Friday, March 4, 2022

Praying for our World

In 1996 I studied abroad (here with some of my fellow students) in Japan for a semester in college.


During a break from the college in Tokyo, I visited the city of Hiroshima to better understand the effects of war and the devastating atomic bomb. This is the statue of Mother and Children in the Storm.


On the right is the one structure that is left as a reminder after the bomb hit, immediately killing an estimated 80,000 people.


It's called Genbaku Dome (Atomic Bomb Dome).


A sampling of some of the millions of origami cranes that are made and left at this Memorial for Peace.


Ten years later, on a visit to a good friend from Hawai'i, we went to the Pearl Harbor Memorial. 


The USS Arizona, where 1,177 men died, can still be seen sunk under the water here.


After seeing these old photos, I am reminded again of the terrible devastation of war from our past and the need to pray for our world today.