Tohoku Trip 4 Post #3

There were two other significant events on our trip but just in case you thought helping out was all work and no play,  here is a picture of our team playing cards in the music room.

Now that we were refreshed…. A major highlight of ministering this time was joining a church from Shizuoka which comes every week to Ishinomaki to cook a meal for over 500 people.  They bring all the food and cooking equipment.  We used all these rice cookers at least twice!

Of course we had to keep our hands off of the food but Hitomi showed us all how to do that one.

Meanwhile Nao-kun made sure that anyone needing remedial discipline was taken care of immediately.  The set up and cooking took way longer than the serving out of the food.  While we prepared all the food in only one place it was distributed in three different locations.

All together we had about 30 volunteers working together for this project.  We made rice and a type of soup that had lots of vegetables and some meat in  it too.

All the vegetables had already been cu;t we just had to boil them in water and stir them from time to time.  It sure looks good!!!!!!

Of course the job is not done until the dishes are washed so we had to take of that, too.

Our team took food in to a Junior High School and served as many people whoi wanted it.  The meal was so good that many came back for seconds.

One of the overseas volunteers was a fully trained Osteopath who met a Japanese Chiropractor who was there to help the evacuees.  The Chiropractor, however, had injured his knee so our friendly   volunteer helped woth his adjustment  so that he could continue to help others.  The Osteopath was later able to assist this man in his work for the day.

We were requested  not to take photos of the people in the school but here is a photo of Jonny serving a meal.

Here are Justin & Kohki filling the styrofoam containers with hot rice ready to be delivered to the other sites.

We had a lot of fun and even got to taste the food from what was left over.  I sure hope we can get to do that one again with the church some time soon.

The second event was cleaning out a house.  This usually involves removing all the waterlogged belongings, broken windows,  doors and other debris from inside the building.

These photos show what we usually find upon arrival at the site.  It is pretty much just as the tidal wave left things.

We then pull everything outside and pile it up, hopefully leaving an empty room for the owner to decide what to repair and what to replace.

Here we are pulling out the debris which includes water soaked drawers of clothes and many other household items.

Meanwhile the pile outside begins to grow and grow.

This house also has about 3 inches of mud on the floor left by the wave that includes lots of stinky three month old fish that were swept out of the fish market the day of disaster.  The fish and mud were also filling the draining ditches alongside the road which we had to clean out later.

Here is a picture of the gunky stuff we find on the floor after we have removed the bigger items from the room.

Finally things are looking relatively clean.  It’s still not ready to be lived in but a definite improvement.

I think the stink of the fish was perhaps the hardest part of this particular house cleaning job.

You can see the house owner looking at her family altar,  one of the few things she wanted to keep from  all of the things we brought out.

Well, the job was over.  It took twenty volunteers just about all day to take care of this building.  There is still a lot more to be done……..

Tohoku Trip 4 Post #2

Here we are with our new friend Zen, a Buddhist priest.  He works very near to the school where we were staying.  We met him because he came into the music room where we spent the night to play the piano.  We didn’t get to hear him play  but spent a lot of time  talking and listening to him tell us his story.  Jonny asked him if we could pray for him.   Zen said yes and we had the great joy of doing so.

We also went to the high place to pray over the city.  That day, however,  it was foggy so we could not see the city at all.  We felt that this was a spiritual reality  for Ishinomaki.  There was something making the area spiritually  foggy so the people could not see or feel the presence and love of God.

As well, we were able to get to one of the first points of impact of the tsunami on land.  We stood right where the waves first came and  declared the awesomeness and faithfulness of our God and His heart of compassion for the people of Ishinomaki.  On our last day we went back to the high point and found that the fog had lifted!!!

A big blessing of these trips is the people you meet along the way.  We worked alongside these folks who also come from Tokyo to help as much as possible wherever needed.

Tohoku Trip 4 Post #1

This trip was different in a couple of ways.   One was that  we took a team member from our church planting team in Nagano Ken, Hitomi Wilson.  She bravely joined  two young guys from TBC, Justin and Kohki, along with, finally, but not least, my son Jonny (which explains the large number of photos that made it into my Facebook account).

Another different aspect of this trip was that we only visited the one location Ishinomaki.  However, some things never change and we did stop at the first highway stop on the Tohoku highway to  get coffee for our first break.

Our first project was cleaning at the Buddhist temple right next to the refugee centre where we moved to our second day.  Several cars had been dumped by the tidal wave on top of the graves and mud covered the ground under the floor of the temple as well as the unused plots. too.

In this picture we are bagging the mud from the unused lots. Removing the cars from the graveyard is going to be very difficult as a large crane is needed and there is not really the room for it there to operate.

One blessing from this day was working with some students from Nagoya. We became good friends and exchanged contact information.

Another new thing on this trip was the local Sukiya store was finally open so after work and a Japanese bath (again provided by the Japanese military)  we headed out for our evening meal.

It was good to feel clean and full, ready for a good night’s sleep.  Tonight would be another first as we would actually be staying in a public school evacuation centre with evacuees.  We shared the music room with other ngo volunteer teams.  Evacuees shared other school rooms, making a private place with the help of cardboard box dividers.  We went to sleep to get ready for an early rise the next day.