Stories of Survival and Hope

While we were serving in Minamisanriku last week, Kris and I heard some pretty interesting stories from tsunami survivors that I'd like to share.  I hope that reading this stories will help you think of the people, rather than think of the tradegy as a distant event.  And though their stories are sad ones, God is bringing hope to them and many others through the people at MeySen.

Minamisanriku -- hard to believe it used to be a town of 17,000

A man in his sixties (I'm guessing) was helping to unload trucks at the shelter.  He was helping out because he'd rather do that than think about all he'd lost.  His home and workplace were swept away -- I don't know about his family.  I can't imagine how hard it would be for all the refugees -- they have so much time to do nothing but just think.  I know I would have a hard time thinking about the life I'd lost and the people I'd lost and the uncertainty of the future.  Please pray that God would comfort the refugees and help them with these mental struggles.

Judith's (one of my supervisors) brother's friend was a mechanic in the town.  After the big earthquake, his mother and daughter went to check on his mother.  When he saw the tsunami waters coming, the mechanic and one of his workers had just enough time to climb onto the roof of the shop.  Just as he made it to the roof, the tsunami hit and he watched all his other workers get swept away by the waters.  While on the "L"-shaped roof, he and his worker had to run from one side to the other to dodge a boat flying at them.  Only by God's grade were they saved!  The waters rose to within 10 centimenters of the room.  There were no phone lines up so he couldn't reach anyone for help.  Finally Judith's brother was able to get through to the man.  Judith's brother called the police and it took 24 hours for them to be rescued.  Unfortunately his wife and daughter didn't make it to safety :-(  Please pray for this man (whose name I don't even know), that he would be open to the gospel and that God would comfort him through the loss of his home, his work, and his family and friends.

One of the doctors at the hospital in Minamisanriku was able to get some patients onto the roof of the hospital (the 5th story) before the tsunami came, but the rest of the patients were swept away (as the waters rose to the 4th story).  Of those that made it to the roof, 9 died during the night, as they were all stranded in the cold without all the supplies they needed.  Eventually (not sure if it was the next day or a few days later) they were rescued from the roof.  Please pray for these survivors, and for the doctors and nurses working in hospitals throughout the area.  Many have lost their homes and families and still continued to work nonstop to help patients in great need.  Please also pray that people would get the medical attention they need during this time.

There are many more tragic stories out there, but through this tragedy God continues to work and to show Himself to the people of Japan.  I am conintually hearing stories of hope about how the MeySen evangelism team is working to care for people in desperate need and how they are using this opportunity to share the good news of Jesus through words and actions.

For the most part, the big, main shelters in Japan are getting the resources they need through donations.  But many small shelters or refugees still living in broken homes or back-woods places have great needs that are not being met, except for the work being done by the MeySen team.  Mike has been a huge help using the GPS tagging system on his iphone to locate areas of need.  The rest of the team finds out what people in those places need and take it to them.  In most cases, these places would still be in great need if it weren't for the hard work of the MeySen folks.  Mike wrote on his blog about how the team is building a shelter for 20-30 people who were homeless and had no where to live. 

If you haven't checked out Mike's blog yet, you MUST!!!!  You will not be sorry for spending 5 minutes reading about so many amazing things that are happening and that God is doing through Mike and the team.  And if you've made any donations to MeySen, you'll see how they're being used in the places that need it the most.

If you are interested in helping people like those whose stories you read about, please go to http://friendsofmeysen.wordpress.com.

Minamisanriku

On Friday, March 25, Kris and I had the opportunity to help out at a refugee shelter with the evangalism team from MeySen, a few of our fellow teachers, and Mike, a volunteer from  Hawaii who has been doing some GPS tagging to help locate shelters and get them what they need faster (you can read more about him at http://www.michaelthemaven.com/.  We went to Minamisanriku (pronounce Mee-nah-mee San-Ree-koo), a town about 1.5 hours drive north of us on the coast.  Of its population of 17,000, about 10,000 people are missing or dead.  Can you imagine that happening in your home town?  To have so many friends or relatives disappear from your life in an instant?  The thought is almost unimaginable.

