Eric, Owen, friends Paul (L.A. friend), Yumiko (another LA friend), and Yasuko are all up in Ishinomaki this week staying at the karate dojo.  Eric said that they have had two very full, good days so far.  Last night they had a BBQ for 300 people.  Owen peeled carrots and onions for quite a while, a trade I hope he will continue to enjoy once he returns home as well!  After that he played at the park with some of the boys from the highrises there.

Today the group spent the morning cleaning up in and around the Be One home – they finished cleaning some new floors that have put in and are excited to hold a worship service there on Sunday.  In the afternoon a group of them went to a home and cleaned the tsunami crud from under the floor boards.  Eric said he spent quite a while talking with and listening to the older man and woman who owned the home.  They were so thankful for the work being done that they could never do.  Owen and Yasko went with others to the park and pulled weeds, gathered trash, and continued friend-making.  Owen told Eric later that it bothered him that the boys he played soccer with didn’t play by the rules of fouls, etc. – Eric said those boys haven’t had a chance to go to YMCA to learn all the good rules.

Yasko shared with me that the flies have been extremely bad this week.  They were really bothering Owen yesterday.  This morning Eric told Owen that it’s not so bad for them because they get to go home from the flies in a few days but the people who live there never get to leave.  That’s why we are all helping – to get rid of the garbage and things that draw the flies.  Later today, Owen said to Yasko, “those flies are nothing!  They don’t bother me!”  Yasko and Owen have decided to stay until Sunday after the worship service and then they will come back by bullet train.  Eric and Paul will stay up until Tuesday, and then drive the car back.

Eric spent several hours tonight meeting with the dojo karate master.  They have a special rapport, and Eric said it was good to listen and let him share some frustrations.  Tomorrow Eric is planning to have those who are willing do a major clean-up of the dojo.  So many people come and stay, and then leave, that it can quite quickly become pretty dirty.  Keeping it clean is one way to help minister to the sensei and show him respect.

Thanks for praying for all involved in this relief work!  There was another substantial aftershock tonight;  there have also been a lot more injuries to relief workers in recent days which reminds me of the special need for covering and prayer.  Tonight I am praying Psalm 91, and Psalm 23, for these workers.  Last Sunday I showed our children the YouTube videos of Owen and Annie from four years ago or so when they had both memorized Psalm 23.  They don’t remember the Psalm so well now, so I’ve challenged the older 3 to work on memorizing it and letting it sink into their hearts.  It has been a good place for me to dwell this week as well in the midst of busy life and forgetting pool days and signing up for the wrong PTA things… “The Lord is MY Shepherd… I shall not want.  He makes me to lie down….”

The last day of my time in Tohoku with the Hawaii counseling team, Dr. Sharon and I spent the day visiting church and neighbor friends from the two years that Eric and I spent there.  It was such a special opportunity – I had prayed over the last months for a chance to visit and was so very thankful for the chance.

Our friend Kazue picked us up at a Sendai train station and from there the rest of the team went on to another appointment.  Before that, however, Dr. George presented Kazue with a money gift from a church in Pennsylvania that asked the donation to be given to tsunami victims in Sendai.  Everyone felt good about the gift going to Kazue.  About ten different families/friends of ours had previously given her a generous gift – she used it to buy necessary household supplies and purchases for her grandson, now about six months old.  But she hadn’t bought any clothes for herself!  The team told her they wanted her to buy some clothes.  It was really fun during a break in our afternoon schedule to run into Uniqlo, a reasonable Japanese clothes store, and help Kazue find some new clothes!  The pink shirt below is one of her purchases – she called it an “Image Change” as she has previously been wearing only grays and blacks.  She looked great!

Kazue drove us down along the coast, and we followed the devastation of the tsunami.  We drove over a railroad crossing in which the heavy ties of the railway were completely washed away…

And  then we passed a train car about a kilometer or more away from the nearest train-line!  That image and the thought of the passengers who might have been on it…

We passed the Kirin beer factory- and were told it used to be the highest producer of beer in the country.  The tsunami split open the tanks, and she said there were people filling bags with beer all around in the streets….

