Today we really began to believe that spring has come to Ishinomaki.  I finally shed my long silk underwear and double wool socks (seriously- today was the first day!) – and Owen is saying he wants to wear short-sleeves tomorrow. We’ll see about that.   The cherry blossoms this week have appeared, and the daffodils are popping up all over.  Here is the beautiful azalea that steals the show in our backyard.  Thankful for God’s gifts of beauty and change in our lives.

We are trying as Be One staff to take off Mondays.  This afternoon Eric and I took our two younger kids driving for several hours,in which they both slept and we documented  in photos some of the areas that still very clearly show the remains of the havoc reaped by the tsunami over a year ago.  I have found myself over the past month almost getting used to the torn-up neighborhoods that surround us.  I don’t want to stop seeing these homes as what they really are — each a tragedy that has left many individuals  without family members and/or homeless.  One of our Ishinomaki friends reminded us yesterday that it is can be painful to hear volunteers celebrating how they have finished cleaning out a house and been able to throw away all the debris… she said, “That was our lives.  That debris was all that my grandmother had in this life.”  I need to keep remembering, or re-remembering.

And we hope, that as time passes here, we will be able to mark the progress in areas where precious homes that were wiped away are slowly being rebuilt;  communities brought back to life.  Here are some photos, and one story that is sadder than words.

From the other side, you can look through the house and see one of the many trash dumps that surround Ishinomaki.

That trash dump — there are just massive amounts of trash being sorted and piled.  Different prefectures have made commitments to come to the worst-hit areas and take trash away to their prefectures to help ease the load.  Be One is making many trash runs each week as they clean out homes, apartments, and yards that are still filled with unusable waste from the tsunami.  We now are required to have permits from the city office for each trash run, which makes it all a bit more complicated.

Then- a very bizarre sight.

This is a 35-foot tall fish-oil tank that was swept over 1000 feet by the tsunami.  Years ago it had been painted to resemble a can of whale meat, and had stood in front of the Kinoya seafood processing company.  It is still where the tsunami dumped it a year ago — between two lanes of busy traffic.  I hope that the city leaves it here as a memorial.

There are still many places around the area with piles of destroyed cars.

What struck me with this apartment building – it was at least two kilometers inland – but even the second floor was destroyed by the waves.

And then the blotches of land where the homes have all been razed – except for one here or there.

And a few more scenes from within a mile or two of our home:

If a 9.0 earthquake and a tsunami were not enough, there were fires caused by gas leaks that swept through communities.  I met a mom in the supermarket the other day whose daughter is in Annie’s class.  Their home was completely obliterated by a fire that followed the tsunami.  This is a school that was destroyed by fire, as well.

And then we drove through the city and began driving along the river that runs its way between the ocean and the city.  This was one of the first places where Eric and his colleagues had gone the week after the tsunami to look for pockets of communities in need of water and supplies.  The photos at that time were horrific.

As we started out the drive, there was nothing to be seen of the tsunami damage from a year ago.  Much had been cleaned up;  it was quite a beautiful drive for awhile.

And then we came to the bridge, that led us over to the school.  This is a small town called Okawa, about four kilometers inland from the sea.  One third of the bridge had been washed away in the tsunami (apparently by a 3-ton fishing boat that struck it hard at that time) – you can see the repairs that have been made;  and then in the following photo what is left of the bridge still remains in the riverbed.

We drove across the bridge, somewhat dreading what we were about to witness.  This is what is left of Okawa Elementary School.

I have written in a previous blog about this school;  most have heard at least parts of the tragedy that marked most of the students and teachers of this Ishinomaki school.

After the most frightening earthquake hit the small school, the 110 students and teachers made their way per protocol out onto the playground of the school, where they lined up.  Parents were sent a message to come and get their children (every year we have had a practice pick-up time like this in the case of an actual emergency;  the students stand in line by class, the teachers have a check-list, and the parents come, go up to the teacher, who checks off the name, and the child goes home with the parent).  On this day, some parents did make it to pick up their children, but most did not.  The tsunami warning came in, saying that a major tsunami was coming.  It is unclear if the teachers thought that they were safe being so far inland, did not want to stray from their perspective of protocol, or didn’t think it was safe to climb the very steep hill behind them.  (Apparently there were numerous pine trees that had fallen down, making the climbing really treacherous).