When we drove through the town, I just could not believe the scope of the destruction.  The town just looked like a mud field used for dumping waste.  The number of buildings left standing in the main section of town could be counted on one hand.  And those buildings were 4 or more stories tall.  The tsunami had reduced the whole town to sticks, poles, upside down cars and homes, and washed up boats.  It almost seemed unbelieavable that a large town had ever stood where we were driving.  We saw some police walking among the rubble, and we were told they were probably searching for bodies.  It was a grim sight.  You can see for yourself from the pictures and video below.  We took all the pictures as we drove, because we felt that it would be rude for us as Americans to stop the car, get out, and take photos like tourists.

Minami Sanriku before the tsunami (picture not mine)

 

Notice the upside down house
(Picture from Mallory)

 

Those are fishing nets on the building
(Picture from Mallory)





The refuge shelter that we helped out at was housing 5000 people, the majority of the town's survivors.  It was a large gym complex.  Outside the  buding port-a-potties and makeshift toilets (divided by tarps) were set up - you can imagine the smell in those areas.  News trucks, medical trailers, and fire engines were also set up around the building, along with military tents and trucks. 

Inside the complete, each family had a space of about 10 feet by 10 feet that was fenced off by low cardboard.  The shelter had a depressing feel to it!  The shelter was running on a generator, so it had very limited electricty, heat, and running water.

We arrived around 1:00pm (the drive took twice as long because of all the earthquake-induced traffic) and helped in the gym, which had been turned into a donation warehouse.  I was impressed with how organized all the donations where -- and there were literally tons and tons of them.  The whole huge gym was filled with donations.  The shelter was using some of the donations for its 5,000 refugees, but it was also acting as a loading dock for other shelters and aid organizations to come get goods to take to places where they were needed.  We helped to load and unload trucks that afternoon.  Sometimes we would just stand around and wait for 30-40 minutes for a truck to show up and then we would all jump on the assembly line to unload it.  It was a lot of hurry-up-and-wait.  Because everyone wanted to help unload or load truck (given the Japanese work ethic) there were often more people than needed on the assembly line, so it took longer.  It felt like a menial task, becuase we didn't get to see the donations being used or delivered.  I kept praying throughout the day for the people who would be recieving these goods and thanking God for them.  It helped me to remember that what we were doing was bigger than just tossing boxes down a human assembly line.  

Kris carrying a 30 Kg bag of rice (that's 66 pounds!)

We stopped working around 5pm and ate dinner.  The evangelism team lives out of campers, so there were sleeping campers (one for guys and one for girls), a camper full of donations and supplies, and a cooking camper.  The campers were parked along the driveway of the gym complex. 

Some of our campers and vans

The team made us a delicious meal of curry that we ate standing behind the camper.  But even a warm meal couldn't warm me up.  Since Minamisanriku is in the north and a cold front came in that weekend and we were mainly working in the storage area of the shelter that wasn't heated, I was freezing cold for the whole two days we were there.  My upper body wasn't so bad, since I had on a thermal shirt, sweater, fleece, and winter coat, but my legs, toes, face, and ears were cold for two days straight. The constant cold was the hardest part of the trip for me.  When we slept was the only time I was warm because, even though there was no heater running, we those warming hot hands.  I put 5 on my body and that kept me really warm.  I need those warmers since Kris had to sleep in a separate trailer from me (since there was a male trailer and a female trailer) and we couldn't cuddle together for warmth.  I did cuddle up to my friend Bethany -- times of crisis call for instant female bonding lol.

Bethany and Caitlin in our sleeping space

The next day we woke up at 6:30 am for breakfast (SO EARLY) and then went back to the warehouse.  At first it was hard to be excited about serving, since I was cold and tired and there was a lot of time in between trucks.  But after an hour or two, things really began to pick up, which also brought my spirits up because I knew I was being helpful.  Trucks were constantly rolling in for donations and pick-ups.  It was encouraging to see more trucks being loaded than unloaded, because it meant the government was getting their act together and finding ways to destribute the goods to the areas that need them.  Nathan, the leader of the evangalism team, had told us the night before how many shelters were not getting what they needed because the government hadn't yet formalized a process for getting the goods out.  That news was sad to us, so it was good to see more people getting what they needed.

After lunch, I got to go to another shelter in the town to entertain children with a few other teachers and two people from the evangalism team who speak Japaense.  To get to the shelter, we had to drive through more devestation.  We saw one house flipped over, a boat in someone's yard, and one house submerged to the roof in the bay.  What was interesting was that you could tell where the tsunami stopped.  One house might be completely flattened or washed away, the one behind it maybe was crushed on the lower level and missing windows, and the one behind it was pretty much okay.  Can you imagine being in the house that was okay because it was a little higher up on the mountain and watching your neighbors and their homes get washed away?  Can you imagine the survivor's guilt?  I just can't.

