Aid to the Triple Disaster

Overwhelming… 
(Mar '11)
When we first arrived in Japan, just ten days after the triple disaster of March 11, we were a bit overwhelmed. With 60-70 people daily working around the clock in a room not over 800 sq. ft. The room was loud, crowed, and filled with confusion, as we attempted to place thousands of incoming volunteers to help in the initial cleanup. We soon learned that this organization had a p/t staff of two on March 10th, then on March 12th skyrocketed to 300 volunteer staff. In the ensuing confusion of it all, much of the work was being duplicated or triplicated, as the departments and roles were unclear. Anders worked with the President to implement an organizational management system similar to that used in US emergency services. This helped the madness by organizing workload through a clear leadership structure and identified roles and responsibilities for all staff. During this initial period, Lori created a communication system between the field bases and headquarters, as well as doing structural assessments of buildings that had been overlooked. These initial days were taxing, to say the least, as everyone at CRASH worked long hours, and was faced with emergencies on an hourly basis. Because of the urgency of the need, we were forming the systems as we were responding, often described as "building the plane while we're flying it!" Many often said that a day felt like a week, and a week like a month.

Getting Ahead of the Game (May '11)
After this initial two month period, we were asked to stay on long term (at least 3months) so Anders was asked to assume the role of Chief of Staff and right hand man of the President. Lori reluctantly took the position of Finance Chief, but later learned to love the position and her staff loved her! She led her team in creating the first ever budgets (in the history of the organization) and financial systems with clear accountability. As things became more organized, we were working only 60 hours per week, then 50, then finally to a more reasonable 40-45. This can only be attributed to the Lord, since as we prayed we would be given direction and vision, to help make the office much more efficient. The turnover began to slow down and burnout symptoms decreased as staff were given balance back into their lives. We were proud to see this transition take place as we saw capacity and efficiency and effectiveness to increase as over two thousand volunteers came through in those first six months! CRASH's mission was to connect resources and volunteers to the local church, so all the operations were aimed at empowering the local church to reach out in their community.  Yes, as you can see in that picture above, we rented out a retired convenience store!

The Strong 1%
Even though the local church is less than 1% of the population, we witnessed that 1% minority reach out and love their hurting communities in powerful ways. Christians were seen as a cult before the disaster, in many areas of Japan, but through demonstrated love churches continued to share, people began describing Christians as "nice" and there was a desire for that same joy!