JMJ. One would have had to have had his head buried in the sand for the last few weeks not to have noticed the horrible devastation in Japan as the result of a Richter 9 earthquake and its subsequent tsunami. Even the hardest of heart would have been hard-pressed not to have been moved by the suffering of the Japanese people.
Well, I'm not particularly hard-hearted so I was very troubled at this devastation and misery. On a very peronal level, too, since--as I've mentioned before--we once had a Japanese exchange student living with us for a year when my sisters were in high school. You can imagine that I was quite worried about her and her family's safety so I e-mailed that evening and was vastly relieved when she quickly replied that she, the family, and her home were safe but that they had lost many of their possessions.
The material can be replaced but imagine my surprise when I received a note from a woman unknown to me saying that she had gone to school with Toko (and my sisters, of course) so many years ago and that they had not been in contact for quite some time. Had I heard anything from her and could I put her in touch with Toko? Now how, I wondered had this woman thought to write me? I read further and it happens that upon hearing of the earthquake she googled Toko's name and my previous blog page came up!
Of course I replied that I had, indeed, just heard from Toko and that she was well. I offered to forward a message to her if she wished. She did, she wrote, and I forwarded it. Toko was so thankful to have heard from another of her old friends. She might have been surprised at this coincidence but I wasn't--after all, I believe in the communion of the saints. God's got us all safe in His arms and He's got a plan for all of us. Amen.
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