The other shelter was in a building that is being made into a nursing home.  It had large windows overlooking the bay, and from the main room you could see the house that had drown in the bay.  It also lacked electricty and heat, and the wooden floors were cold as ice, but being there was the highlight of the trip for me.  We played with about 20 kids between the ages of three in sixteen.  We taught them 4 Corners (a MeySen game), Heads-Up Seven-Up, Red light-yellow light-green light, and Pom Pom Pullaway (another MeySen game).  They loved red light, yellow light, green light.  We also gave them some snacks and gave snacks to some other families there.  We taught the younger kids and the girls the dot game while the older boys made paper airplanes.  They loved that -- they tried to fly them farther than each other and hit each other with them.  It was good to see the kids laugh, yell, and have fun.  Some of the girls showed us how to make origami cranes.  I was also praying for these kids throughout our time with them, that God would provide for them and that He would call them into a relationship with Him through Jesus Christ.

Playing red light, yellow light, green light

When we got back to the other shelter, Kris told me how we was able to go with some of the evangelism team to drop off donations to other shelters and areas that needed them.  As I said, not all of the aid was being destributed well, and Mike and the other members of the evangelism team were able to identify places that really needed help and take donations (made through MeySen and Samaritan's Purse) to these places.  Kris went with the team to Baba Nakayama, a town made up of mostly fishers and farmers.  They went to a "shelter" that was actually a home that 100 people are living in and 200 people are eating at!  They had no electricty, running water, or gasoline.  They hadn't recieved any aid for two weeks (right after the tsunami).  They were eating food they found floating in the water or that they had salvaged from abandoned homes or brought from their own homes.  The road leading up to the shelter had been whiped out, so the military had given them a plow and some gasoline so that the refugees could plow the road themselves (that's right, the refugees were left to do it themselves!).  By the time they had plowed the road and heated enough water for the women to bathe, they were out of gas: They couldn't go anywhere to get supplies or things that they needed.  Nathan tried to get someone to go to the shelter to give them supplies, but the people running the gym shelter basically said, "If they want it enough, they will find a way to get it."  So Nathan and the team took supplies to them. The refugees whatever they could -- food, hygene kits from Samaritan's Purse, water, clothes, and clean underwear (which was in high demand).  The team also brought them gas, so they could go get supplies next time they needed them and so they could heat water and cook.  If MeySen's team hadn't gone to that shelter, who knows how long they would have been waiting for help!  And if Mike hadn't been GPS tagging the area, the team would have never known there was such great need!



The town of Baba Nakayama - completely whiped out
(Picture by Mike)



Kris helps unload the supplies
(Picture by Mike)

Until dinner we continued to help load and unload trucks.  We ate with the team and then packe dup to head back to MeySen.  Our time "in the field" was brief, and I was cold and exhausted form it.  I am SO IMPRESSED by the graciousness and joy with which the whole evangelism team and Mike have served this whole time (since the time of the earthquake).  It is clear that God is using them and that His light is shining through them.  They have endured cold for weeks and sleeping on the floor and long tiring days and did not complain once.  I wish I had been able to maintian their positive attitude that whole time.  I am so thankful that they are there and able to use this opportunity to show God's love and speak the gospel to the Japanese.  They are caring for the poor, tired, and broken, and putting God's love into action.

Serving alongside the Japanese people was also an interesting inter-cultural experience.  The language barrier kept us from really communicating, but even with that, I experienced first hand there work ethic.  They all wanted to help when a truck came in.  And when trucks were not coming in, NO ONE sat around.  They stood and waited, but they didn't sit down (less they look like slackers).  That was very interesting.  A few came up to us to use the English they knew.  Some knew only a few sentences or phrases, and some were able to have short conversations with us.  I really wish that I knew Japanese so I could have spoken with them more.

One member of our team, who has been living here for years and knows Japanese, over heard one man ask another "What are we going to do with all these foreigners?!" To which she responded, "We're just here to help!"  They were quite surprised she understood them and I think embarrassed too.

I do have a funny story from serving.  I was literally laughed at on more than one occassion for being a little girl carring big things.  First, I was helping to load a truck and happened to be the only girl.  Each guy in line took two boxes to carry to the trucky.  When it was my turn, they handed me one box.  I stood there, waiting for the second box and they just looked at me.  All the men in line started laughing because I wanted to carry a second box.  One of them pointed in the direction of the truck and told me to go.  It was funny.  The second time we were also loading a truck and I was carrying two boxes.  One of the men saw me carrying two boxes and he said "Ooooh!" and laughed.  I really must look like a little girl!

