In emergencies, if communication systems are out of order -- as they were in
large swathes of Japan after the quake and tsunami — an intricate church
network kicks in.
Under what they call the “home teaching program” each church assigns a
member four to 10 people to visit at least once each month, checking in on
their physical and spiritual well being. So essentially everyone checks in
on others and is checked in on them-self. That means when a disaster hits,
church members know exactly where to look for the folks that are normally
part of their rounds.
The missionaries — young men and women who work in pairs – all have cell
phones, but with cell networks down in most cases, they instead followed
disaster plans that directed them to predetermined locations. Most of the
young evangelists were accounted for within 18 hours. The last four, who had
to walk out of one of the most devastated areas of Sendai to reach their
assigned site, were contacted within 36 hours of the quake, church officials
said.
As the threat of radiation emerged, the church network swung into motion
again, quickly shifting 72 young evangelists out of harm’s way to missions
in Hokkaido in the north and Nagoya in the south of Japan.
“We’re very confident that we have moved everybody far, far away,” from the radiation leaking from the Fukushima nuclear power plant, said Steve Allen, a public affairs officer with the church. Not only did they do so for safety reasons, he said, but for practical reasons — to get them out of the way of relief efforts.