Kari Huus is a senior reporter for MSNBC.com. Her recent article on the World Blog entitled, "In Japan, the Mormon network gathers the flock" accurately depicts how we respond to emergencies.


From the article:
The only thing that rivals the Mormon church’s ability to spread the word is its ability to cope with emergencies.

Within 36 hours of the earthquake striking off the coast of Sendai on March 11, the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced that all 638 of its missionaries in the country -- 342 Americans, 216 Japanese and 80 from other nations – were safe.

Within a few days, the church also had accounted for all but about 1,000 of its 125,000 members in Japan.
It is not bragging, it is a simple fact when church leaders claim: 
". . . we can locate any one of 14 million church members in the world in a matter of minutes.”
With that accomplished the Church can move on to other things, like getting missionaries out of range of any possible radiation threat: 
As the threat of radiation emerged, the church network swung into motion again, quickly shifting 72 young evangelists out of harm’s way to missions in Hokkaido in the north and Nagoya in the south of Japan. 
Now the church has shifted into the next phase: relief operations.
Relief efforts are both short and long term. Money is already being funneled into the Japanese Red Cross as well as other efforts. A special team has been dispatched from Church headquarters to Tokyo to start delivering aid.


Mormons are not egotistical when it comes to delivering aid. If other organizations exist and are better equipped to deliver aid, we use them. There is no sense in setting up more.


A new site for Japan will probably go up soon on LDS Charities like it did after the Haiti earthquake. For more information on the Church's Humanitarian Services visit the web site.


Don't forget to donate. It is easy to do online.


Related postings on this blog:
The Church in Japan: Implications for the Earthquake Aftermath
The Church: Facts and Statistics
Counting Members of the Church 



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