Most of the staff and children were told to stay in formation on the playground.  They waited out on the freezing cold playground for 55 minutes.Some have said that the staff were arguing during that time about what the best thing to do.  I’m sure none of them could have imagined…. And then the tsunami came.   It first came from the river, and then shortly after that came across the river banks/fields.  It covered almost the entire school, up to the roof, and flooded the whole area.

Only the 26 children whose parents came quickly to pick them up, and the eight children and one male teacher who had attempted to climb the hill were spared.  One little boy shares that the tsunami completely buried him in mud.  He kept calling out for help, and finally another fifth-grader also on the hill came to help him, despite having a broken arm himself.  This boy has done numerous interviews with his father, but tragically his mother, grandfather, and little sister did not survive.

Seventy-five children and ten teachers died on the school grounds.  According to several news reports, one of the male teachers who survived later committed suicide.  As Eric and I were reflecting, he said that if this had happened in the U.S., that teacher would probably have done the speaking circuit.  In Japan, he committed suicide.  It is all too, too sad for words.

Today there are many memorials, flowers, altars in a central location in front of the school.  During our short time there, a number of cars with other visitors came and prayed in front of the altar.  (One humorous side note:  Eric thought it was best that I not take pictures when I got out of the car, so I obliged, until I saw a group of priests with shaved heads  in front of the altar praying and chatting while one of their group stood in the background taking pictures with his iPad2!  I went back to the car and got my camera).

There was a very stunning granite statue of a mother and child, bundled up in wool clothing, that had been commissioned and placed there in October.  It took the artist six months.  At the bottom of the statue it is written, “Ko mamori” – protecting a child.  I stood and stared at it for a long time, watching the wind beat the fish kites that waved around it.

Yesterday was an open classroom at the kids’ school, so both Eric and I had a chance to go and watch our kids and meet different parents (as well as sit through a long and boring PTA meeting!).  It was really encouraging, both in terms of how our kids seem to be adjusting and making friends, and the openness of the moms that I talked to.  I am on the brink of making friends with several of them.  Annie had her first play date earlier this week, and I had a chance to meet that friend’s mom and several others who live in the same area.

In Owen’s class, all the kids had to go up in front of the class and read part of a story aloud with two other members.  I was nervous for Owen – reading in Japanese is not easy.  But he surprised me with the degree of fluency in his reading!  his teacher later asked me if I was impressed and commented on how well he did.

I think that we had sixty or seventy people crammed into the Be One house tonight.  It was insane, and lots of fun.  A team of nine from Osaka drove through the night last night (and they are leaving tomorrow morning) to work up here for the weekend.  They spent the day cleaning out a tsunami-hit apartment, and cleaning out a shed that had been filled with tsunami water but wasn’t opened for a year, until today. Oh, the smells

Most Saturday nights we do a community meal, inviting friends from the community to come in and eat together.  Tonight, several members of the Osaka team prepared and cooked the meal- it was great!  In addition, two men came who own a Japanese noodle factory in Ishinomaki… back in the early days right after the tsunami Be One volunteers were taking bottled water and food around, and they were able to get some needed supplies for their family.  Tonight, they brought a bunch of their yakisoba noodles, and then ran out to the store and bought meat and veggies and made it for us all.  It was great!  I guess that Ishinomaki style in part involves serving cooked eggs on the top.

We also made takoyaki, or octopus dumplings…. There were a bunch of junior and senior high girls who came, and enjoyed helping out with the cooking.

There was M., a sixth grade girl who I sat with for awhile.  I was so happy to meet her because she is going to the same school as Owen and Annie, just a few grades older.  I asked if her mom had come to the open classroom yesterday, and she said no, because her baby brother had just been born two days before (on Olivia’s birthday!).  No way – that is such cool news!  I was excited for her.  I asked if she has other siblings, and then she shared that her four-year old brother had been killed in the tsunami.  I felt the breath go out of me.  I think she was glad that I knew, but I realized that asking about family members in this town is not a “safe” question.

