“Cross of comfort” erected at devastated Japan church site

Tokyo
A "cross of comfort" has been erected at a church site about one month after its building was washed away by the tsunami that followed the magnitude-9 earthquake on March 11, a Christian relief organization reported.

A team from the Osaka-based Japan International Food for the Hungry and volunteers from Tokyo Christian Institute erected it, after they went to the site on Kesennuma Bay in Miyagi prefecture to clear rubble.

Hiroshi Minegishi, pastor of the Kesennuma First Bible Baptist Church, a member of the Japan Conservative Baptist Association, an evangelical Protestant denomination, had asked the organization to clear the site, saying that his church could be forgotten and buried in the debris if things were left as they are.

The pastor escaped the destruction after hearing a tsunami warning. Only the church’s foundation and floors have remained intact after the rest of the building was washed away by the wave. In an April 2 Web article published by The Christians, a Tokyo-based Christian news media, Minegishi said that even the great tsunami could not wash away the love of Christ.