is the location of one of the nuclear power plants in trouble.

Two days ago I was finally able to contact a friend in Sendai, the largest city closest to the epicenter. He said that he and his family are OK and that their apartment building had only minor damage. Dishes have fallen off the shelf and many were broken.

The friend met up with news journalists from America and took them close to the towns of the Rikuzen coast that were destroyed by the tsunami. The towns are completely gone with only rubbish remaining.

Due to concerns of a possible meltdown of the nuclear reactors in neighboring Fukushima, he and his family will move from Sendai to avoid possible radiation contamination.

A family with 7 children who live next door to me moved to Nagoya, far from Fukushima. They had planned to move even before the time of the disaster and it gave them greater motivation to leave quicker than planned. But as I said in a previous post, I do not think nuclear radiation will come to the Niigata area where I live. The prevailing winds blow from the west to the east, and there is a mountain range between us and one of the Fukushima power plants, 180 kilometers away.

A family I know who has a house in Chiba just east of Tokyo has left the country entirely.

Fukushima prefecture is one of the neighboring prefectures of Niigata, where I live. Fukushima is one of my stomping grounds.

The Chinese ideograph of Fukushima literally means, “happy island”. Who is the author of life? Yeshua Hamashiach – AKA Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Who is the author of unhappiness and death – Lucifer, AKA Satan, the hairy one.

The Rikuzen coast was one of the most beautiful areas of Japan to visit. It became a wasteland.

The Tohoku or Northeast area of Japan is about the size of Lake Michigan. The earthquake moved this massive amount of land 2.4 m (8 ft) east into the Pacific! That's what caused the tsunami that killed 19,759 people.

It was an auspicious time for me to come to Osaka after the earthquake. I was contacted by a friend, Josh DeSantis, the chairman of Hiyaku28 NPO, to come to Kobe to set up a new website to raise donations for the earthquake victims. Josh participated in the relief efforts of the 1995 Kobe earthquake. Kobe is only a 360 yen train ride from where I was in Osaka. I had just enough money to get to Kobe with 69 yen left in my pocket, the remainder of 5000 yen I started with a week ago. Please see the web site I put up so far: Help Japan 2011

There is no chance for me to have a direct face to face contact with the earthquake victims at this time. Authorities have been telling volunteers not to come! Rescue operations are still underway. Much of the devastated area is still under water. Only professional rescue workers are allowed.

I’ve been calling all my friends, especially the ones that live close to the earthquake epicenter near Sendai, Japan. Nobody I know was hurt during the earthquake in the slightest. Everybody in Northern Japan experienced the shocks of the quake, but nobody was close enough to the coast to be affected by the tsunami.

My family in Niigata reports that they all went outside during the earthquake, but then went back inside when it was over because of the cold. Simon in Misawa in Aomori Prefecture says he was without power for 40 hours. Sam in western Tokyo was also without power, but he has a generator that generated enough power for lights. Paul in Nasu, northern Tochigi prefecture said that he and his family were not at home during the quake. They returned to find many broken dishes on the floor. I tried calling friends in Sendai which is close to the epicenter, but their phones were not working. However, I heard from others that they are all OK.

I lived in Sendai from 1975 – 1977. During that time I used to visit the towns of the Rikuzen area that were destroyed by the tsunami. There is not a single city in the area I haven’t been to.