Picking up some updated info from the latest issue of Tenri jiho (4/10/2011) and other sources:

• On March 23, Tenrikyo Disaster Relief Headquarters shifted their base of operations in Iwate Prefecture from Iwai Bunkyokai, which is located inland, to Senmayacho-Minami Center in Ichinoseki City in order to be closer to the coast.
• Toyama Diocese Disaster Relief Hinokishin Corps (DRHC) helped cook and serve pork soup for displaced persons at four evacuation centers in Iwate between March 26 and 30. They were relieved by Chiba Diocese DRHC members, who were dispatched between March 31 and April 4.

(Refer to online article: 災救隊 炊き出し 陸前高田市リポートから(4月6日記) and related video. Sorry, video is only in Japanese.)

• On March 30, Tenrikyo Disaster Relief Headquarters opened an office dedicated to psychological care. In this regard, the Boys and Girls Association is contemplating the prospect of dispatching staff to offer support to children in affected areas.
• Between April 6 and 8, the Shinbashira Zenji Nakayama paid a visit to Iwate Prefecture and northeastern Miyagi with Honbu-in Yoshitaro Ueda, the director of Tenrikyo Disaster Relief Headquarters, to encourage followers affected by the disaster and others participating in relief efforts.
• As of April 6, a total of 20 DRHC teams comprising 1,521 members have been dispatched to take part in relief efforts such as water distribution, cooking, and removing rubble. Also as of April 6, Tenrikyo two disaster relief funds has collected 3,472 donations adding to 260,348,133 yen (or roughly 3 million USD). The breakdown is as follows: “Tenrikyo Disaster Relief Fund”–144,025,593 yen (2,181 donations); “Tenrikyo Fund to Support Affected Dioceses and Disaster Relief Hinokishin Corps–116,322,540 (1,291 donations).
• Finally, in response to a request from Nara Prefecture, doctors from Ikoi-no-Ie Hospital in Tenri will be dispatched to an evacuation center in Kesennuma City between April 8 and 12. (4/13/2011 update: Doyusha has posted a video relating to this news. Doctors also made house calls in the area. Sorry, video is in Japanese only.)

(By TR Translation Staff)

Kamaishi City Hall on March 18 (Image source: http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/kfuji_taxi/62113695.html)

Rev. Shoji Otani, chief officer of Iwate Diocese Disaster Relief Hinokishin Corps (DRHC) and head minister of Kamaishi-ko Bunkyokai, sprang into action and cooperated with local government after the earthquake.

On March 12, the day after the quake, Rev. Otani surveyed the immense tsunami damage in Kamaishi City where he lived and went to Kamaishi City Hall to negotiate with officials regarding what assistance he could offer. Seeing that the workers at city hall were inundated with requests to respond to the crisis and thus deprived of sleep and rest, Rev. Otani delivered rice balls for the workers. He ended up delivering 300 rice balls in a week. When he learned that 20 residents had evacuated to Kamaishi Bunkyokai, which is located on a hill, he hurried to deliver supplies to them.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tenrikyo Disaster Relief Headquarters (headed by Honbu-in Yoshitaro Ueda) has established a base in Miyagi Prefecture for the Tenrikyo Disaster Relief Hinokishin Corps (DRHC) to run future operations. The corps will operate from a community center located in Higashimatsushima City, which suffered immense tsunami damage.

Read the rest of this entry »

Rev. Keigo Morishita during his interview in May 2, 2010

Keigo Morishita, a true Arakitoryo (pioneer) of the Tenrikyo faith, was interviewed by Seiichiro Nishi (head of publications, Tenrikyo Young Men’s Association) about his life going into his faith in Tenrikyo and his contributions. This long interview article will be divided into 5 parts. This part will describe about his life before becoming a Tenrikyo missionary.
Read the rest of this entry »

Tenrikyo Online's new website! No more Javascript links!

The Tenrikyo Newsletter Online has just been opened using WordPress. Sources explain that there will be a weekly post and the print newsletter will be released quarterly. So far I see about 45 blog posts, all in English, but all which don’t seem to allow for comments.  It seems that the Tenrikyo organization is still conservative to manage ability for viewers to provide feed back, but it could also mean that they are trying to avoid spam bots, an issue TR is no stranger to.

The old Tenrikyo Online website, but its newest article is March of this year!

I’m very surprised that I have not known about this website when its very first post was made in December of 2009. Even, more weird, the old Tenrikyo Online website is still being updated.  I wonder why they didn’t shut one down and let the new one flourish.

Anyway, TR could use another accessible source of Tenrikyo news!  We’ll be following this for news!

For those who don’t know of the old website, see the photo on the right.

Kawaramachi Daikyokai in Kyoto (Image source: blogs.yahoo.co.jp/rhbrw346/)

Presenting some inside info that has trickled in the TR newsroom:

Tenri Cultural Institute of New York (TCI) has already held two benefit concerts to help raise funds for earthquake and tsunami victims on March 11 and 27.

TCI is slated to hold a total of six benefit concerts falling into two categories: those organized by TCI and performing arts directors and curators and those organized by artists who will be using the TCI performing arts space free of charge.

Proceeds of concerts organized by TCI will go to the relief fund set up by Church Headquarters while those organized by artists will be split among various organizations including the Red Cross.

Future concerts are scheduled for April 9, April 17, April 22, and May 7.