She had come to the party with her aunt, who worked at a volunteer center and lives in a nearby apartment.  I spent a lot of time tonight with these two, and look forward to building a friendship with her family.  Although she said that they have enough clothes for her special little brother, they don’t have a lot of supplies like a car seat, baby stroller, etc.  We are going to see how we can help.  Their home was destroyed, so they are living in an apartment in the downtown area.  Her aunt makes these amazing lunches for kids, in which the different foods make characters.  I’ve asked her to teach me some of her tricks.  Looking forward to building on all of these new friendships.

 

 

The last few days have made me realize that from a vanity point of view, I need to change two things for life up here:  1) my hair style, and 2) my mascara.

For the hairstyle, this picture says it all:

It is windy here most of the time.  Longer side bangs and layers just don’t work.  Need to rethink that.

For the mascara – I have always been, like my mom, an easy cry-er.  If I walk by a wedding going on and don’t know anyone, I am prone to get a little teary-eyed.  The last few days I have had the deep privilege of being invited to share the pain of others, and the tears – and the mascara – have run.  Here are two special new friends that I would like to share with you.

Mr. K.and his wife are moving in with their sister, who lives next door to our temporary home here.  He had asked Eric if a volunteer team could help take out the cement wall that had been splintered by the earthquake yesterday.  On Friday, a team of volunteers from Tokyo came over with Eric and spent the morning take out the wall.  here is Eric working on it:

After we finished, his wife and sister brought out hot coffee and lots of treats.  When I showed up with Ian, they took him inside and played with him while I was outside talking to Mr. K.  He asked me if I’d like to see pictures of his home, and returned shortly after with a file of pre and post tsunami photos.  He and his wife had lived in Onagawa, a coastal town that was pretty completely ravaged by the tsunami.  He showed me photos of his lovely home before the tsunami, and then the approximate place where his home had stood after.  It was heart-breaking;  I could not help but cry.  It is one thing to see a photo of a town filled with wiped-away buildings;  it is another to have a dear, dear man point to a small point on that picture and realize that this destination had been their home in the world.  I was thankful that they had survived, but cannot imagine what that day and those following were like for them.

He so wanted us to see  and to believe how beautiful his town used to be.  I absolutely believed him!

He and his wife have been living in temporary housing for the past year, but at the end of this month will be moving in with his sister, next door to us.  Since Friday, they have been so so kind to us.  Today his wife went to city hall and came over with the one-year daily trash calendar for me, and then walked me to the different trash stations.  They are our first neighbor friends!  I love it that we can help them, but that they can help us as well.

The other areas came about an hour after this, when I was asked to be at a lunch being sponsored by Ssamaritan’s Purse (SP).  They had asked seven or eight home owners where they have been working to come to Be One and meet some of us who are now living in the area.  When had a fun time of making sushi around small tables and sharing together.  Before lunch, I sat with a very beautiful woman, Mrs. T., who owns a massage parlor in one of the hard-hit areas.  SP has finished fixing up her home, but she later shared that she cannot move back yet.  She said that she and her daughter had been home when the tsunami came, and that the memories of the bodies floating by still haunt them.  We were thankful though for the friendships that developed around the table with her — Eric and I need to head over there sometime soon and support her massage business!

During and after lunch, I sat with several other ladies.  One shared that she had her husband spent the five days after the tsunami living in their little car with their toy poodle in the car as well.  They didn’t have food, but managed to survival somehow with what they could.

Mrs. K. was also at this table.  She had come to Japan from Korea twelve years ago, but speaks great Japanese.  She has a japanese husband.  She started to share with me how she frequently has heart palpitations when she gets in the bath. Last week, she had immense pain and thought she was having a heart attack.  She called 911 and was taken by ambulance to the hospital.  The doctor said she was physically completely fine.  She had an MRI done and it came out normal.  She said, “I guess the problems are just in my mind.”

