Reaching out to Japanese Volunteers

7//14/2012  Early in the morning, we loaded up all our supplies into the van, tents, chairs, snacks, disposable cups, napkins, Christian literature, etc.  Our task today is to serve drinks and refreshments to the volunteers of Magokoro Net, who would be doing the disaster cleaning.  However, we have learned that we have to be flexible with our assignment. We never know for sure what we would be doing until we get there.  Therefore, we also brought along our boots, raincoats, hats, and long sleeve shirts.

We arrived at Ofunata after an hour drive from the Tono base.  We saw many vacant lots that building once stood.  Some badly damage buildings remain in the areas although most have been taken down.  What stood out were the piles and piles of debris that still remain in the areas.  The tsunami had watched away many homes, caused tremendous damage and taken many lives in this area.  We heard the story of a family who lost both the husband and father because they were trying to rescue two Indonesia visitors.  The Indonesian visitors were safe but the father and son did not make it to the top of the mountain.  The last Tohoku Care team was able to minister and comfort the widow.  Each of this vacant lot has a story to tell and we pray that god will send someone after us to listen to their stories and comfort them. 

Throughout the day, we spoke to many volunteers. Many of them are young college students.  Most of them are not Christian nor have they ever met a Christian before today.  We served them, fellowship with them, and shared our stories with them.  We shared with them that we are Christian and we are here to help them and to let them know that God cares about them.  Some of them were receptive and accepted the Manga bible (Comic bible).   We have planted the little seed in them and trust in the Lord that He will continue to send someone along to their lives to water the seeds that we have planted.

We did a Prayer Walk when we had a little down time.  As we walked down the street where all the homes had been destroyed, we prayed that God will heal the land and the souls and send His spirit to renew this area.  This area where we worked also had a Shinto temple that was destroyed during Tsunami.  There was a bell that they recovered from Tsunami.  We saw several people praying and ringing the bell so that their prayers would be answered.  They represented the sheep in this country of Japan who do not know their creator nor their shepherd.  We prayed for them and that God will continue to send missionaries here to witness and share His Gospel.

At the end of the day, we felt we accomplished what we called to do today.  To serve our brothers and sisters (thought they do not yet) and to witness to them the love of Jesus Christ. 

7/14/2012 Evening

We learned this afternoon that our team is to prepare and serve lunch tomorrow for the seniors reside at the temporary shelter.  We quickly put together a menu and went grocery shopping after we returned from Ofunato.  Right after supper the three guys (Jim, DY and Gerald) got to work and chopped up the vegetables.  Christina and Brenda then cooked the entrées and got them ready for tomorrow.  We also gathered supplies for craft activity and the café ministry.  We were full of anticipation of what is awaiting us tomorrow.

The Monument Project

7/11 and 7/12 We have been working on a monument project at Ofunato, Japan.  Ofunato is one of the towns that was devastated by the Tsunami.  Many homes and lives were washed away at this region.  Standing on the ground once stood by a home, our hearts again touched by the loss of these people.  The monument was designed by Mido Harada, a Christian Artist.  The purpose of the monument is to bring the broken community back together.  This project is completely done by volunteers.

It rained all day on 7/11/12.  Despite the rain, we shoveled the rocks and stacked bricks.  Compared to working in the hot sun the previous day, we were thankful for a break from the sun and were glad to be able to work in the rain.

As we worked in this monument project, we witnessed to the community the Love of Christ.  Many passer-bys stopped to greet us and thank the Tohuku Care Team for helping them.  The Tohuku Care Team is an outreach ministry of Southern Baptist formed after the Tsunami.  During this past year, under the leadership and coordination efforts of Gerald and Brenda Burch, the Tohuku Care Team had led more than 50 teams to this Tsunami affected region.  The goal of the Tohuku Care Team  is to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  The presence of the Tohuku Care Team signifies the presence of Christians in the community.  Many of these people have never met a Christian or heard of Jesus Christ.  By developing relationship with the community, each team members are presented unique oppurtunities to witness and to share the love of Jesus Christ with individuals that they met.  Each team that served under the Tohuku Care Ministry built upon the effort of the previous team members and open doors for future teams.

