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.
Thank you, son.
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