The day after we returned to Sanda, I saw a car parked in a field and I thought, “Oh, they haven’t towed that yet.”  I was so used to seeing smashed cars, trucks, and vans everywhere up in Tohoku.

Kazue said that the fence of tall pine trees below were completely submerged in the tsunami, and killed by the salt water.  Imagine the height of the waves!

And then we got to Kazue’s neighborhood.  It was a relatively new complex, with nice homes relatively close together.  There was a landmark gas station and convenience store on the two corners of the complex.  The gas station is quite smashed up;  the convenience store is no longer to be found anywhere.

When we approached the neighborhood of her house, I was stunned.  I think to date it is the most shocking scene from the tsunami that I have seen.  The whole neighborhood was cleared out. Perhaps one house in a hundred was left standing.

We drove up and parked in front of Kazue’s home (above). There was no home – just the bottom shell that showed the outline of the house.   As Sharon and I got out of the car, Kazue went ahead of us and stood in the place where her front door had been.  Gesturing towards the previous inside of the house, she said in typical Japanese hostess-like fashion, with a serious face, “Please come in.  There isn’t much, and it’s not so clean, but welcome to my home!”  We all cracked up.  This is one of the reasons we love Kazue  – despite a lot of loss the past few months, she has rolled with the punches and has not held on too tightly to any of the “things” in her life.  Instead, she commented several times how thankful she is to know Jesus and the comfort and love that He brings to her.

Across the street from Kazue’s home, was this mangled car.

Near Kazue’s neighborhood was this elementary school.  All the children who were attending school at the time of the tsunami survived;  the children who were sick or absent that day all died.  But those who were in the school were taken up to the roof, where they watched the fury unfold.

We drove to the nearby sea, and over the course of a few minutes saw numerous individuals and families also come to remember, to grieve, to leave memorials for the loved ones who were washed away.  It was quite heart-breaking.

Kazue’s daughter and grandson are staying in one of the temporary shelters the government has built in various places across the prefecture.  They look like tiny little doll houses almost, but I’m sure they are much better than staying with several hundred in a school gym.

One more rather unbelievable image that we passed as we drove on to our former church.  

It was so good to be with dear friends who have gone through so much!  They each went around the table and shared with Sharon and I where they were when the earthquake hit.  They each, and all, confirmed that it was an earthquake like nothing they have ever experienced before.  

For dinner Kazue had organized a wonderful event at a Japanese restaurant with some of the women from our neighborhood who we had loved dearly.  It touched me so deeply to be with these friends!  We laughed, and cried, and shared struggles and joys.  They, too, each shared some of their recent experiences.  This area of Sendai where we had lived missed being hit by the tsunami by just one kilometer, but the earthquake had left significant damage to all of their homes.  Unfortunately, if the homes are not declared unlivable by the government, they do not receive much financial help and several of them are not sure how they will make ends meet to be able to fix up their homes.

My dear friend Kyoko drove us to the Sendai station where we had to say goodbye at the end of the evening to her and Kazue.  It was a bittersweet ending.  Kyoko hugged me, and then suddenly her whole body went limp as she just held onto me for dear life.  Her sobs were quiet but real.  She kept apologizing through her tears, saying that her losses could not compare to that of Kazue’s, so she didn’t have any right to cry so.  I just held on until the sobs stopped.  Her losses have been different, but nonetheless great.  Her husband had left her several years ago;  her children have grown and moved out of the home,  she has been living with her mother who has dimensia, she needs to handle the repairs on their damaged home.  I am so thankful that she shared her burdens with me, that our friendship is sustained across the miles and disasters.

As we laughed through our tears, she told me that for several days after the tsunami she thought Kazue was dead.  Most could not get cell reception (nor recharge their cell phones if they could); she knew that Kazue’s area of Arahama was washed away.  Two days later, she heard a knock on her door – it was Kazue.  She said she nearly fainted. Kazue then interrupted and said, “I had to come over!  I had no clean underwear and you were the only one I could ask to borrow some of your used ones!”  Cheers to good friends.