What was hardest for her after the tsunami was her cat. She thought her cat had been washed away in the tsunami, and was really sad.  But then a month or so later her husband saw the cat nearby, but when he called the cat’s name, the cat ran away.  She is haunted by this.  “Why didn’t he come home to us?  Was it so terrible that he lost his mind?  Does he blame us for what happened to him?”

There were no easy answers.  After talking for awhile, we asked if we could pray for her.  I opened my mouth to pray, and the only thing that came out was – sobs.  I was filled with such grief and sadness for Mrs. K.  My Japanese partner ended up praying, and it was incredibly healing for all of us.

Mrs. K and I have talked on the phone several times since then.  She called me on Sunday afternoon to tell me that she had found a church near her weekend job in Sendai that was “like us.” She was quite excited about it.  I pray that she will continue finding healing from the pain she has experienced, and that we will continue to be friends.

I know i need to find some smear-proof mascara.

It’s a privilege to be here.

Yesterday we received some pretty shocking and disappointing news – the land that we have been waiting any day to purchase has fallen through. Over the past two weeks whenever we have checked we have heard that everything was going along smoothly, so it was quite a shock to find out otherwise. Eric called and talked to the owner directly, who implied that the other agricultural landowners of the surrounding area had gotten together and decided to hold out and sell all the land together to a developer in the next year or so… We don’t really know what the real issue is – if he was upset that the price was negotiated so much, if he feels obligation to his neighbors, if he thinks he can get a lot more by waiting? But whatever, it leaves us without land to build a home on! We just heard yesterday that the drawings were nearly complete in the U.S. They will have to be re-done for a different property that has a different shape.
We don’t have a back-up plan at this point. There is another plot of land that we need to consider, but it is long and narrow and could make building a challenge. Since we started our children at the Watanoha schools, we now need to make sure that whether we buy land or find a home that it is within that school district…
We do know that God wants us to pray more. Now that the three kids are starting up school, I really want to begin prayer walking the area. Just this week I have felt more excited about the particular area where God has been calling us. Would you pray with us?
We still need to be out of this home by the end of May – even if the building had gone through it would not have been ready in time for that. So we need a “next” place… and a long-term place.

Olivia started Japanese kindergarten yesterday – it is her third year, but since we are new to the school they wanted her to go through the opening ceremony. It was a strange feeling to be in the auditorium with bunches of little kids and their parents and grandparents and realize that every single face was new to us. All part of starting over. When the school principal gave a speech, she broke down crying in the middle of it as she talked about the great disaster of last year and how hard it has been for everyone there, but that together we will work hard to raise our children well. She said there are 25 families from the temporary shelters sending their children to this youchien…

Today Annie didn’t want to go to school. I know there will continue to be many ups and downs in the path ahead. Hoping that I can please God by living a life of faith and not worry.

Today was a triple hitter!
1) Easter! We had a combined Easter worship and outreach for much of the day with the other Christian organizations and churches working up in this area. Probably 300 or 400 people came – it was a chance for me to get to know many of the other volunteers and staff who’s name I have heard over the past year.
2) Our ministry partner Beth’s big 30th birthday – we had a surprise party last night with friends from the community- it was a neat tribute to hear many share of the impact Beth has made over this past year up here. Over the past two days we had thirty friends give her thirty gerber daisies – it has been fun to honor her.
3) Back to school prep day! The two older kids start school tomorrow, so I have been busy getting all of their school gear ready with names on it. My challenge is figuring out what they need – when we went to the school last week the staff was new and seemed relatively unsure of all that we need, so I have tried to figure it out. Just before dinner Jennifer took us to a family who lives nearby in a temporary home who has a boy Owen’s age. She was really helpful – I plied her with questions and feel a bit more ready.
But Owen was not happy about meeting anyone new, and has been begging me all day to homeschool him… (smile- but no!) it is going to be tough for both of them to start a new school that is so unknown to them; Owen, while usually mild-mannered and easy-going, has had difficulties in the past during times of big transitions. We would SO appreciate your prayers for our kids (and for us) over this next week. Please pray that they will wake up ready for the challenge…. that God will meet them in surprising ways… that this will be a time of discovering for themselves that God is real and present. This morning we ready the Easter story and ended with Jesus’ promise, “I am with you always.” We desire that they will know that Jesus is with them through all of these difficult challenges.

