Tohoku Trip 2 Post #6

This morning after the devotion Derick and I said our farewells to Jack, Jason and Joel as they left for meal serving at an evacuation center and headed off to the warehouse to pick up a power hose for the work in Ishinomaki.

The kit consists of the large yellow water container, two wheelbarrows,  a couple of shovels, a couple of brooms, a pry bar, the hose and spray attachments, several buckets and a generator to power everything up.  You can see Derick bringing  the kit for the work our teams will do.

We were given a quick run through of how the kit worked and the generator was fired up to ensure that all was working well.  It was very exciting to be able to receive such quality materials and all of them brand new.  Thank you so much, Samaritan’s Purse.

When I first saw the kit I had wondered if we would be able to get it all in the van or if we would need to use the roof rack.  However, as it turned out,  all of the equipment was able to stow easily in the back of our van.  Now it was off to Ishinomaki to put the equipment into service.

Here is a VERY grateful Mr. Kimura after having stored the equipment in his room.  I am so looking forward to testing it out some time soon and seeing many of our workers able to clean more spaces due to the ability to use such tools.

Tohoku Trip 2 Post #5

With this week being the height of the cherry blossom season and Jason and Jack having come over from Hawaii we felt it would be great to take a little time out for them to see and appreciate some of the beauty of Japan in the midst of the mud and sufferering they were seeing every day.  Our first stop however, was the Samaritan’s Purse warehouse where we had slept on the first trip.

Jason and Jack were suitably impressed with all they saw there.  I got to sharing with a missionary who when he found out we were with YWAM asked if I knew the Hettingers so I told not only did we know them but that their son Joel was only 20 yards away.  It turned out the missionary  had been close to Joel’s family when they were church planting in Toyama City.

While talking with the folks at Samaitans Purse I found out that they had a full power hose kit c omplete with generators.  I had called earlier in the week but they were waiting on the generators coming in.  I would now be able to get one for Mr. Kimura and enable the work to be done quicker and better.

Here is the statue of the famous Samurai who build the Sendai castle.  There is not much left of the building now but a good part of the original wall is still in place  and there is a wonderful view of the city from the castle area.

The Cherry Blossoms were awesome and we had a great day of seeing the castle and enjoying the beauty of the trees.

The next day we were all going to help bring a meal to one of the evacuation centres but now Derick and I had another plan in mind, another mission to accomplish.