In-Be-Tween

In case you are all thinking that recently  all I have been doing  is taking trips to Tohoku I thought that I would post a little about what happened between trips two and three.

Recording the  financial details of running the DTS and making sure all is balanced at the end of the day is one of the main things that has been keeping me busy.  Bob & Carolina have been working alongside  me in keeping things shipshape and humming along.

Unfortunately all the account records are held on my 5 year old second hand computer.  It is good to see, though, that when I am away the finances are in good hands and all is handled with the utmost efficiency.

This week we also took on the project of putting together 120 kitchen kits that contained all the things in the picture.  Staff and students helped Rhonda and me make several many trips to the local 100 yen stores to collect all the needed supplies.

We involved our local neighbourhood English Club mothers and their children in putting these kits together.  It was quite an assembly line and JP, one of the DTS students, was our point person for collating and assembling all 120 of the kits.  You can see many of the mums busy helping.

Each bag also contained a personal note written by both mums,  their kids and the other DTS volunteers.

We managed to get all 120 kits assembled and included a “Manga Messiah” booklet with each pack which we took up to Kamaishi to bless Mr. Oikawa and the community.

Some of the children were very interested in the Messiah manga, reading it and asking to have their own.

Finally the packing was finished and we all gathered together feeling we had all contributed to the lives of those who had been affected by the tidal wave.  The photo we took was printed out the next day and inserted with a message to be put in each bag.  The bags were packed along with other supplies, ready for the next trip to Tohoku.