One week and a day ago we moved our family from Sanda!  Much has happened in a week.  Last night I sat on a newly- purchased floor chair in front of a kerosene heater in our newly-moved into home  and tried to write an update using our newly-acquired personal wifi… but the wifi didn’t work.  We are guessing it was because of the typhoon that was passing through.  So I will try at different times today to work on this and get it posted.  It has been quite cold and windy most of this week, with four (I think) fairly significant earthquakes happening on various nights- more and bigger than usual.  A little fanfare for our entrance into Ishinomaki, I guess!

There are three categories that I think of from this past week:  housing; schooling;  and relationships.

Housing:

We moved on Tuesday to a home that I have posted about previously.  Missionary friends up here became friends with a lady who was overseeing the house.  It has been empty for ten years, since her nephew, the apparent owner, suddenly disappeared.  It hadn’t been touched in those ten years!  Various teams of volunteers have worked on the house over the past several weeks, and it is now cozy and a nice home.  Eric worked last night on some of the doors that wouldn’t close due to the earthquake last year – there are still things like that, and some floors that need to be finished, but overall it is looking good!  Here are some pictures.

Teams putting in linoleum flooring upstairs:

The same room after we moved in… we fit snug as six bugs in a rug when we lay out all of our futon bedding:

Our friends Aiko and her daughter Sakiko drove up with us and stayed for several days to help.  Ian became quite attached to Sakiko – and she helped to entertain him while we were cleaning and preparing to move.  Annie really loves the upstairs bedroom because it overlooks a river inlet that has seagulls swimming and playing on it.

Here we are meeting the caretaker of the house, who lives nearby.  We haven’t met all the neighbors yet, but hope to make the rounds this weekend.  Directly behind the home is an older man who has been fixing up the home to move back in sometime later this month from a temporary shelter.  We heard from our friends that he lost his son in the tsunami.

SCHOOLING

We went on Monday to sign up Owen and Annie for their elementary school – it starts this coming Monday.  The elementary school that is nearest to the land that we hope to buy was hit hard by the tsunami, and also became the evacuation place/ home to over 700 people for many months after.  It was the site of different BBQs that we have written about previously.  It looks in sad disrepair now, but the plan is for them to fix it up over the next two years.

So, all the kids who should be going to this school are being bussed to a temporary school about fifteen minutes away in the mountains a bit.  They gather at the school in the morning and ride the buses – this is what Annie and Owen will be doing.  (We were bummed, though, to find out that they need to ride on different buses – they have buses that are staggered by five minutes for each school grade).  Their new temporary school is located on the school grounds of another established school, with the temporary junior high school on the other side of it.

While from the outside the temporary school looks like a long trailer park or something, on the inside the classrooms are quite nice- nicer than their previous elementary school was!

One of the bummers about our visit on Monday was that the staff had changed significantly since Eric’s visit two weeks prior.  In Japan, every few years teachers and staff are rotated to other schools in the same district.  They have no say in the matter – it is a matter of course that they accept.  So the kind principal and staff who had greeted him and been really excited about our coming were no longer there;  in fact, we realized that we were there on April 2nd, the first day on the job for the principal and office staff who were new!  I asked a lot of questions, and didn’t necessarily get clear answers (we still don’t know what time the buses are going to bring the kids home each day!).  I was relieved though to hear that there are no buses the first day, but that we can take them and stay through the second period for the opening ceremony.  It will be helpful for us to get a better picture of the school and the kids’ classes.

