The Somers-Harris Family

Tohoku Trip 3 Post #3

This picture is a long time coming. As I mentioned in the last post Akifumi (Aki for short) did an English camp with TBC last year where he got to know Louie and Kosuke (Ko for short).  Actually it was during the camp in Taiwan that Aki believed in Jesus.

It was partly because of Aki’s trip to Taiwan that we went to Kamaishi on our first trip.  Between the first and second trip I was able to get the students from TBC to sign the cards you see Aki holding which I was able to give it to him.  I did take the cards – three in all – on the second trip but that was just after Aki and his family had finally found their uncle and grandmother  so it was not a good time to visit the family.  Finally here we are giving the cards to him and what makes it so special is that Louie and Ko who had spent so much time with Aki in Taiwan were able to be there when he received the cards.

We were actually able to meet all of Aki’s family and this led to a day of unexpected events that kind of went as follows.

The family arranged for us to be able to stay right in Kamaishi with a friend of the family.  The lady took in all ten of our team members for both of the nights that we would be in the city.  This was awesome as it saved us over an hour’s commute in the morning and the evening.

After the first night we were actually able to walk to the city volunteer  centre to see what work we would be able to do that day.  During our sharing time that morning Ko shared that before coming to Tohoku he had being trying to decide if he should being his Japanese or his English Bible on the trip.  Having spent quite a bit of time the previous evening hearing the story of the lady who owned the house he  knew why he had brought the Japanese Bible.  He felt he was to give the Bible to her.   I just love it when teenagers feel that God is directing their steps for a reason.

Well, the next change we encountered was that in arriving at the city volunteer centre we discovered that two factors were making it impossible for us to actually volunteer that day.

1. It was Golden Week in Japan which is a week full of holidays.  So many folks had decided to give their holiday week to volunteer that many centres – this one included – were having to turn people away.

2. The Weather !  There was a super strong wind blowing that day which made conditions unsuitable for working in areas where debris was being picked up and blown around.

We spent a little time reading the notes other volunteers had written and then split into two teams.  David & I with the vehicles carried the Kitchen Items from Samaritan’s Purse and the Kitchen Kits sent with so much love from YWAM Tokyo and the English class  back to Mr. Oikawa’s village.  The others walked into Kamaishi on a prayer journey.

The inclement weather however forced them to seek higher ground and from that vantage point they did pray over the city.  We all gathered back at the house in the late afternoon and decided to cook the evening meal for us and the lady and her other guest.  It turned in to a great time of fellowship, praying for healing for both ladies and sharing the gospel in a natural way.

Serving in this way would not have been possible had we been working all day as originally planned.  The Barbeque would not have been a success if we had tried to do it today in the wind instead of yesterday.

So we were able to be thankful for all these details way beyond our control that fit perfectly with the needs we saw and the skills we had to offer.

The following morning before our goodbyes Ko did give the lady the Bible.  We all felt we had been given the privilege of meeting a very special and brave Japanese lady and Ko had a new grandma in Kamaishi.

Tohoku Trip 3 Post #2

We were planning BBQ and the weather was not cooperating –  it rained all night. We had devotions,  set out early and arrived to pick up Akifumi who would be joining us for the day.  Aki is in the middle of this picture right next to Kosuke.  (Aki and Kosuke met each other for the first time last summer when they both attended TBC’s Camp 45) For the past two months Aki has been visiting this village with his mother to look for his missing relatives and only a couple of weeks ago finally located two of them.

The weather cleared up wonderfully for the rest of the day.

Our plan was to involve as many of the local people as possible.

In this picture the ladies all joined in to help with the rice and the salad.  Notice the outside toilets that the people are still using as they do not yet have any running water.

Let me now introduce you to one awesome high school boy.  This lad gets up 30 minutes early EVERY morning and volunteers to clean all of the toilets you see in the last picture.  This is one aspect of Japanese culture that I really like.

Well, with a bit of help and a lot of fun we got the fire going and began to cook the chicken.  It actually became quite hot by the fire but nothing deterred us and the goal was achieved.

Friendships were made –  the chicken tasted so good.

