Earthquakes

I told Mel a few weeks ago, after looking at the then current activity on the USGS earthquake webpage, that I expected a "big one" to hit Japan sometime soon. Well, today 'it' hit. Wow! Did it ever!

I got up this morning and one of my first thoughts was, I bet we had a 7 pointer somehwere in the world overnight. I almost asked Mel as I walked through the room in my typical morning state of mental fogginess. But I thought, I ask him about things like that so often, I'm sure he's just plain tired of me asking "any big earthquakes overnight?". So, instead, I came out of the Little Room and he said, "There was a 7.9 quake in Japan." without any prompting from me. :-)

Quite suddenly my mind was no longer foggy. Instead, it was cleared and focused and it sure did take a very, very long time for my computer to boot up so I could get on internet and check out all the pages I check out when earthquakes happen.

We don't have an English speaking channel on television, nor do we have a 24 hours news channel in Russian or Ukrainian. Mel turned on the tv for me, just in case, tho, because when 9/11 happened, several of the regular channels went to only newscasts (the music channels all continued their "music" videos). Nope - nothing on tv.

So, I turned to the volcano blog that I read daily. I knew that the people who post in the comments section would have posted links to various places not only about the current volcano situation on Kilauea (which, by the way, is rather strange right now and VERY interesting to me), but also to what is happening in Japan. Sure enough, there were several links and I got busy clicking.

Was able to watch live English language television in Japan of video taken from helicopters, plus translation while the PM spoke, etc. Was notified by one of the commenters that the tsunami watch for the West Coast was changed to a tsunami warning. And 'listened in' on the discussion about what happened and what effects it may or may not have on Hawaii and other volcanic and seismic areas around the Ring of Fire.

Oh so much more interesting than television!!!

On facebook, I had a comment from a friend in California who has relatives in Japan and Hawaii, and owns a house not far from Kilaeua. Lots of prayers going up for her and her extended family. Lots of prayers going up for someone we know who lives in Chiba, Japan, as well as others from our mission organization in other areas of Japan.

And now - the West Coast of the United States. As someone commented on the volcano blog - the fault along the coast of California and the Cascade fault along the coast of Oregon and Washington are the only ones that haven't had major movement recently. I'd been thinking the same thing - have been thinking it for awhile.

So, we will see.
For now, I pray - pray that many people in Japan (and countries that may be affected by tsunami) may come to Christ through what is happening. And I pray - come quickly, Lord Jesus! The "birth pangs" are getting stronger!