One Day Later

The subtle rolling and gentle shakings are fewer and farther between. I walked up to the Ichikawa JR Station late this afternoon to get some exercise and to see how things seemed to be going. It's Saturday which is usually a day when families do something together. The shops are busy and so are trains.

Today there were people walking purposefully as usual. Women with several bags of grocery shopping. Moms and dads with babies. The sidewalks weren't crowded, but there were people doing the usual things. At the station building itself, which is full of all kinds of shops, people were looking at and buying food. I went to the gates for the trains and saw that they were running the Rapid Service toward Tokyo and toward Chiba, but it didn't look like there were trains running on the local line. Periodic announcements were being made over the PA system. These, as in stations around the world, are difficult to understand on a good day. I thought perhaps they were saying that the Blue Line was working as a "stop-at-every-station" train, but that can't be right, there aren't platforms at all the stations for the Blue.  A large screen was running through the list of train lines one-by-one saying if it was operating or not. Glad I didn't need to go anywhere.

I went to the bank and used an ATM. There was one other woman there doing the same. I went to several shops that sell ready to eat food and they had  sold most of their inventory. Some were hurrying to make more, and it seemed that some were running specials to make sure they sold everything.

This evening there are problems that everyone has heard with the power plants. Tokyo Electric is talking about "rolling blackouts" (where have I heard that term before?) so I went ahead and took a shower in case there is no power later, or tomorrow morning when I want to go to church. I need to get a flashlight out of my emergency kit. It's not too cold yet this evening, but if it's dark I suspect I'll spend some time under the covers with a book and my battery operated book light.

Like the Japanese I have adopted an attitude of making the best of a difficult situation, and staying calm as the Prime Minister has urged. No moaning and complaining - others have much more difficulty to cope with than I.

OMF Japan works with an Organization called CRASH - Christian Relief, Assistance Support and Hope - which is a network supporting Christians to do relief work in Japan and around the world. Hopefully some of us will be able to contribute various talents and skills to the recovery through working with them. If you want to do something tangible, go to their website http://crashjapan.com/ to see what you can do. If you're looking for a place to make a monetary donation, click on the tab for donations.

Keep Japan in your thoughts and prayers.