Tohoku Trip 2 Post #4

It snowed that night and Derick & I made it despite the cold.  I woke up fairly early and boiled water to make coffee that my honey had bought for me.  It felt so good.  We headed out and found the right road with a vision of having breakfast at McDonalds in Ishinomaki just outside the high water mark.  We arrived in time at 08:00 only to find out that they were not opening until 10:00 so we had to wait until they opened only to find they were only able to do take out menu.

We called the team and managed to hook up with them as they arrived.  Our job today was clearing mud from a store.  This involved shoveling the mud into bags and carrying it outside.  There was a lot of broken glass in the mud so we had to be careful.

We made it through the day with only one little cut and a good feeling of a job well done.

We could still see how a power hose would enable us to make the final product look even better.

This was a much dirtier kind of work than clearing the parking lots. The Japanese Army  provided volunteers with a hose down at the end of the day!

As we walked the streets we could see there was still much work to be done and some of it needed more than a shovel and wheelbarrow to move the stuff out.

Before we went home Mr. Kimura having heard about my idea of housing teams in Ishinomaki showed us a building with a clean open second floor that he offered for that purpose.  It,  however, did not have any electricity and there was still no way for anyone to get a shower. It was good, though, to see the trust built in relationship that Mr. Kimura would offer us this location.

After returning to the Baptist Church that evening I felt the need for our team to take a break and visit Sendai to enjoy the cherry blossom season which we did the next day.  See the next post…..  Coming soon……..