Tenri Japanese Language School of Hong Kong has been selling pork soup, yakisoba, takoyaki, and other foods in addition to Japanese-Chinese dictionaries to raise funds for disaster relief.

The language school also plans to hold a charity bazaar on April 2. Proceeds will go to the Red Cross.

As of March 18, Tenrikyo Mission Headquarters in Taiwan collected roughly 500,000 Taiwan Dollars (or 16,965 USD) for disaster relief. The Taiwan Disaster Relief Hinokishin Corps had an emergency meeting on March 11 and decided to send two officers, one in late March and one in April to determine the feasibility of their wish to send a unit comprising at least 10 members for a span of 10 days to an affected region in the near future.

Finally, Rev. Yoshitaro Fukaya of Kawaramachi Daikyokai has announced the newly built followers dormitory (tsumesho) that had been under construction over the last year or so would not be immediately open to Kawaramachi followers as originally scheduled but will be used instead to accommodate 400 displaced victims of the Tohoku earthquake/tsunamis. In addition, the grand church in Kyoto also plans to free up 40 followers’ residential units to accommodate 40 displaced families.

English Arakitoryo, 2011 issue

The 2011 English edition of Arakitoryo recently came out and it contains a special feature detailing some Young Men’s Association (Seinenkai) activities in South Korea. We at Tenrikyo Resource have decided to pick it up here as well. Hit the jump for the entire article.

Read the rest of this entry »

Offering two March 28 news updates here:

The Saitama Diocese Disaster Relief Hinokishin Corps has been dispatched to affected areas between March 20 and 31. Members are helping distribute water in Kesennuma City, Miyagi Prefecture, where many areas are still without running water. (To Japanese article: 災救隊 気仙沼市で給水活動(3月28日記))

The Toyama Diocese Disaster Relief Hinokishin Corps has been dispatched to affected areas between March 26 and 30. Corps members are serving pork soup at evacuation centers throughout Rikuzentakata City, Iwate Prefecture.

On the 26th, they served 300 dinners at the multiathletic facility Sun Village Takata. On the 27th, they served 500 lunches at Kojuen Special Nursing Home. (To Japanese article: 災救隊 陸前高田市で炊き出し(3月28日記))

(By TR Translation Staff)

• Link to related video

Website front page on Mar. 20, 2011.

The Tenrikyo Mission Headquarters in America website has been updated.  I cannot say when was the website had changed; however, I noticed the change after the announcement that donations to the Tenrikyo Church Headquarters’ efforts to help those who suffered from the earthquake in Japan were being accepted. I got curious and researched the history of this website. Read the rest of this entry »

The following is a March 23 update on the water trucks dispatched on March 16 and Disaster Relief Hinokishin Corps members’ subsequent efforts distributing water in areas affected by the March 11 earthquakes and tsunamis.

Ten members of Oyasato Diocese’s Disaster Relief Hinokishin Corps left Tenri City on March 16 to deliver water trucks to Fukushima and Miyagi prefectures. The unit made a stop at Niigata Diocese Office in Niigata City, where members of Niigata Diocese’s Disaster Relief Corps took over.

Three water trucks designated as emergency vehicles arrived at the Miyagi Diocese Office in Sendai City at 4:00 p.m. on March 17. Niigata Diocese Disaster Relief Hinokishin Corps members met with Sendai Waterworks Department to determine the areas where water distribution was most urgently needed.

Also on the afternoon of March 17, two other water trucks arrived in Fukushima Prefecture to deliver water in response to a request from Fukushima Medical University Hospital.

Disaster Relief Hinokishin Corps members set out early the next morning on March 18 and stationed themselves in Senpo Bunkyokai in Shikahoncho, Sendai City. By 9:30 a.m., when they reached Midorigaoka, which is in an upland area approximately 500 meters away from the church, 120 people had already lined up for water. The team then distributed water to residential districts throughout Midorigaoka. Evacuees seeking water came in a continuous stream when the team cooperated with a local volunteer center in Matsuyama-machi.

Meanwhile, Miyagi Diocese Disaster Relief Hinokishin Corps members surveyed the Pacific coastline that suffered extensive damage from the tsunami. They went to get a firmer grasp on which areas required water trucks after having met with government agencies. Among the areas they visited was Yamamoto-cho near the border with Fukushima Prefecture, where a third of the town was devastated by tsunami flooding.

On March 19, in addition to distributing water in the same districts they did the day before, Niigata Diocese Disaster Relief Hinokishin Corps sent a water truck to Yamamoto-cho. They helped distribute water in four areas that remained out of the reach of government agencies.

On the afternoon of the same day, two more water trucks arrived at Miyagi Diocese Office. The Niigata Diocese Disaster Relief Hinokishin Corps took five water trucks to the areas previously surveyed by the Miyagi-based Hinokishin Corps. Water was also distributed at a community center housing 50 evacuees in Tagajo City.

A total of 121 members of the Niigata Diocese Disaster Relief Hinokishin Corps helped distribute approximately 5,6525 L or 14,932 gallons of water for five days until March 22. The Tochigi Diocese Hinokishin Corps is scheduled to take over between March 23 and 28.

The Saitama Diocese Office Hinokishin Corps left for Iwate Prefecture on March 20. They are scheduled to distribute water in affected areas until March 31.

(By TR Translation Staff. To Japanese article: 災救隊　宮城・福島へ(3月23日記)