The Healing Hand of God

It's easy to see the devastation caused by the earthquake and tsunami.  Just turn on the news or do a google search and you'll see the pictures of towns completely whipped out and piles of rubble where buildings used to stand. Nearly 26,000 people lost their lives or have gone missing and over 260,000 people are living in shelters (as of Thursday according to Earthquake Report).  Many people are hurting -- physically, emotionally, or both.

Yet in the midst of the suffering, I have seen God at work in many ways and have experienced His protection, provision, and presence many times throughout the last week and a half.  The words of Jeremy Camp's song "Healing Hand Of God"  are very fitting to my life at this time.  I would like to share some of the ways I've seen God at work.

God's Protection

That we were in an area that was protected from the worst of the earthquake's damage, from the tsunamis, and from the radiation threats of the nuclear plant are no coincidence.  We prayed for God's protection through Jesus Christ and had many, many other people praying for us as well.  I know it was He who protected us and kept us safe.  But I know God protected us not because of who we are or because we deserved it more than others; rather, He wanted to show Sendai who He is.  I think He allowed MeySen and the surrounding areas to  stand so that the school could act as a base for relief groups and so that the people of the school could use the opportunity to be His ambassadors in a difficult time when people would be more open to hearing about Him.

God was also looking out for our families. If we had been any further south and had to travel through Sendai, we might not have been able to evacuate north to Misawa and could have been in the radiation zone.

God's Provision

Another way I've experienced God is the way he has provided for us.  If we had been living on our own as teachers in Sendai, and hadn't been supported by the MeySen community, I don't know if we could have gotten along.  We would have had to fend for ourselves to get water and food, to contact with our family, and to find out about what was happening with the power plant and tsunamis; which would have been extremely difficult since we don't know the language.  Instead, God placed us in a community where we were taken care of and supported.

God also provided us the opportunity to evacuate to the northern town of Misawa and to take refuge on the Air Force base for a few days, to get away from the nuclear power plant until things go under control. There we were able to shower, sleep, eat, be warm, and feel safe. About 40 teachers and staff from MeySen evacuated to the Misawa Air Force base; the rest remained at MeySen to help with relief efforts. At first that was really hard for me: I felt so undeserving of being taken in and treated so well by others, especially when we really didn't have it so bad where we were in Sendai and i knew there were others who needed this kind of comfort much more than me.  But I began to see that God brought us to Misawa for a reason -- to be a light to the air force members who were our escorts and also to allow us to rest physically, emotionally, and spiritually before going back to Sendai to serve.

As it turned out, the families living on Misawa Air Force base had begun to collect donations for the people in Sendai before we had even arrived.  They had asked the Japanese army if they would take the donations and distribute them, but they would not! Our arrival gave the people at Misawa a connection for distributing 5 truck loads of food, water, clothing, and bedding.

Two people from MeySen drove two of the trucks from Misawa to MeySen, where the people still living and working at MeySen were able to distribute them to the community and around Sendai.  The relief groups that had set up shelter at MeySen were also able to help in the distribution of donations. While half the staff was at Misawa, the people who remained at MeySen were able to use the school as a base for relief groups.  They were also able to take in some families whose homes were not livable and to feed those families.  God used Meysen to provide for those hurting and in need in Sendai.

God's Purpose

I don't think God cased the earthquake and tsunamis to happen.  I don't think it was his desire to have thousands dead, missing, and homeless.  What I do know for certain, is that God is using this bad situation to draw people to Himself and to reveal who He is to the people of Japan.  What the adversary intended for evil, God is using for His good.

At this time, many people in Japan are more open to hearing about God and about having a relationship with him through Jesus.  Across from the Takamori campus at the Japanese high school, the government was distributing water (filling only 2 containers each) to the people in the community since there was no running water.  Since MeySen has a well, we also gave out water to people.  One of the Japanese people standing in line for water talked to one of the people at MeySen for an hour, wanting to know about the God he believed in and if our God was real.  This is a huge deal in Japan, as less than 1% of the people are Christian and people are generally not open to talking about religion or investigating other faiths here.

