The City That Disappeared

Hello again, everyone!  I'm back from my second trip as a volunteer worker in Ishinomaki.  While I was there, I realized that I had forgotten something very important in my last blog post.  Honestly, I'm kind of ashamed and baffled that I forgot it since it can only be described as unforgettable (although, I was pretty rushed when I was writing my last post).

On the day that I left Ishinomaki for my first trip, we took a detour with Andrew, the man who runs the Samaritan's Purse base, to an evacuation center in a city called Minami Sanriku so that we could bring them fresh vegetables and clothes.

Minami Sanriku is one of the cities that, after the earthquake and tsunami, has been essentially wiped off the map.  Seeing this utter destruction was very hard and pictures alone can't convey the seriousness of it.  It looked like a war had happened there.

I went back to Minami Sanriku on my second trip, which I returned from last week.  By now, a number of people have moved out of the evacuation center (really just the local middle school's gymnasium) and into temporary housing facilities.  We delivered fresh produce and some meat to the roughly 50 families living there (again, this was Andrew's idea).  It wasn't much, but I think that they really appreciated it.  Afterwards, we went to the same evacuation center and sang some hymns (in Japanese) to the people staying there.  With virtually no Christian population there, not one of them had a clue what we were singing about, but I think that it was a comfort for them.  At the very least, it was something to break up the boredom of the day.

I'm writing about Minami Sanriku partially to convey the seriousness of the situation here in Japan and partially to help get over it myself.  Going there was upsetting for me, and I think that posting these pictures and telling people about it can help me.  Thank you for reading!  My ability to access the internet is a bit shaky right now, so this may be my last post until I return to the US.

 The evacuation center

This fishing boat is in a ditch half way up the mountainside

Ishinomaki Day 6 and Beyond

After such an eventful day on Sunday, the next day passed like a blur, so this post will be short.  I spent time sweeping the mud off of a sidewalk before the entire team got together to go all-out in mudding out a man's house.  We worked for at least four hours shoveling and hauling mud out and not much else.  But we got a lot done and were glad to put in a good day's work.

The day after that, we packed up and left for the eight hour ride back.  That also passed like a blur and before we knew it, we were back in Tokyo where I promptly went to sleep.  Going to Touhoku was really an amazing experience.  It's been exciting, depressing, and exhausting.  It wasn't what I would call "fun," but it was definitely a good thing to have done and I wouldn't want to have spent my summer any other way.

It's been about a month since I got back, and I'm currently doing the last minute preparations for another team.  The teams keep getting bigger with sixteen people for this one.  I'll be in the same area but probably doing different things.  The Mehns are going to America, so I'll be the only one who has had experience with this there.  I'll be gone for the next ten days.  I hope this trip will be as memorable as the first one!  Thank you for reading!

Ishinomaki Day 5

My fifth day was a Sunday, so we decided not to do physical work.  Even though I didn't pick up a shovel or even put on my boots that day, it was the most memorable and rewarding of all the time I spent working in Ishinomaki.

First, we went to Mr. Abe's church, Ishinomaki House of Prayer (Mr. Abe is the man in the video I posted earlier).  The church has about seven members, all of them elderly except for Mr. Abe's son.  Technically, the church doesn't have a pastor: Mr. Abe does everything a pastor does except preach, so he denies that he is one.  For the sermon, they listened to a recording of another preacher.  Afterwards, we had lunch and, in typical Japanese style, they were extremely gracious hosts.

After lunch, a non-Christian couple showed up.  We had been told that they had lost a son in the tsunami.  I don't think I've ever seen anyone quite like these two.  They looked totally hollow, like shells of the people they were.  They didn't talk, except for basic greetings.  One of the church members talked a little bit about her daughter, who also died in the tsunami.  She talked about how, even though she missed her daughter terribly and it hurt so much, that because they were both Christians, they would see each other again.  Towards the end, she was crying and I was having a hard time not doing the same.