Making the fire was dirty work for some but over all it seemed that they enjoyed every minute of it.

The local young folks were excited to be able to share a meal with us that actually had meat in  it.

One of the apartment buildings had just been renovated about the time of the earthquake and would soon be occupied by folks who were staying in the evacuation centres.  These were the apartments that we had been making kitchen kits for.

Louie was also on the Camp 45  mission trip to Taiwan with Kosuke and Akifumi and had spent a lot of time with him there.  So today was a wonderful time for the three of them to spend together.

When all the food was eaten we talked for awhile and then took this group photo.  It is amazing how friendships can be formed or deepened by sharing a meal together.

As his custom was Mr. Oikawa sat us down and talked together with us as a team.  We took this opportunity to pray for him and the community.  DTS leader David felt he would like to come back and do this again another time.

Mr. Oikawa also cooked some fresh fish for us that they had recently.  It seemed the correct way to eat them is head first then work your way down to  the tail .

Here is Derick demonstrating the right technique.

Tohoku Trip 3 Post #1

The preparation for this trip was intense with all the work needed for the kitchen kits. Added to this was that this time we would do our very first “Takedashi” or community meal for the people in Kamaishi.  This included buying 100 kilos of charcoal, a few less kilos of chicken, containers to hold all of this, salad and all the other things needed to barbeque chicken for about 160 people.  None of this would have been possible without the many folks who participated to make this happen including YWAM Tokyo DTS staff and students who visited the 100 yen stores to accumulate the needed supplies for the kitchen kits and who assisted  Sharayah Burch (staff) who awesomely marinated the chicken.

I was blessed to be joined again by Derick who has now been on all 3 trips. Our team had some new dynamics,  too.   We had David, our Tokyo DTS leader, plus YWAM Kona, Hawai leaders Mike, Jackie and Peter who joined the endeavour to make plans for teams from their base to come in the month to come.   Also Gary from the DTS staff came and brought along his special friend,  Naoko.  Finally, we had the real joy of having Louie and Kosuke from Tokyo Baptist Church.

Ken Ito from TBC arranged for us to have a second vehicle which was VERY needed not just for the number of the team going  but also for the amount of supplies we were needing to carry for the BBQ.  Ken also did the paper work needed to get us free road tolls.  This alone saved us about 40,000 yen on the overall cost of the trip.

Our first night was to be spent with Samaritan’s Purse at their new “Tent City” in Sumita city which is about an hour south of Kamaishi.

We proceeded smoothly but did have a little trouble locating the exact place as it was dark and we had never been there before.  The next day we were able to appreciate the cherry blossoms which were no longer out in Tokyo; they had already come and gone. It was a blessing to see them again.  The long blue box under the tree was storing the 30 boxes of Kitchen supplies that we would take to Kamaishi along with the kits we had already prepared.

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.

Wedding Anniversary

Hello one and all.  It was great for us to have David and Tamara over for supper on their way to church tonight.  We had a special curry made by Jonny and Mary followed by strawberries and cream for dessert.

As it was going to be David & Tamara’s very 1st wedding anniversary we all sat down and watched the video of their wedding and enjoyed the special moments from a year ago.

During the meal, however, we were caught off guard when David asked my help in reading something on a piece of paper from his bag.  After I located my reading glasses and took the paper from David it was VERY obvious what the paper was all about.

Apparently the due date will be January the 8th and we are all sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo very excited.  This is a little late as I am sure everybody on fb and the internet already knows.  However, I did feel like I needed to post something too.

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.

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……..

Tohoku Trip 2 Post #3

Day three begins the same as day two with devotions led by Pastor Noguchi.  However, after that we divided our team leaving Jack, Jason and Joel in Sendai while  Derick and I headed off north to Unosumai (just north of Kamaishi) to deliver the supplies that we saw were needed from visiting there on our first trip.  This picture is very representative of the area nearest the ocean where the waves came in and totally destroyed the city.

Here you can see the cooking pots that we bought in Tokyo along with the water containers we received from Samaritan’s Purse.  The cooking pots were to supplement the one that they had been using which they had found in the river after the tidal wave.  (see post 1 trip 1).  In talking with Mr. Oikawa we found out that they were able to have a bus come once every five days to take them to a public bath and that they still did not have any water supply but were hoping to get a well installed within a week.