Unforgettable – unbelievable – are the huge areas of piled trash all over the Tohoku region.  I read that there are 28 years worth of garbage from the one day of tsunami and earthquake.  This number is believable when you see the amounts of piles both collected and still uncollected.

Two of the unfortunate results of this amount of piled garbage and the summer heat are the smell, and the flies.   Already Ishinomaki has quite a reputation in this area.  Because of the large fish markets and factories by the coast that got wiped out by the tsunami, there are still rotting fish buried across the city…. We had to work hard to keep the flies off of the food we were barbequing.  Eric last time took up about 120 cans of insect spray and they were gone quickly.  It threatens to be a growing problem…

The sad, sad things that we find clearing out rubble….

Laundry still hung out to dry since 3/11.

This find gave us a smile….

The areas of Ishinomaki where we are working were hit by the tsunami coming in and for the most part destroying the first floor of most of the homes.  For some houses, this meant totally destroying their home.  For others, they are still living on the second floor while trying to restore somehow their first floor.  Joseph below is standing in front of a house with an obvious water line.

The craziest things are in the craziest places.  So unbelievable.  The front of a car in the kitchen of a small apartment.

Now some happier images…. These girls are awesome!  It was great to work as a team to do jobs that could never be done  by just a few people.

  This was a short-term team from San Diego who had been planning to come to Japan with Asian Access before the tsunami – and kept the plan.  They are a great group of workers, willing to do anything.

The Hawaii team that went to do counseling also did a lot of great manual labor too.  Go Shirley go!  Cleaning gutters….

That afternoon after an almost-full day of work we went to an area of high rises near the Be One base and hung out with the kids and the moms.  These girls were so fun!  Jan from the Hawaii team brought nail polish and sticker decorations.  The moms all loved getting manicures;  but the girls below aren’t allowed to have nailpolish at school.  So we did a few pedis.

On Tuesday we did a barbeque where we had cleaned up the day before.  We had been told by a community leader to prepare for 100 to 150 – I am fairly sure that we gave away at least 300 meals, though its hard to say.  I wished I could have stayed and continued talking with some of our new friends!  Since that evening, I have been emailing two of the girls.

Sharon had a patient from Hawaii make about 75 children’s dresses and outfits for her to bring.  It was so fun to give them away!  Mrs. Baba, below, got these for her granddaughter.  The first day we had gone around the neighborhood to tell people about the bbq and see if they needed work down.  She reluctantly shared the need to take apart two rooms in her first floor that had been tsunami-hit.  A large crew went in the day of the bbq while we were preparing and did an amazing job.  She was so thankful!  As she talked with our friend Yumiko, she shared that her husband left her and their three boys six years ago.  She said what was most difficult after the tsunami was that he never called to see if they were alright.  She cried, and Yumiko prayed for her.  She had found people who really care for her.

One of my favorite images from Ishinomaki is a building.  I don’t think there is anything special or magical about this building, but it is what is represents.  It has been dubbed the “Be One House.”  It is being rented to the Be One group because they had helped the family living there (and then the family did not want to return to this neighborhood).  Little by little it is being fixed up so that at some point a family or others will able to move in more permanently.

But it represents the hearts of lots of Christians – Japanese, Australian, North American… who have been part of a greater vision of loving on the people of Ishinomaki.  A lot of teams and individuals have been part of making a difference in these communities.  People who live around the Be One house are changing.  The next door neighbor is bringing her friend to the Sunday morning worship services.  Neighbors are bringing food to the volunteers and participating in the clean-up process.  There is less of a “victim” mentality and more of a sense of cooperation.  God is at work!

As we ministered out of this home and dispersed across different neighborhoods, I kept thinking of one of my favorite Bible images:  “And the Word became flesh, and moved into the neighborhood “(John 1:14).  What a great privilege to follow the example of Jesus, and be part of these neighborhoods that have seen such trauma and pain.  We are carrying Hope, and can offer it by serving, cleaning, loving, cooking, listening, going.  So thankful for even the few days that I could be part of what God is doing in a desperately needy city.

I have just returned from our time up in Tohoku. It has been a rewarding and emotinally exhausting time. I am so thankful for the opportunity I’ve had to go up and minister — I know there are many across the world who wish they had the opportunity to do so but couldn’t. Thankful for Eric staying back with the kids for these five days so that I could go up with the Hawaii team.

