Today was the first day of work, and it was everything I was expecting and had been waiting for! We woke up at 6am, had breakfast, and a guy shared a devotional. We then headed to Ishinomaki, about an hour commute. The Tohoku region is the major farming area
Of Japan, so there is rice field after rice field, all surrounded by hills...it reminds me a lot of NE Iowa, actually. We got into Ishinomaki, but didn't see much damage.....until we got on the other side of downtown.
Ishinomaki was arguably the hardest hit by the tsunami, and the earthquake actually sunk the town a meter or two. On the edge of town by the water, the street and area floods twice a day when high tide comes in. Once we got past downtown things changed.. Suddenly there were houses without windows, debris piles everywhere, and many blank lots where houses obviously once stood. I just stared in awe at how much devestation remains after a year of cleanup. Just down the road from the house we worked at was a massive pile of debris (by massive, think about the length of 2 football fields and as high as 2-3 full sized Cat backhoes).
We got to our house an joined 5 marines who were already there working. Our job was "mudding out", which is the process of completely gutting the house, power washing and bleaching it, and then giving it over to the carpenters once it has been completely disinfected (mold is the enemy here). Today's job was to tear down all the drywall...and it took 11 people all day to do. The house, we learned, was only 2 years old before the tsunami destroyed it. I wanted to post a picture on here, but I can't on my iPod... Anyways, the waterline was into the 2nd level, about 10 feet off the ground. The whole time I worked, I just thought about what that day must have been like, and what the homeowner's story is of that day.
After the day was done, we headed back to Tome and ate supper. After supper there was story time where people share things that happened that day. One lady shared about the daughter of the homeowners at the house she was working at. The daughter asked her about God and said she wants to know God. Another person shared how their homeowner was afraid to leave the house because she does not know what happened to her husband. He worked in the shipyard, and called her and told her to run away because the tsunami was there...then the phone went dead and that was it. The woman has 2 daughters but is afraid that if she leaves home she will either lose her daughters or miss her husband of he comes home. There are many sad stories like that, but out of those stories there are positive ones as well. One quote that describes this perfectly was something that got translated for me at the Celebration of Hope on Sunday: "if the earthquake and tsunami had never happened, there is no way I would have went to church and became a believer."
That's all for now. Oh, specific prayer requests today:
-the lady I talked about who is afraid to leave home
-the little girl that wants to know more about God
Thanks!
No comments:
Post a Comment