Friday, April 22, 2011 Of Dog Food, Garbage Bags, and Bodies

Ninety-eight percent chance of rain, for the next two days is the forecast. Otani san, Hiroshi Sato, and Bob left for the long drive home. Because of the expected rain, Chad asked for suggestions on an alternate strategy to get things out. Well, first, we got everything out of the vehicles, so we wouldn’t have to do it in the rain. So someone came up with the idea making family size bags of fruit and vegetables, and family size bags of dry food and household items. Quickly there's a long row of

low tables, and all the different produce, and bags, and like 4 people carrying the bags down the line and five people dropping stuff into them, and three people tying and boxing the finished bags; and then the same thing with the dry goods; and pretty soon we had filled three vans with boxes of large bags of stuff. Also boxes of cookstoves and gas cartridges and underwear and collapsible water jugs, etc. We left the clothes behind because of the rain.

Ed and Nan left at mid-morning, as did Joey. Tony and Marsha Woods, from a Baptist church in Sendai stopped by briefly to see what we were doing and how we were doing it.

Here are the teams from the base here in the dojo, where they went, and what they shared at the end of the day:

Beth, Paul, and Ricki went to the rojin home on the Kitikami River to visit the old people and to drop off baked goods the Kansai Christian School kids had made to share with the children that are temporarily staying at that rest home. In the evening, Chad’s father-in-law Paul told about how Chad and Jennifer were newly arrived English teachers when the Kobe quake hit. The rest of the story tells a lot about how and why they responded immediately to the tsunami when everyone advised it was too unsure and risky. Fifteen years ago, when they went to Kobe to volunteer, they were given brooms to sweep around the city hall. After realizing that he was not doing anything for people with real needs, Chad went and got his scooter and brought tools and supplies into the city to help people on his own. This picture is of Chad about to leave four days after the Tohoku quake before Chad and Jennifer's house was taken over by relief supplies and workers.

So when this quake hit, he was ready to bypass the official channels and just pack tents and generator and shovels and lanterns, and food and water and find those areas the news media indicated might need help the most. The problem was they knew there was no gas in Sendai to come home, and there were no metal gas cans left to buy in Japan. Someone in the team hit the wrecking yard and found 8. But it finally came down to steel drums (which are supposed to be legally registered) or plastic jugs which were

clearly illegal. So they took plastic jugs, knowing that if they went through police checkpoints, they would be taken, and they knew they would be going by police checkpoints, and they did, and somehow they got through anyway.

Liz’ group went first to shop for specific needs that people had requested: meat, milk, and yogurt. Chihiro’s friend gave them some dog food. Next a special side trip to visit the parents of Liz’ friend Yuko san. For two weeks Yuko san heard nothing from her parents until they were finally able to tell here they were safe. Liz played a video message that Yuko san had made for them and they were really touched. A son and his family are also living with the parents; the place where he worked had been washed away as had some of his friends.

Chihiro took the team to some people that had asked for dog food and then they saw someone else walking a dog, and they offered them some too. Then Liz’ group went to the Post Office in Kitakamigawa, where they were joined by Beth’s group after their visit to the rojin home. There were people inside the Post Office, but it was closed and no one was in the streets, so Beth took a bag of milk and meat and went to the Obaasan Oikawa's house and knocked on the door and she meant to yell “here’s milk and meat for you,” but what she really said was, “I have my milk and meat.” (We all laughed at that.) And then soon people started coming out after all.

Matt and Chad were in our group of three vans, where we planned to go door to door in the neighborhood bordering the apartments with our food and household bags. Matt and their van set up a couple of blocks away and started knocking door to door with the bags. The good thing was that all that had come of the rain was a fine mist. The bad thing was that no one is living in their first floors, which either need to be gutted or have been gutted, so you kind of have to yell up to the second floor. But even worse, was that from their perspective, what do you make of strange foreigners, carrying garbage bags, yelling and banging on your door. Well, once somebody saw one family get groceries, they got the idea, and they started coming out of their houses. Then they complained that aid groups drop stuff off, but never make it to their houses; so they go when they hear the aid trucks but when they reach the lines everything is gone.

One thing that Matt said that really struck him was seeing a really nice house with a Mercedes in the car port and bars on the windows--the car was

hemmed in so it couldn't float away--"drowned" instead in the muddy water. He reflected on the lengths people had gone to protect their possessions, but how unimportant all those things must seem now that you’re thankful just to be alive and just having your daily needs met. How ones’ perspective changes!

Julie and Hannah were with me in the van below the danchi (the government housing mentioned in previous blogs) and we planned to go door to door, but no sooner had we opened the hatch than people were already lining up. Here after dinner they shared how we ran out of food, with people still in line, so they were giving out toys and books and bubbles, and how amazing that there were so many people in that small area.

We're in the middle of the debriefs in the dojo family area and Maya showed up with homemade pizza and salad her mom had made from scratch.

(In the picture taken a few days later, Maya's mother is talking to Teresa.) Maya shared that that she and the sensei who were not Christians and did not know our God, could see that we did know God, and they could see the powerful way that God was working through us.

Chihiro leaves for architectural school in a day or two. So Beth made us pull out the Kleenexes as she told Chihiro that God had led us to her and her to us, in order to find the people we needed to find and do the things we needed to do. And that she was part of our team and part of our family. Chihiro said that we had given so much to her city even as many other foreigners had evacuated from Japan. That she would never forget the faces of all the various team members who had come up and given so much. And not to forget those who couldn’t come, but were helping pack and plan and support the work in the sending cities: Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto, Tokyo. Chihiro hopes to come back and help rebuild the city after her studies. She told us that people in Ishinomaki have been deeply damaged, but that they won’t talk about it, and that their needs will be for heart help after the physical needs are met. That the important thing is to continue to support them so that they won’t feel alone.

Then Chihiro talked about Aoki san. Remember the guy who wished he had a bicycle so he could bring more things to more people, and we surprised him with one? And every time we show up he’s there to help? That’s Aoki san. Weeks ago Chihiro first saw him methodically walking around with a kind of a stick and a bag and bending over every so often, and they couldn’t figure out what he was doing. Well, on the block facing the main street had been the home improvement store, and when the tsunami washed through it and brought all the other debris through as well, nails, and boards

with nails, littered the area, and Aoki san would spend most of the early days walking around and picking up nails so no one would get hurt and the cars wouldn’t get flats. So Chihiro knew here was a special man with a special heart. (The picture is of Aoki San and Maya.)

This is the story that Aoki san told Chihiro about the day of the Tsunami. Aoki san watched the tsunami come in from his apartment balcony.
And people on roofs and flotsam kept floating by and so many were crying out, “please throw us a rope,” but he had nothing; there was nothing he could do except watch helplessly. And then finally the water receded and the bodies appeared, here and there in the streets, the yards, the playgrounds. And he thought what can I do, and all he could think to do was to take a towel and wipe their faces clean of the mud, and so he did. And for a week the bodies rested there, just where the inrushing sea had left them until a week later the army finally came—and you see, that was the point that Chihiro was trying make that “for a week the old people and the children and all of us had to see those bodies lying there with no one able to attend to them and that’s why we’ll need help for our hearts for a long time.”