Another really cool story happened on the 2nd evening after the earthquake.  We were still at MeySen and all the teachers and staff were gathering for a time to pray, worship God, and to thank Him for protecting and providing for us.  The family of one of the Japanese teachers, who were taking shelter at the school, joined us.  She is not Christian, nor is her family, and this is a HUGE deal, because, as I said, the Japanese people are not, in general, open to investigating the Christian faith.  That night, as we worshipped God for being bigger and more real than the 9.0 earthquake, the family watched.  That night, the gospel was shared in Japanese with that family and they were open to hearing the message!  They heard about the love of God and they experienced it in the way the MeySen community cared for them.  Praise God!

Kris and I have also experienced God's presence and purpose in a real way.  We feel truly blessed and thankful that He has called us to Sendai, Japan at this time, so that we can be a part of his plan to bring restoration, redemption, relief, and healing to the people here.  We know for certain that he brought us to this place at this time for a reason.

I am reminded of the account of how God put Esther in the position of queen so that she could intervene for the Jewish people, who were going to be killed.  When Esther was hesitant to speak up for the people, Mordecai reminded her of God's purpose for her (in Esther 4:12):

In the same way, who are Kris and I leave Japan at this time?  No, we will stay here and serve God.  We will help with the relief efforts however we can, we will help get the school ready for the new year, and we will share with our students the power, love, healing, and restoration that a relationship with God through Jesus Christ brings. 

"Don't think that just because you live in the king's house you're the one Jew who will get out of this alive. If you persist in staying silent at a time like this, help and deliverance will arrive for the Jews from someplace else; but you and your family will be wiped out. Who knows? Maybe you were made queen for just such a time as this." 

Who knows?  Maybe we were made teachers in Sendai, Japan for such a time as this. :-)

Earthquake and After: Timeline of Events

Friday, March 11

At 2:46 pm the 9.0 magnitude earthquake hit.  The students were not yet at school, except for a few students in the day care, and everyone at both campuses were okay.  The electricity, gas, water, and phone lines went out immediately.  We were able to send an email from a friend's 3G iphone to my mom in the evening to let her know we were okay.  We surveyed the damage to the school, which we thought at the time to be extensive but in reality it was not.   

One of the classrooms in the Spring Building





This crack in the wall is a result of the earthquake damage.

The tower fell off the Korean bbq place we went to the night before the earthquake.

Damage done to the classroom that will be mine in April.

We spent the night in the school with most of the other teachers from Maruyama, but the aftershocks scared many of us and kept most people from sleeping.  The most we knew about the earthquake was that it was the worst that people working at the school had experienced, there was a tsunami warning, and 30 were dead from a fallen apartment building downtown.  We thought everything would be back up and running in a day or two.

Many of us slept in this classroom so we could all be together

 

Saturday, March 12

We spent the day without power and had to fetch water from the pond in the school to flush the toilets with.  Luckily MeySen has a well so we had plenty of water to drink and they made us food, so we also had plenty to eat.  Six of us formed a cleaning crew and helped clean up each others' apartments.  The worst damage in ours was my laptop screen was cracked and a mirror shattered in our entry way. 

Shattered mirror in our entry way - the worst of the damage to our apartment (thankfully!)

We learned that there had been a tsunami that had wiped out a train from Sendai to Matshushima and also one that had covered the Sendai airport.  We also found out that the earthquake had been the largest in Japan’s recorded history.

But we still had no idea of the extent of the damage. We thought things weren't too bad as we relaxed in the sun and ate the school's supply of ice cream that was melting (though the aftershocks came often and frequently scared me).

Impromptu Ice Cream Party!

But when we walked to city hall to find a rumored phone line for foreigners to call home, we realized how fortunate we were and how God had looked out for us.  We saw people sleeping on tarps on the floor or huddled around heaters in city hall.  We saw people standing in line for food or gas for hours and realized how lucky we were to be part of a community and didn't have to fend for ourselves as foreigners.

Bethany and some of our other friends waited in this line for the grocery store for 3 1/2 hours -- and even then, they were limited to the number of items they could buy.

In the evening we prayed and sang our thanks to God for his protection and provision and for healing and redemption for the people of Japan. The gospel was shared with Japanese people in their language.  Shortly after this time of prayer and worship, the electricity came back on.  Not a coincidence (I am sure) but a sign God was showing to the Japanese people at the worship service, as if to say "Yes, I am the one true God and do have power." Having the electricity back on changed our moods drastically.  Electricity was restored to the Immersion building and lower campus, but not the upper campus or our apartment.  So we slept at the Immersion building again.



