My Facebook account settings are configured to notify me by email when my friends update their walls. At 7:03 AM Calgary time yesterday I received the Notice of Status Update I had been praying for – an update from our son Robin who is in Japan teaching English for a year. “I’m safe” was all I needed to see. The posts on Robin’s wall from family members and friends sending him love was very touching. It reminded me that we belong to a global family. My life as an entrepreneur took a day off yesterday and I focused instead on how I could help our brothers and sisters in Japan.
Robin is teaching on the island of Goto in southern Japan but we knew he was taking a week off to tour a Canadian friend around parts of Japan including Tokyo and Kyoto. When our sons were in junior high, we traveled to Japan to show them the culture they had been studying in social studies – nothing like being on the ground face-to-face with the culture to make course material come alive.
Robin was captured by the beautiful people, scenery, temples and history of this region of the world. I wasn’t surprised when he told us he had applied to the JET (Japan English Teaching) program when he was completing his Global Development degree at Queens University last year.
We are waiting on word of the fate of the over 1,600 post-university students from around the world who are teaching and traveling in the region. We join the rest of the world and offer our thoughts and condolences to the people of Japan. If you want to be part of the relief effort please contact the following agencies in Canada:
Canadian Red Cross
Save the Children Fund
World Vision
The Humanitarian Coalition
If you are looking for a loved one, please visit Google’s new tool, Person Finder.