Afterwards, we returned to Shintate and did prayerwalking.  Prayerwalking is exactly what it sounds like:  we would go to a person's house and pray for them.  We also prayed for Shintate in general: for physical healing and rebuilding and for a spiritual awakening and interest in the Gospel.

We split into two groups to pray since Dr. Mehn and Monica were going to deliver a box of clothes to a woman in the neighborhood, Mrs. Iseya.  After a while, my group went back to Mrs. Iseya's house to regroup.  Mr. and Mrs. Iseya, Dr. Mehn, and Monica were all standing outside and when they saw us approach, Mrs. Iseya ran up to me, grabbed my hands and bowed lower than I've ever seen a Japanese person bow.  She went to each of the team members and did this, constantly telling us thank you.  It was a bit surreal, since most Japanese people I've met are fairly reserved and those up north even more so.  But Mrs. Iseya was downright giddy!  She looked like she was holding back tears.  It's a bit difficult to describe in words, but this experience was had a huge impact on me.  It was like seeing the fruit of the work that we had put into the neighborhood finally come out.  That box of clothes was only about $50, but it made such a difference.

It seemed like after that, we ran into a lot of thankful people.  We stopped by the house of Mrs. Komatsu, which we had mudded out, and she happened to be around and thanked us.  We also went to another neighborhood called Watanoha (which means something like "where the waves cross over."  Sadly, that's very accurate), where a team from a Brazilian-Japanese church was working.  This team had worked like machines on one house, completely removing the ruined walls and mudding out the floor in one day.  The couple that lived in the house were very happy, and even thanked our team even though we hadn't worked on it.

When we got back to base, we were really encouraged and touched by what we had been through that day.  And with two days without physical work, we were ready to put in one last hard, long day before going back to Tokyo.

Ishinomaki Day 4

For my fourth day, we took a break from the relief work.  I was on a trip to Yamagata within my trip to Ishinomaki within my trip to Japan.  I felt like I was in the movie Inception.  It was really nice to relax and see northern Japan outside of the disaster zone.  Of course, the effects of the earthquake could still be seen.  Yamagata is usually a bustling city full of people, but when I was there it was practically empty.

 The main bit of sightseeing that we did was at the nearby Kaminoyama Castle.  Actually, the real castle was torn down a long time ago, and the one we visited was a reconstruction with a museum on the inside.  This isn't that surprising: there aren't that many true castles left in Japan (I hope to visit one of them when I go to the Kansai region later this month).  Still, I really liked it.  For some reason, I love the architecture of older Japanese buildings like castles, temples, and shrines.

 There was a bonsai festival going on that day

The tour was really fun!  We got to see a lot of historical artifacts from the area and learned some about how the castle fit into Japan's history.  By the end, we were well-rested and ready to head back to the Samaritan's Purse base.

Ishinomaki Day 3

Once again, people kept snoring, meaning that I was on my third day without a good night's sleep.  I was feeling really worn out, but I knew that I would be getting a break soon, so I tried to work as hard as I could.

That was my first day "mudding out" a house.  When the tsunami flooded houses, it brought lots and lots of mud with it.  This mud was mixed with lots of oil and probably lots of bacteria, too.  This concoction would go under the floorboards of houses and settle down, forming a layer of mud and compacted oil.  It stank and gave off a general feeling of "this stuff is bad."  Our job was to rip up the floorboards of a room and scoop all that junk out.  And the support beams underneath the floor made moving around really tedious.

I helped mud out two rooms from a woman's house.  She had called the city for help in cleaning, but hadn't heard back for months.  Luckily, she knew Mr. Abe, who was working with us.  To be honest, I don't remember much from that day other than it was hot, uncomfortable, hard, yet boring work and by the time I was done, I was really discouraged about just how far away people still are from recovering.  I was really relieved when my team came by early.

You see, Dr. Mehn knew that this kind of work would tire us out and that going for a week with no break wasn't feasible.  So he planned for us to have a bit of a break in the middle with some sightseeing.  We returned to the base early, cleaned ourselves up, and headed to a hotel.  Finally, I was able to get a good night's rest.