My friend Dr. Sharon is the one who had the vision to bring the counseling team from Hawaii.  She has worked very hard to pull the team together, to respect each member’s expectations, gifts, and hopes, and to listen to God for what the team needs to be doing. Below is her update on our time up in Ishinomaki. I have more to say and write, but little time to do so until things calm down here a bit, so I will let her wonderful email and photos share with you what we – and Jesus – have been about. (Click on the link and it will open as a separate document).
sharon’spdf

We just finished a very very full day of relief work in Ishinomaki.  I spent several hours going through a neighborhood where we had teams working sharing with the residents about a barbeque we are doing tomorrow night, asking if they need help with home projects, and listening  We met the full gamut of responses– one older lady who talked nonstop for 45 minutes about the in-fighting that has been taking place among residents when relief supplies are brought in (“some people lied and received two fans when my family didn’t even get any!”);  to neighbors who would shake our hands and with tears in their eyes thank us for coming.  I will post photos once I am home, but wanted to share very briefly one story from our traveling up to Ishinomaki yesterday:

A highlight of my time so far has been meeting Subaru (on left). He showed me the scars on his body from the tsunami waves and debris, and shared about the death of his 16 year old sister when they were washed out to sea. Their home is gone, his sister girlfriend, and closest friends killed. But he is strong and going on with life. He asked me to share his story so people will never forget Japan. Tomorrow is a memorial at his sister’s high school to remember Mae and the other 20 or 30 killed. Please keep praying for Japan, and for Subaru and his parents. We hope to meet him again on Wednesday when we go to Sendai….

In the onsen last night, a friend Roberta and I were sort of pulled over by a woman who wanted to thank us for coming.  We talked for awhile and then she introduced us to her friend who is living with her now.  Her friend shared that both of her parents were killed in the tsunami.  The sadness is almost too much.  But people are going on.  Thankful for small opportunities to bring encouragement, hope, and love.

We are still recovering from Annie’s first “girlfriend” birthday party yesterday!  Just before she graduated from japanese youchien/kindergarten, her class had done a play taken from last year’s full-feature anime about the life of a bee, called Mitsu Bachi Hachi.  Since February, she has wanted a “bee” themed birthday party, so we had a bee tea party (a week before her real birthday because next weekend is busy with other school/travel events).  This was the first time she has had a birthday party that was for her friends, and not just a few families we are close to who gather to celebrate her.  We invited eight girls, but with moms, some siblings, a dad and an aunt, we had around twenty-five here over the course of the afternoon.  One family ended up staying longer and joined us for a simple spaghetti dinner.

Here are some photos from the day.  The girls made bee mobiles and at the end of the party did a pinata, a first for all the guests.

A few of my favorite things about the party:

1) It was fun to introduce our Japanese friends to some America “tea” kinds of things – a variety of tea sandwiches:  cucumber and mint; tomato and basil and cream cheese; egg salad, and of course peanut butter and jelly; blueberry muffins, fruit, and little cookies. All decorated with little beaded bees (thank you Oriental Trading Company!)  It was incredibly hot, so we went with cold teas – mint and peach iced tea and lemonade.

2) Once every two years, I have a chance to pick my favorite flowers from our own garden to decorate our home – hydrangaeas.  Because we are in the U.S. every other summer, I miss the June blooming during that time.  I love this flower, and the fact that we can celebrate Annie during this time!

3)  “Err on the side of graciousness.”  When we have a hard time deciding who to invite, we try and go with this simple rule.  We hesitated to invite so many girls (realizing that 8 girls in Japan could become twenty-five!), but we are really glad for everyone who came and the chance to have so many in our home.  It was great to have two fellow Asian Access moms and daughters join us and help with the entertaining, and our college friend Grace was a huge help as well.

4)  We have prayed (as have many of you) for God to help Annie develop special friendships the past few years.  She is more reticent in this area, as well as in using Japanese.  The past six months or so have been a season of her making significant friends and developing confidence in her Japanese ability. We thank God for this and for our very special and gifted (almost) seven-year old daughter.