In the photo on the right you can see the wood burning cooking stove that they are using outside for their community.   We also gave them a new blue tarp to provide cover from the rain while they were cooking.

Mr. Oikawa was very happy to show me the apartment where they had set up the clothes that had been donated and which I had spent most of my time sorting the first time we visited them.

I also got to meet his wife and daughter (see photo to left with daughter and granddaughter) who had been the main workers in overseeing this part of the project.

I t was special to be able to give a personal donation of baby supplies  from Janet who came with us on the first trip to Tohoku.

Derick and I spent some time talking with Mr. Oikawa and asked him what needs he was aware of that we might be able to help with.  He told us about new families coming in from the evacuation centres to the apartments that had just been renewed who would be needing kitchen supplies as all their personal things had been lost in the disaster.

Things have been improving in the area though.  In my first post I showed you a river bed full of houses that had been carried there by the waves.  Here is the same riverbed now all cleaned up and ready for the rainy season!

Click here for the original picture taken on our first trip two weeks ago.

Derick and I left Unosumai and headed back to Kamaishi.  Next is a picture taken in the port area.  It looks very much like so many other pictures but it means so much more to me now.  I had watched Utube videos of the wave arriving in this port but now I was actually standing on the land where it happened.  When I returned to Tokyo I reviewed the video and the impact was much deeper having walked the street.

We spent most of the remainder of the day driving south back towards Ishinomaki so we could re-join our team.  We stopped in Ofunato and drove through the port area where  huge damage was very evident.   After eating supper we kept heading south.  It became dark and we were not able to fully witness the bay after bay of smashed houses, broken bridges, ruined possessions and destroyed farm land that we passed in the night.  I was very thankful that I could not see everything.  The impact of it all would have been too much for me.

Finally around 10:00  pm or so we ran into a closed road with a detour.  Having followed the arrows for about 45 minutes we arrived back at the same closed road again so decided to call it quits and slept in the car in the parking lot of a hospital.  It was very cold but we were thankful for the car to sleep in.

Tohoku Trip 2 Post #2

Well,  the morning began with devotions at 07:00 led by Pastor Noguchi.  Then we had breakfast and headed out to a local home centre where some of us purchased the needed protective clothing for working in Ishinomaki.

Our first assignment was to clean up a parking lot.  The work was determined by a Mr. Kimura who is the community leader for the area.  That first day gave us opportunity to build trust by carrying out the assignments we were given. We shoveled the mud and debris into wheelbarrows and carted it away to a disposal sight; the larger articles had to be hand carried.

This was pretty hard work but as most of this dirt was dry now it was lighter than the mud we saw in some of the shops in the area.

As we worked I felt that it was sad that we had spent about three hours of  the day just getting to and from the city which meant that we only spent around four hours actually working there.  During the break I mentioned this to the folks from Jhelp that we were working with.  I also felt that they needed a power hose and had seen a kit at the Samaritan’s Purse warehouse where we had stayed on the first trip.  We were getting ideas and seeing ways of making the work go easier to be more of a blessing to Mr. Kimura and the neighbourhood.

Finally the parking lot was cleaned and we felt good, ready for our next assignment.  Yeah! Another parking lot for us to clean.

This one was quite a bit bigger and the distance we had to move the mud and debris was also further, so of course it took us a little longer to complete.

We kept going and finally this parking lot too was looking spick and span.  Our first day’s work was over and we felt tired but happy that our contribution was making a difference.

As you can imagine the work with all the dust was making us a little thirsty.  Some of us were getting a little desperate.  The man drinking is actually the grandson of Pastor Noguchi from the church that we are staying at.  His name is Nao and he lives in Fukuoka (southern Japan).

Mr. Kimura had prepared a poster for all of us to sign so before we left to return to the church we all took time to do so.

Having finished for  the day  we cleaned up our tools and returned them to Mr. Kimura.  Arriving back at the Baptist church in Sendai it felt good to be able to relax a little enjoy a meal and then all go out for a public bath before going to sleep.