Wow,
what a time I've had. Thursday night, the Ellisons, Nate, and I
arrived at the Samaritan's Purse Base Camp in Tome. We drove for
about 6 hours before we got there, and by the time we arrived it was
almost 7pm and dark outside. We had dinner, signed our lives away,
had orientation, and got settled all before 10pm. Sleeping was
interesting. The womens dormitory (and I imagine the mens as well)
has cots for beds, along with a few spare/random futon covers,
camping mats, etc. After we got everything situated, Mary Lou and I
went to bed on our cots and tried to sleep. Mary Lou said she slept,
but I was kept up all night by snoring. The mens dormitory is
separated from the womens with a blue tarp stretched over a wooden
frame.
Sometime
in the dead of night (someone told me later it was around 4:30am), we
had another earthquake. I don't know how strong it was, but it felt
much stronger than my first one at church on Sunday. The earthquake
woke me up, but no one seemed alarmed, so I just tried to calm myself
down and go back to sleep.
Friday
morning, I woke up at 6, had breakfast at 6:30, group devotions at
6:45, and then individual devotions afterwards. We left for our
worksite at 7:30 and arrived at about 8:15 or so. We had lunch at
12:30 – homemade bento boxes made by Samaritan's Purse staff at
4:30am that morning. We began working again after lunch and finally
finished up around 4. We got back to the SP base camp around 5 and
spent some time relaxing before dinner and sharing time at 6:30. We
also said goodbye to the Ellisons as they started the long drive back
to Tokyo. After dinner, we had some free time, during which I took a
long hot shower and spent some time online checking email and
Facebook. Saturday morning was much of the same, except that we were
at a different worksite (and we didn't have an earthquake in the wee
hours of the morning).
Sunday
was different, but first I want to explain what we've been doing at
these “worksites”. They are actually houses that were severely
damaged by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. We have been in one
very specific area so far in Ishinomaki, Miyagi prefecture. The two
houses we've worked in have both been very close to the ocean, less
than a minute walk away from the seawall. The term for what we've
been doing is “mudding out”. Basically, we do demo and cleanup,
getting the houses ready for the carpenter teams that are here with
SP. So far, I've ripped out walls, vacuumed rafters and attics, and
swept up multiple floors that were covered in several inches of dirt
mixed in with random debris. We've found things like pots, cow
statues, bracelets, a skirt, and other things in this dirt. The dirt
we've been working with is mostly dry now; as one of the SP staff
members pointed out, it has had almost 12 months to dry out.
Now,
back to Sunday. At SP, the mud-out teams get Sunday and Monday off.
This is done to accommodate the teams from Japan that can only come
for the day on Saturday but desperately want to help the people here.
Even
though technically we have Sunday off, Nate and I volunteered at a
concert in Ishinomaki. We got to the community center where it was
being held at about 9:20, and worked until 11:30 to set up the place
for the concert, which started at 2. Then we had a mini worship
service with the Bengston family (Lutheran Brethren missionaries),
had lunch, and finished setting up by getting the sound stuff all
ready (I had fun with that part!!). Then, we enjoyed the concert! The
artist performing was named Alfie. She sang a few songs and then
shared her testimony, talked about the Good News, and invited people
to pray a prayer of salvation. Several people responded positively to
her message, and everybody seemed to love the concert itself.
Afterwards, we had refreshments ready, and I was kept busy pouring
drinks for the locals that attended the concert. There were also ski
jackets downstairs for the local people to take if they wanted. Most
of them took something. We helped clean up from the concert and then
had dinner with the Bengstons and another volunteer named Yoshi at a
tonkatsu (pork cutlet) place that was very very yummy, and a great
end to a busy but wonderful day :)
Today
was a day off for us. This morning I skyped with my mom and my little
sister and our homestay student, chatted on facebook with my best
friend from home, and am currently am doing laundry as well :)
Tomorrow
we go back to work, but this week is the “Tohoku Celebration of
Hope with Franklin Graham, so we will be helping out with that later
this week.
I
have to conclude this post, for I feel it is already much too long,
but I will be updating it after the Celebration!
後でお会いしましょう！
See
you later!
~Chloe