While we sat under tent sharing our meals, we have the opportunity to witness to other volunteers who were also working on this project. We shared with them the difference that Christ made on lives and the gospel of Jesus Christ.   A couple of the volunteers were especially interested to hear our personal testimonies.   We also gave interested individuals a bible to read.   We prayed that the Lord will continue to lead them to receive Him in their hearts.

Attacking The Big Green Wall

7/10/12  Early in the morning, we started our day with breakfast at 6 am, followed by a brief devotion.  Then, we loaded the truck with work equipment and drove to Kirikiri ready for a hard day of work.  It took a little more than an hour to get there.  This is the first time that we drove past the areas devastated by Tsunami. We saw buildings that were damaged and vacant lots where buildings once stood.  In our hearts, we know many lives were taken along with the building.  This area had the highest percentage of lost lives.  We also stopped at the train station, which had been swept away by the tsunami. All that was left was the platform and a short section of track.  The whole station was swept away along with several trains.  The magnitude of loss is hard to grasp even as we physically saw the devastation of the tsunami before our eyes.  We silently prayed that the Lord would comfort many people and bring hope to their hearts. Among the vacant lots and wrecked buildings, we saw thriving vegetable gardens, children returning to school, rebuilding efforts and stores opening up.  Life has return to this region.

We were anticipating cleaning windows and working in the garden of an retirement home today.  The home is situated on top of the hill and was spared by the tsunami.  When we arrived there, suprisingly, our team was being led to the lower part of the hill and was asked to cut down the overgrown brush that was along the side of the stream.  We looked at that big green wall above the stream and wondered how on earth are we going to do this.  We are not professional and we do not have the heavy equipment.

We attacked the green wall bit by bit.  We pulled weeds, raked, and cut down the overgrown bushes.  We sweated under the hot sun and battered the heat.  We kept on going and going.  Amazingly, by the end of the day, the Big Green Wall was tamed and nicely groomed.  We left with a satisfaction of a job well done.  One worker from the retirement home smiled from ear-to-ear. While it was a stretch to call this work disaster relief, it may open doors for future teams to work more closely with the residents.

When we arrived back at the base, we were tired.  We cleaned up the boots and equipment.  We had dinner at a restaurant and then had debriefing for our experience today.  As we reflected on our experience today, although we were dissapponted that had limited oppurtunities to share with anyone, we were able to witness to the staff of the retirement home by our action of love and willingness to help with whatever needed.  We were also able to explain briefly the mission of the team and shared the one scripture that was printed the work truck: "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). We trusted in God that this work that we did today will lead to open doors in the future.

Tono, finally

7/9/12 We left Tokyo and boarded the Bullet Train and headed to Shin-Hanamaki.  It is a 3-hour journey by bullet train or a 6-hour drive.  While we were on the train, we needed to call Gerald Burch to inform him our expected time of arival.  Since my Smart phone is not so smart after all, we basically had to fall back to using public phones.  Jim found out that the public phone on the train does not accept coins.  So, he purchased a phone card.  Then, we found out that those phones on the train cannot call iPhones.   We ended up have to borrow a cell phone from another train passenger.  He was generous to let us use the cell phone and declined any payment for use of his phone.  When we arrived at Shin-Hanamaki, Gerald and Branda Burch were smiling and waiting to welcome us.  We also met Doo Young, who is a missionary from Atlanta, Georgia.   From Shin-Hanamaki, we drove for another hour before we FINALLY arrived at our final destination.

The scenary changed as we traveled from Tokyo to Tono.  Tokyo has many interesting eatery places.  However, it is very crowded with little greenary.  As we traveled to Tono, the sceneary changed from a cityview with highrise and apartments to mountains and rice fields.  The scenary was very beautiful and one can cleary see the hand of God in designing this beautiful world that we live in.

