As radioactive water leaks from a quake-damaged power plant off the coast of Japan, a local congregation attempts to make sense of the disaster.

Two weeks ago, the Rev. Akira Sato evacuated his flock from the Fukushima First Baptist Church, three miles away from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. For the tight-knit community, abandoning the church building was a blow because American missionaries had started the church long before the nuclear plant was built in the 1960s.

“Will we ever be able to worship in our church again, or will the town simply be abandoned?” Sato asked in his March 13 diary entry. Since the journey began, Sato kept a day-to-day journal chronicling his church’s day-to-day ordeal, which he likened to the biblical account written in the Book of Exodus.

“Like the Israelites in the desert, all we can do is follow God as He leads us with pillars of fire and clouds,” Sato philosophically wrote of his flock’s journey.

The senior pastor’s diary attracts attention online because it offers a rare glimpse into the disaster from a Christian perspective.

For days, Sato crowded in a makeshift shelter with 50 members of his congregation at a church in Yonezawa, roughly 60 miles away. Most of the congregants had chosen to settle with friends and family living in other parts of the country.

Nevertheless, those staying in the shelter were thankful for the aid supplies that included food and clothes from anonymous donors.

“Brothers and sisters are bringing us food and clothing from all over Japan,” Sato wrote. “I feel like Elijah, sustained by God with food carried by a raven.”

On March 11, a 9.0-magnitude earthquake generated a tsunami that wiped out some coastal communities along Japan’s coast. According to Japan’s National Police Agency, nearly 12,000 people have been confirmed dead while over 15,400 are still missing.

Read More: http://www.christianpost.com/news/nuclear-disaster-uproots-fukushima-baptist-church-49689/