From Japan: “I will not give up.”

The following is a letter we received from Hiro, owner of the art Decision Cafe in Tokyo, Japan. Since last month’s earthquake, YWAM Madison has collected donations to help Hiro and our other mission contacts purchase and distribute food. He writes this update and heartfelt thank you. If you would like to donate toward a van so they can more easily distribute the food and help people in Fukushima, you can donate through PayPal or our Donations web page. Read about the work in Japan on our blog.

Arigatou from Tokyo. Thank you so much for all your love and help during this time. I usually don’t ask people for help or money but this time it really was serious and I needed a lot of help through prayer and also financially.

Since the earthquake on March 11th the Tokyo government has canceled all events and festivals and told people to do the same. They even canceled the cherry blossom carnival. Usually our art cafe makes a lot of money from these events so we have taken quite a hit.

But since March 11th, I have had new ideas and have changed my plan. I now have charity events for northern Japan at the cafe. Besides that people in Tokyo need hope and healing for their soul which can be achieved through music and the arts. I have a charity box set up in my cafe so people can give toward relief in the north.

My friend’s company also gave us a lot of food, water, and other life supplies that John and I brought to the Fukushima area. Fukushima is a very hopeless area. It’s where they had all the problems with the nuclear power plant so nobody want to go up there.

Fukushima food distribution with Decision Cafe

The only people that I know are helping up there is my friend’s church. So we partnered with them to distribute the goods.

Thank you so much again for your love in action. I don’t know what will happen with my art cafe but I leave that in God’s hands. I will not give up until God says “stop.” It’s where we can give people hope for their lives and I love that.

I will never forget all the love and support we received from the US and Canada. Thank you so much to everyone who has helped out. It will be a long road to get back to normal in Japan but we will not give up.

Thanks for everything.
Hiro