Life has felt very full… my blogging time (kids in bed- late night) has been full the past week with working on some insurance issues, planning events/hotels/homestays for several upcoming teams, looking for flights for a possible trip home, correspondence that we have put on and various other things.  So no blogging time!~

Several have emailed about an aftershock/earthquake that happened up north again – upgraded last night to a 7.1.  Eric has noticed that Japan is no longer headline news on CNN’s homepage…. but yesterday’s quake made it to the top ten.  Jim Peterson, one of our missionary friends who served the first two weeks after the 3/11 quake with Eric up in Sendai, was up in that area when this latest quake occurred.  He wrote this on his blog yesterday:

Last night we stayed at the base camp in Miyako City. Just as we were getting up, around 6:51AM I heard the rumbling begin. We had felt a small aftershock last night as we were getting ready for bed but this morning I distinctly heard it before I felt it. Within a second or two the building began to rattle, and although there wasn’t any violent shaking or large movements the intensity was noticeably stronger than most little aftershocks. And it kept going for quite a while; possibly 30 seconds or so.

In a region where aftershocks are still an almost daily occurrence three and a half months after the big one, people hardly react at all when the trembling begins yet again. The good news is that the frequency and intensity of the aftershocks is clearly decreasing with time. But then every once in a while there is an exception to that pattern; like this morning. Within minutes loud sirens began to wail throughout the city. Then we heard spoken warnings over the public broadcasts system; “We’ve just had a strong earthquake and a tsunami alert has been issued. Do not go anywhere near the water and keep posted for further instructions.” This is the emergency tsunami warning system. Automated steel gates along the coastline begin to close, warnings are sounded and people near the water know enough to quickly get to higher ground.

The sirens and warnings continued to sound for about thirty minutes. We were in a section of the city where no buildings were destroyed but many were partially damaged on March 11. Looking out the window I saw pedestrians, cars, trucks and even public buses coming and going. Surprisingly, just as many were heading toward the water as the other direction. Clearly these people were not too worried. We followed suit and carried on with our morning devotions, although with more than a few extras prayers for the safety of the residents of Miyako. In retrospect, these residents have heard the warning sirens over and over again throughout the years. Nine times out of ten the waves never come, and even when they do it is usually just a matter of water levels rising a few centimeters before going back to normal. Furthermore, they now know what kind of earthquake it takes to create a giant tsunami like the one on March 11, and today’s rattle was clearly not that sort of shake. So perhaps it was only normal for the people in that part of the city to largely ignore the warnings.

And yet being overly cautious has always been the goal of the emergency warning system. Any time there is even a remote chance of a tsunami the sirens sound and the warnings are issued. Steel gates in the seawalls close automatically and schools immediately put into practice all that they have rehearsed in their regular tsunami drills. Signs along the roads all point drivers and pedestrians toward safety. This emergency tsunami warning system is arguably the best in the world. And yet we are surrounded by the incredibly vivid reminders of how that system ultimately failed just three and a half months ago.

Nearly thirty thousand lives were lost on that day. Hundreds of thousands became homeless. Countless others lost their jobs and almost everything that defined “normal” life for them. Now we are being faced with the burning question; “Who is my neighbor?” Or more specifically, are we as individuals, and as a church, prepared to show unconditional love and compassion toward the survivors in the name of Jesus Christ? The good news today is that based on the limited pieces that I’ve witnessed each and every time I’ve come to Tohoku, the clear and bold answer to that question is a resounding “Yes!”

Please keep praying for the people of Japan.  To many here, it is old news as well.  If their lives are not directly affected we notice that Japanese do not talk about the tsunami.  But for those still in the midst of the devastation, daily life continues to be difficult.

I will have my first chance to go up to the Tohoku area since the quake.  I will be joining a team of four counselors from Hawaii who have a burden for doing kokoro no care – heart care.  They are an amazing team and we are blessed to have their expertise and compassion in Japan.  We will be going to Ishinomaki for 4 days, and then they will come down and bless the people in our area, and those who are doing ongoing relief.  If you live in Japan- we are still looking for opportunities for them to minister in the Tokyo/Osaka areas – weekend of July 2nd for Tokyo;  July 9th for Osaka area).  Please contact me if you are interested.  And pray for God to open up the right doors for this team.