Makeshift kitchen in the immersion hall that the staff used to keep us all fed



Sunday, March 13

With the power and one cell phone company working again, we were finally able to call our families. It was a relief to let them know we were safe.  The worst part of the whole ordeal for me had been worrying over my family and not being able to contact them. 

For the first time on Sunday we saw images of the earthquake and tsunami’s destruction via the local newspaper.  No wonder our families had been so worried!  The images we saw were of piles of rubble and sticks where buildings had been and a big boat thrown onto the street by a wave.  We immediately thanked God that we had been spared that destruction – all the buildings in our part of Sendai were still standing.  We also found out that there had been an explosion at a nuclear power plant about 80-90 miles away from us.  I was really nervous about the repercussions of that and what could happen, but didn’t really understand how serious the issue was either.

We brought water from our well to the high school across from the Takamori campus, where the government had been giving out water, because we heard they ran out.  A truck with new water arrived before we did, and they didn’t want to use our well water, so instead we offered it to people who passed by as a source of bathing or cooking water.

In the evening, just before dinner, the principal of the school offered us the opportunity to evacuate to an Air Force Base in Misawa because of the concerns about the nuclear power plant.  We had 2 hours to make our decision, eat dinner, and pack all that we could fit into a carry-on for trip that could take a few days to a few weeks.  I was torn up about the decision, because I felt like MeySen was my home and they had taken such good care of us and I wanted to stay an help; but Kris reminded me that we owed it to our families to go so that they could have peace of mind and so that we would avoid any unnecessary ricks.  (He later told me he wouldn’t have let me not get on the bus for my own safety).  We left the school around 9:00pm.

Monday, March 14

About 40 of us teachers and staff from MeySen arrived at Misawa Air Force Base in Aomora just before dawn and sat on the bus outside the gate for over an hour while we waited to hear our fate.  At first they told us there was nothing they could do to help us; but Miss Lillian, a former high-ranking member of the military and also a MeySen evacuee, would not take no for an answer.  She was able to speak to a commander who welcomed us onto the base.  We were able to shower for the first time in 3 days, ate a good meal, and slept on cots in the gym facility.

We were not allowed to roam freely around the base, but we were able to go to the community center and dining hall when escorted by members of the Air Force.  These escorts became our friends and we had the opportunity to share our faith with them over the few days we were at Misawa.

At the community center we were able to finally make phone calls home and get on the Internet to let people know we were safe.  And I did feel really safe for the first time in a few days.  The three hours of sleep I had when we first got to the base was the best sleep I’d had in the past 3 days combined!

We met together as a group and prayed for the people of Sendai, the families of MeySen, and for God to make good out of the bad and to reveal himself to people there.  After that time of prayer, I saw that being at Misawa was an opportunity for me to rest physically and spiritually so that I would be better able to serve God when it was safe to return to Sendai.  Kris and I agreed that it was by no accident that God brought us to Sendai, Japan at this time for a purpose.

Our sleeping arrangements at Misawa

Tuesday, March 15

Staying on base again, we continued to pray for the people of Japan and for the people in Sendai.  Kris and I continued to feel strengthened in our relationships with God and continued to feel that God brought us to Sendai for a reason beyond just teaching.

While on base, we took advantage of the American food at the café in the community center.  We at pizza every day and I had Starbucks every day.  Really, it felt like a 5-star resort to us.

All of the "evacuees" from MeySen

In the evening we helped to load some huge trucks full of donations that people from the base had collected.  Two people from MeySen drove the truck down to MeySen, where the people still working there distributed the water, food, and clothes to people who needed it.

Wednesday, March 16

More people from MeySen arrived at Misawa in the morning, around 6am.  The school had offered to evacuate the staff again, but not everyone took advantage of the offer.

On Wednesday morning, we had a terribly-run meeting with a consulate from the US State Department, Tim Lyons.  He basically told us that we had to leave the base the next day because we were unauthorized civilians and we could either fly back to the United States (which he strongly urged us to do) or we could stay in a hotel and fend for ourselves in a town with no electricity or water.  He scared the crap out of me and made me cry during the whole meeting. During the whole thing, he made it sound like MeySen was holding us in Japan against our will and we should get out as soon as possible – which was so not true!!! The other rediculous thing that Mr. Lyons said was that he was proud of us for “showing independence the way that proud Americans should during these times”.  I don’t know who the hell he was talking about, because all of us relied on other people and on each other from the moment of the earthquake.  If I had been independent during that time, I wouldn’t have survived!