Engine problem, weather condition, waiting and more waiting

On 7/7/2012, after giving our children kisses and hugs, we left them in the hands of their Aunty Karen and Grandma Newville.  With our hearts full of anticipation and excitement, we arrived at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.  Our plane was expected to take off at 1pm to Detroit, and then from Detroit to Haneda, Japan.

However, as we were sitting in the plane waiting for the final plane engine check, we heard the announcement that there was a mild electrical problem that has to be resolved first.  We waited patiently, 30 minutes, 60 minutes, 90 minutes and .......  We were worried that we will miss the connecting flight.  Finally 3 hours later at 4pm, we reboarded plane and we were waiting to take off for the second time.  Then, unexpectantly, the pilot made the announcement that due to weather and wind conditions, the airport has shut down and no plane was allowed to fly or take off, and we were number 28 in line waiting to take off.  At this time, we knew that we would miss our connecting flight to Japan.

There were a few small children in the plane, who were amazinglky behaving so well even though they have waited around all day like us.  They reminded me of my own children and wondered will my children be as patient as these children if they were here with us. 

We sat in the plane for another two hours.  Finally at 6:00pm, the plane plane was ready to take off for the third time and we were saying prayers that there would be no engine problem again.  We finally arrived at Detroit at around 9:30pm Eastern time.  We had to reschedule the connecting flight to Narita, Japan to the next day afternoon.  Delta Airline provided us a room at Best Western, meal tickets and upgraded our seat for the next flight to Economy Comfort with more leg rooms.

7/8/02  Our plane took off on-time today.  Thank God and all your prayers, it was uneventful compared to yesterday. We had three meals served and watched four movies on the plane.  Surprisingly, I did not get air sick as I had anticipated.  (The new Dramamine works good for me, minimum air sickness and non-drowsy compared to the original Dramamine Fomula.  I will definitely continue to take some with me for future traveling.  I may be brave enough to get on a cruise in the future)  Jim, however, experienced some GI issues and did not feel so good.

Twelve-and-a-half hours later, we arrived at Narita, Japan.  The next adventure was to try to get to Tokyo station and get to our hotel, which is about 1 hr away by express train.  We exchanged the JR railpass and got on the Tokyo Express.  The express train ride was a lot rougher than I had imagined.  When we arrived at Tokyo station, I could only describe this place as a living maze with people going in all directions.  We followed the EXIT signs and successfully navigated ourselves out from the maze.  Then we took a TAXI from the station to the hotel.

Wow, what a long two days of traveling and we were totally exhausted.

Tomorrow, we will be traveling to Tono, where the volenteer base is and I will continue to tell you the story.  Please continue to keep us in your prayer.

He must increase, and I must decrease (John 3:30)

As we prepare spiritually for our Mission of Love to Japan, we pray that God will be able to use us to touch and heal His people.  We pray that we can be the empty vessels for God, that our hands will be His hands and our words will be His words.  We pray that He will fill us with His annointing and grace.  As I was praying tonight, I became aware of the unworthiness and sinfullness of our human nature.  We pray that we would decrease and He would increase, so that when we minister to the people of Japan, they will see the face of Jesus through us.

Please join us in our prayer and keep us in your prayers.  Thank you.

It is almost time to go

Seventeen days before time for us to leave.  We are finalizing our plan to Japan.  Gerald, who is the local missionary in Sendai, Japan, has been communicating with us to make sure our travel plans are finalized.  At this time, he has planned for us to help with the tsunami clean up efforts and to assist with the local cafe ministry.  We will take some crafts and games to engage the residents at the temporaray shelters.  We have been practicing the Chicken Dance and the Cha Cha Slide line dance; hopefully, we have a chance to lead the people to dance.

We will do some shopping for suitable clothing and other supplies this weekend.  We pray that we will find what we need at good prices.