We are safe and sound in Japan! The trip was exhausting. We flew out of Minneapolis at 9:30 PM Friday night and arrived at Nakito airport in Tokyo at 5:00 AM Sunday morning (after a brief layover in LA). Sleeping on the plane was near impossible for me, so I was feeling limp coming off the plane. We made it through customs (they threw away all of our beef jerkey because you are not allowed to bring beef from the US into Japan) and exchanged our money. We were picked up by one of the crew after we left customs and drove 90 minutes to "the Tokyo house" owned by the BGC. It felt great to shower and put on fresh clothes. We walked to a local bakery for breakfast and then walked to the train into Tokyo and walked to a church (all in Japanese...Josh and Molly had translators, but I understood nothing). After church we walked back to the train and headed back to the Tokyo house. One of our team , Gil, who grew up in Japan went to another church he was familiar with and had lunch with the pastor, so we were delayed in leaving for our next stop...instead, we walked to the bakery again and had sandwiches. Once Gil returned, we drove 5 hours north to a seminary that housed us for the night (we stopped at a Japanese restaurant for dinner and mastered the use of chopsticks eating noodles, sticky rice, and tempura). Finally arrived at the seminary at 9:30 PM and I was the walking dead! Hit the mat and was out in an instant.
Believe it or not, I woke up at 6:30 AM Monday feeling great. We had breakfast with the team leader from Samaritan's Purse and reloaded all of our belongings in the van and headed to Ishinomaki where we are working on two houses. I helped in New Orleans after Katrina, but this is much worse because everything looks like the neighborhood in New Orleans where the dike failed...many houses are simply gone...many houses are clearly unsalvageable...and the houses that can be saved need to be stripped to their framing. The house I am working on has a water line from the tsunami about 6 1/2 feet up the wall, so all walls need to be torn out but the ceilings are ok. One difference from New Orleans is that the floors also have to be torn out so the sludge from the flooding can be shoveled out. We don't get to swing wild with the crowbars and hammers like we did in New Orleans...the home owners are with us all day and we treat their property with gentle respect. We carefully tear out the drywall and pull all the nails and screws and remove any insulation. Everything goes into bags and is placed on the curb for pickup (much more orderly than New Orleans). After everything is stripped and cleaned, we will bleach all the wood and have everything looking (and smelling) very clean so the electricians and carpenters can come and restore the house. The first day we got there late, were given orientation, and had lunch before we began to work. We finished early so we could go to our permanent lodging - Morigo, a Christian Camp that Samaritan's Purse is running to house relief workers. It is very picturesque. Sitting in hill country, Morigo has a beautiful lake and great scenery. We ended our Monday (which was a national holiday in Japan - Ocean Day) by going out for sushi. I tried everything! But the neatest part was the restaurant itself. Conveyor builts snake around the restaurant carrying a great variety of sushi dishes. When you see one you want, you simply snatch it off the conveyor and eat it. We were allowed up to 10 choices each. I tried tuna, salmon, herring, shrimp, squid, egg and several other things. It was good...but I'm not claiming sushi is my favorite food.
It is now Tuesday morning and I am getting ready to return to Ishinomaki. Pray that we will bless our home owners. They are very gracious and give us snacks all day. I don't know how they keep from weeping as we gut their homes. But I pray that they see hope as they get closer to having a house again. They continue to garden and the outside of many homes have flowers and vegetable gardens even though no one lives there yet.
God bless you all.
Pastor Gary