"For truly, I say to you,if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you." Matthew 17:20
They are known as the Fukushima 50, the workers who stayed behind at the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in order to prevent a meltdown in Japan.
Between 50 and 70 plant engineers -- who have not been identified and are being hailed as heroes -- continue to work around the clock in dangerous conditions, as hundreds of thousands have evacuated the area, fearing a meltdown.
Two of the workers are missing after an explosion and fire at the Unit 4 reactor, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. Workers have since resumed operations, Reuters reports.
"The longer they stay, the more dangerous it becomes for them," Margaret Harding of the American Nuclear Society told CBS News.
The engineers are trying to cool nuclear reactors with seawater, while trying to avoid fires and explosions.
"You are the only ones who can resolve a crisis. Retreat is unthinkable," Japanese Prime Minister Naota Kan told them, the Financial Times reported.
The workers have exposed themselves to high doses of radiation, which could cause cancer.
"These workers, in a few hours, are getting fairly high doses I would say by contemporary standards for worker protection, and that's likely to pose some risks down the line," David Richardson, a professor of epidemiology at the University of North Carolina, told the BBC. He added that the radiation the Fukushima 50 would receive in an hour is the same amount a U.S. nuclear worker would be exposed to over an entire career.
Last Friday's magnitude 9 earthquake and subsequent tsunami have left 11,000 dead or missing.
Last night I happened to catch comedian Steve Harvey and his 2009 comedy routine "Don't Trip, He Ain't Through with Me Yet." This was a line he used throughout his routine, frequently after making some mean comment about another person. Many of his jokes were about the Christian struggle -- his own as well as of others. I laughed at one of his lines, so much so that I copied it down:
"I just ain't that good a Christian yet. I been workng on them commandments, but I ain't that good at it. There are ten of them, you know. I'm good for about six or seven of 'em, but them other three ... I be strugglin' with a lot of them."
He would occasionally include comments to being a Christian, although struggling ... which we all can identify with. At one point, he told the audience about how he had come from nothing ... that he had been in jail ... that he had even been shot.
At the end of his routine, he proudly announced that he had been "cuss-free" throughout the routine, which given the level of humor these days, is a pretty amazing feat! How he ended the night, though, was the most stunning. He talked about all the famous people he has introduced over the years at various award shows. But, he then talked about the ultimate introduction he would love to make one day:
What an amazing and courageous thing to do in Hollywood! The audience's reaction is equally amazing. Go Steve Harvey!!!!