Our friends from L.A., Joseph and Yumiko, will also be going up to serve in Ishinomaki for several weeks.  I’m excited to connect with them, and our short-term Asian Access teams doing ongoing ministry as well.

Thanks for praying.  There is still so much need…. Japan is a hard country in which to minister for many reasons, but one is because counseling/psychology is still somewhat taboo.  Everyone wants to seem “fine”, when the reality is that suicide rates have doubled in the past three months and there are huge gaping wounds that cannot just be covered up.  Praying the truths of Isaiah:

“The Spirit of the Lord God has taken control of me!  The Lord has chosen and sent [us] to tell the oppressed the good news, to heal the brokenhearted, and to announce freedom for prisoners and captives.”  Isaiah 61:3

Life has felt incredibly full this week.  We are very thankful for Grace B., our college student who is here working with us, and we are excited as we prepare for three teams coming to Japan this summer and another high school friend Laura who is coming for a few weeks.  We feel really blessed by all that God is doing and how he is bringing people to be part of it.

Tonight I want to share an amazing nine minutes with you- it is worth the watch!  (And not just because Eric is in it).  Healing Hands Int’l sent three or four staff for a week to work up with the Tohoku team where Eric and others were ministering.  This video is hundreds of hours of video that they have done an amazing job condensing and summarizing what God has been doing.  We couldn’t have asked for a better summary of what we are excited about;  how God is using many people and relief funds to touch many lives.  Thanks for giving, for praying, for encouraging us these past few months.  Take a look at what’s going on, and know that it’s worth it all.

HEALING HANDS INTL | JAPAN RELIEF DOCUMENTARY from Franklin Pictures LLC on Vimeo.

We have not heard much for awhile about the radiation situation- I think we have not been paying close enough attention to the news.  We are not alarmists, but realize that there are still long-term ramifications on the affects of the nuclear crisis that is still going on.

A missionary friend who lives in Shizuoaka (about an hour south of Tokyo) just wrote this update in an email update to friends and supporters.  This was new information to us:

The papers today revealed that Green Tea in Shizuoka prefecture is “contaminated with radioactive cesium at a level of 679 becquerels per kilogram, above the permitted maximum of 500 becquerels.”  First alerted about this 1 month ago, the local government  waited until they could do their own testing (and continued to allow the sale of the most valuable first cut green tea) before releasing their results to the public.  42% of the tea produced in Japan comes from our area so this could potentially have a devastating affect on the local economy not to mention the fact that one of my daughters drinks about 2 liters a day of green tea!

2.  AND, the national government just admitted that the nuclear incident was not just a “melt down” but the much more serious “melt through.” They are still not sure (or they aren’t telling us yet)  if or how much radioactive material melted through the containment facility and/or leaked into the ground. REGARDING these two current admissions, we are still, basically, in a safe place in Japan.

*****

Prime Minister Kan has signaled that he is likely to step down in the next month or so due to the Opposition Party and the nuclear reactor problems that continue.  Today thousands of Japanese staged anti-nuclear demonstrations in Tokyo and other cities as radiation apparently continues to leak out.

Discovery News wrote this week:  “Japan has more than doubled its initial estimate of radiation released from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant in the week after the March 11 tsunami, ahead of the launch of an official probe Tuesday.”

LevanjilTV.com news and CNN reports this:  The number of suicides in Japan hit a two-year high in the month of May, according to data released Wednesday by the nation’s authorities.   For the first time in two years, the monthly suicide number topped 3,000 in the month of May, the National Police Agency said.  The report says suicides in Japan totaled 3,281 in May 2011, up nearly 20% from the same month last year.

Keep praying for Japan!  What a crazy, terrible three months this has been for this country.  It may not be in the news too much anymore, but there continues to be many needs, many reasons for us to be here; so many ways to pray.  There is no more important time that I can think of then a time such as this for us to pray to God to come and change hearts, and systems, and this nation.