Today Eric was out all day with volunteers helping at some jobs, so I took the kids myself and went to visit the only youchien (kindergarten) nearby.  I was rather disappointed in my initial impressions (it is expensive without some of the services that our previous youchien had provided;  the principal didn’t necessary wow me…), but first impressions are often wrong, and I have been reminding myself that we are here to build relationships and if Olivia can make some good friends she will be happy.  This youchien has enfolded many children from another one that was washed away in the tsunami, and also has forty or more kids coming who are living in temporary housing units.  We need to decide on this in the next day or two and order her (very expensive!) uniforms, as well as enroll her before her opening ceremony next Wednesday.  We would love your prayers for this.  There is another smaller youchien but it would mean a ten minute drive each way to the site where that youchien had been before the tsunami, and then she would have to take a bus to the new location that is being shared with another one.

Relationships:

The day that we went to see the school, we picked up Eric’s junior high friend, Y., and one of his friends who is Owen’s age.  They were bored and just looking for something to do, so drove around and did errands with us. I was really touched by his friend K.  While we were driving, he told us his story from a year ago.  He was at his friend’s home, and his mom was driving him home in the car when the tsunami hit.  Their car was picked up and began to be washed away when it slammed into a home, breaking the window of the home and their dash window as well.  They were able to get out of the car and into this stranger’s home, where they made it up the stairs.  They stayed in the home until the next day, when the water eventually receded.  K. told us that he heard his dad’s voice calling him from outside and ran into his dad’s arms.  Until that moment, his family did not know he was safe.  So hard to imagine.

When we dropped the two boys off at their temporary housing units (situated very inconveniently away from just about everything else), the boys enjoyed some soccer together.  I hope we can continue meeting these guys! (i’ve blocked their eyes to protect their identity;  you can see the temporary units in the background).

We have been spending time when we can with our Be One team, getting to know each other better and figuring out how to best function as a team.  Tomorrow we have set aside the day for a team retreat, which will be a great opportunity to deepen our relationships.  Because it is spring break, we have had bunches of volunteers up here since our arrival.  We’ve appreciated their help with our home and the many things that we continue to learn about ministry up here.  There have been a few challenges but we continue to love the Be One spirit that embraces so openly the help of all who desire to come and volunteer.

Our family is doing really well through this past week of transitions.  The kids have had fun playing with the other Be One kids, and have done a really good job in moving locations this past week.  I know that they are not looking forward to starting a new school next week, but haven’t said much about it.  We appreciate your covering all of us in prayer.  I have found God’s grace continuing to carry me through these days. I continue to learn anew that when I set my eyes on Jesus none of the challenges of the day need overwhelm me;  when I set my eyes on the challenges I am prone to become overwhelmed.  I had one small meltdown on the way to move into this home as I suddenly just wanted to be “known” here…to have people helping us move in with whom I have history.  This will come, I know… my role right now is to help our family make new memories and history and start well, trusting in the One who knows each of us by name and has counted every hair on our head.  Yesterday in devotions with our kids we read the children’s Bible of Moses leading them towards the Promised land.  Time after time, God provided just what they needed — just in time.  I am so thankful for God’s daily provisions, for time after time providing what we need.

Last night we had a soup party for friends in the community and volunteers who are up this week. Because it is spring break in many different places, we have a large group of volunteers – over 30 or so. I sat at the party with two women who came for the first time with their families. Their homed were nearly destroyed last year in the tsunami, and they have been living in temporary housing ever since. Unfortunately, the housing is about 30 minutes away, so anytime they want to come back to the area that is familiar they have a long drive. They are so amazed that volunteers would come and help them fix of their homes, what they thought was impossible before. I saw hope in their eyes– that’s a great thing.

This morning after worship, our family went to the local food court for a quick lunch. We ran into one of Eric’s friends from this area. He is in his late 50s, a single man. Eric said when they first began helping him with his house, he was incredibly shy, and he never come out. As volunteers began helping him, he became less reclusive. A neighbor friend commenting on how much he has changed said that it is due to the love of the Be One volunteers. Tomorrow, he is starting a new job and he is so excited…He ran to the liquor section of the grocery store and brought back a huge bottle of sake for us in celebration…(any takers?) Its the first time he has worked in more than a year. Eric was shocked when our friend who I just met today asked my help in finding him a wife! (any takers?) This man is totally different than a year ago! It is a privilege to participate in what God is doing here.