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