It feels like I’m deserting the team but there are so many people coming up for Golden Week that I won’t be needed. Riding with Aki and Yoshi back to Osaka in the empty Toyota Hi Ace (full size van), I see the countryside I’d been missing since I’ve been doing so much driving myself. Mild, misty morning and I see a house that is just perfect with the layered architecture, in a setting of tall trees and the just-so garden but neither I nor my camera are fast enough to snap.
Now I know it's kph instead of mph, but 120 still seems fast (especially when the posted limit is 80--but no one seems to care about that). Southbound on the Tohoku (East-north) Expressway to Fukushima (the city, not the power plant which is almost 50 km east on the coast), then west on the Ban-etsu expressway through the mountains, taking a break at the rest/gas stop with a view of the Bandai Mountain ski area.
Then at Niigata, south along the west coast gazing at the “Japanese Alps” off our left. A glimpse of a bullet train between the rice fields and the snowy peaks. After Joetsu where the expressway to Nagano takes off to our left, the coast becomes steeper and we pass through a series of tunnels, then on a section where the road is on causeways built over the water. Aki and Yoshi say the English translation of this famous scenic view is “mother and father don’t know.” So figure that one out. A 25-variety talking video screen coffee dispensing machine. Starbucks--look out!
As we approach Kyoto and Osaka it’s dark and pouring rain and it doesn’t seem like the guys are slowing down much. I get nervous but it’s interesting to note the way the Japanese have focused on highway safety: Two-lane highways have curb blocks and plastic stanchions dividing the lanes. Here on the multilane expressways, lots of reflectors, blinking LED lights, and the high curving sound walls with strobe lights make it seem like a video game.
Makes me wonder which came first—the highway design or the video game design. Into Osaka and what seems like an unusually winding route to the Huddlestons’. Now 11:00 pm, rain a little lighter, and a typical Japanese scene: people riding bicycles with umbrellas in the rain. Gavin picks me up and the guys take off for the train station after last minute hugs.
I hope the rain hasn’t dampened the spirits of the team back at the dojo. What will I put in my blogs now? About how believers from all over Japan and the USA have been coming to work with the team because they hear how we’re touching lives with a headquarters staff of only one—Jennifer? About how we’re establishing relationships with key people in the neighborhoods? About how we’re brainstorming how to give “heart care” after the physical care is not so much needed? About how God has kept us from injuries and flat tires?
What does God have in mind for these people who have gone through so much? For their communities? For this country? Can God turn tragedy into an opportunity for believers to break through deeply rooted cultural barriers and share God’s love?
I know that just as the victims will never forget the horror they witnessed, I will never forget their faces. I hope you will never forget that this country that appears to have no hunger for the “good news,” needs it as much as any place on earth.
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