After the meeting, our leaders from MeySen met with us.  They told us that they recommended that teachers whose terms would be ending in two weeks should make arrangements to fly home now.  He told the new teachers that we could fly back to the States if we wanted and return when it was safe or we could stay at a hotel together that the school would pay for.  He assured us that we would not be “on our own” as the State department had said, but that MeySen would take care of us and support us.  He also told us the town and the hotel had electricity. 

The State department took us aside one at a time to ask us whether we were staying or going.  It was a really big decision to make, one that Kris and I took seriously.  We prayed and talked and decided, much to the chagrin of our families, that we would stay.  We felt safe where we were, far north from the nuclear plant that any radiation or even a melt down wouldn’t cause us harm.  The hardest part of the decision for me was telling my family I was going to stay in Japan, because I knew they would worry.

During the afternoon we helped to load some huge trucks full of donations that people from the base had collected.  Two people from MeySen drove the truck down to MeySen, where the people still working there destributed the water, food, and clothes to people who needed it.

In the afternoon we helped pack up another truck that the same two people from MeySen drove back up and then back down again to share the donations with those in need.  It felt really good to be able to contribute and help in some way.

In the evening, some families from the base made us a lasagna dinner and brought it to the base.  It was a huge blessing to soul as well as the stomach.  It had been a rough, emotional day, and having that meal allowed us to feel so cared for and loved.  Later we helped pack up two more trucks of donations, these ones going to other areas in need. 

Lasagna dinner

Friday, March 17

Our goodbyes started on Friday, since some of the group was staying at the base another night to catch early flights back to the US the next morning and the rest of the group was staying at a hotel until their flights or until it was safe to go back to Misawa.  On a positive note, a truck arrived at Misawa from MeySen that had the luggage for people who were flying home.  The truck was stuck at the gate extra long because the guards who scanned the truck, its contents, and the driver for radiation couldn’t believe how clean it was and free from radiation!

Just before dinner we were checked in Koyo Inn, located just outside the main gate of the Air Force Base. The hotel was really nice – we had our own rooms with all the amenities we needed (including Internet access in each room).  There was an onsen (hot bath that requires you to be naked with people of the same sex – don’t knock it til you try it – it is AMAZING) and also a massage chair in the lobby.

Calvary Baptist Church, and English-speaking church three blocks down the road from our hotel, took us under their wing and make dinner for all of us.  They were so kind and welcoming to us.

Delicious dinner at Calvary Baptist Church

Saturday, March 18 through Tuesday, March 22

Each day at the hotel, our numbers shrank down as people flew back to the United States or to other parts of Japan.  Kris and I were eager to get back to Sendai, but not until it was safe to do so.  We bought some small groceries so we could eat breakfast and lunch at the hotel on our own.  The people at the church continued to feed and care for us each night – really a huge blessing since it would have been so expensive for us to pay to eat out every meal.

By Sunday, our number had shrunk down to 9.  We passed our time by going for walks, playing games, talking with family, watching movies we had downloaded, and making nightly visits to the onsen.  I used a lot of my free time to start to learn Japanese, starting with the Hiragana alphabet (Because it’s Japan, there have to be 3 different alphabets with 3 different characters!).  We also enjoyed some Karaoke -- hey, even in tough times you gotta have fun!

On Sunday we attended the church service at the church that had been feeding us, Calvary Baptist Church.  It was a very nice community of people.  On Monday evening, five people from our group went back to Sendai with a bus full of food and diaper donations collected by the members of Calvary Baptist Church.  One member of our group was flying out of the Aomora airport to Tokyo to go to Spain on Wednesday night, so Kris and I, Bethany, and our supervisor Esther decided to stay until Wednesday evening to see him off.

Wednesday, March 23

We are going STIR CRAZY up here in Misawa!  Since the reactors are starting to stabilize, we are headed back tomorrow to MeySen.  We are looking forward to being able to help with the relief efforts and help get the school ready for classes to resume on April 8, the start of the new school year. We feel that, with the reactors stabilizing and with the school being located outside of the US-recommended 50 mile evacuation zone, it is safe for us to be returning.  We are sorry for all the stress and worry this decision is causing our family.  We are continuing to pray through this decision and feel that it is the right one for us.