Local Churches Collecting Donations for Japan
National organizations like the Red Cross and Salvation Army are already sending to aid to Japan, and now local churches are starting to do the same.
Young adults at White Oak United Methodist Church in Red Bank spent Wednesday night praying and talking about the devastation in Japan.
"I think the most important thing is to let them talk right now," said Rev. Amy Cook. "Just to have them process what they're seeing, and to put that in some type of framework of faith."
Cook says they're not just going to pray, they're going to start collecting money to donate to the United Methodist Committee on Relief, or UMCOR, this Sunday. That money will go to relief teams already in Japan. That's a big relief to White Oak member Noah Holcomb. He works for a Japanese company in Chattanooga.
"The massive scale of what has happened, if we didn't make a response of any kind, didn't pray, and didn't try to do some relief help, what kind of Christians would we be?" said Holcomb.
Soddy Daisy's New Salem Baptist Church is trying to help, too. They've started collecting online monetary donations to send to Baptist Global Response, and could expand that to supply drives if its needed.
"Things are so up in the air, we're waiting until the initial analysis comes back of what's needed, and this is such a huge disaster, it's going to take a while to get those numbers in so that we can make good decisions and smart decisions on the best way to help," said church Pastor Alan Rogers.
