A Walk in the Spring Sunshine

After the 10:00 am Service I went for a walk with my friend Sachiko. The sky was bright blue and it was a bit chilly. The spring flowers are really starting to bloom. I will be posting pictures on Picasa  and will run them to the right as a slide show. Remember that if you click on one of the slide shows it will take you to Picasa. To see other albums, click on the "my pictures" tab.

The OMF Japan web site is being updated frequently with prayer requests and stories from the past two weeks. To get there click on the link: omf.org/omf/japan/

Tomorrow a team will leave from Ichikawa taking a load of donated items to the earthquake area. Several churches have collected things like new underwear for people who have lost their homes and even if they have clothes don't have water to wash them.

Relief Work in Ofunato Japan

A team from OMF has been working in the tsunami stricken area north of Sendai. They located this church, and the pastor asked for help in making it usable. It's location makes it a good place to set up the curry rice kitchen.

All of this garbage came from inside the church building. Two weeks and a day ago the church contained furniture, books, and countless usable things. The tsunami came and mixed it all up and added stuff from many places seaward from the church, sea water, mud, at least one salmon and a shark!

In Denial in the Dark

Our power outage today was scheduled for the latest slot, starting at around 6:30 pm. All of the other outages for today were cancelled. We only actually had one or two this whole week, so I really felt that we wouldn't have one tonight ether. So, I was shocked when the power went off. I put on a sweater, got the book I'm reading currently and my battery powered book light. It lasted less than two hours. The temperature dropped 5 degrees Celsius in the living room.

I didn't think I was going to be able to buy any decent toilet paper today either, but as I glanced at the display in front of our neighborhood drug store coming home, there were a few packages of my favorite brand (Americans are so fussy about tp!) I also got kerosene this afternoon. And the price was the same as last time. Yay!

Thursday, Earthquake+14

A jolt at 5:30 am (I think) got me up to turn the heater on in preparation for morning ablutions on a chilly morning. Several more throughout the morning as is usual these days. HoHum.                                                

Thursdays at the office we generally have a Prayer Meeting open to all OMFers in the area. Today we were twelve and spent time praying through Psalm 16, and telling things that had encouraged us in the past few days, as well as praying specifically for OMFers working directly with the relief effort. I really enjoyed hearing the voices of people praying in small groups rising in our own small symphony of praise.                                                                                 

On the table in the office lunch area today was a plastic box of sweets. Well, the remains - two to be exact - were left. I picked one up and it was quite heavy for it's size, and a bit squashy feeling. Even though I could read the letters on top of the small package, it didn't tell me what it was exactly. I did recognize the flower pictured - a strawberry blossom.

Further investigation revealed a whole strawberry totally encased in lovely, soft mochi. (see the December post about mochi if you're not sure what it is). It was very fragile and needed to be eaten immediately!

Another Rather Shaky Day

The day started with several rolling shakes that got most folk I know out of bed.  There have been others throughout the day, just light ones, but reminders that we are not in control. I'm glad I know the God who is.

I was able to help out at the Guest Home this morning as there was no power cut. Then I got the filing caught up in Serve Japan. So I have a certain feeling of accomplishment.

Our team in Aomori were planning to set up a kitchen to make and serve curry rice. They found an area where people are able to live in their homes, but aren't able to get food easily. The local shelter requests food for the number of people staying there, but not for those living nearby. Curry rice is a kind of Japanese comfort food to many. It tends to be milder and sweeter than Indian curry and is served with Japanese short grain rice.

Tomorrow is the regular Prayer Meeting at JHQ and it's my turn to lead. There are an overwhelming number of things to pray for, so I hope to help us to encourage each other and to be thankful.

Full Day

Back to a three +-hour power cut this afternoon. Got two guestrooms cleaned and ready for occupancy and did a little work in the office before it though. Power came back on about 20 minutes before my Japanese tutor arrived so I was able to get the temperature up a little from the 11 degrees (C) it had fallen to during the outage. She brought a couple exercises in reading Japanese and answering questions/solving puzzles which were just difficult enough to make me want to figure them out. We also talked about the school where she now works, and a little about the relief efforts and OMF's involvement.

"For such a time as this..." keeps coming to mind.

Tomorrow's schedule from Tokyo Electric shows us due for our power cut starting at about 9:30 am so I can go to the office/Guest Home in the afternoon.

Today a team of OMFers traveled from Hokkaido to Aomori with the makings of a soup kitchen which they hope to get set up in an area where food has been difficult to get in. They will be working with a local Japanese pastor who can introduce them properly in the area where they want to work.

Cold and Rainy

Yesterday was the Vernal Equinox, but the weather took a turn from almost spring to more like winter today. It is a public holiday in Japan and perhaps a chance to take an even deeper breath before needing to head back to work tomorrow.

The schedule at the Guest Home is hard to keep track of as there are people canceling planned trips and others needing housing unexpectedly, but that's the point of having a place like that here. Even though I  do other kinds of jobs in Japan, taking care of people and keeping the facility ready for use is where my heart is. I'm happy to be able to step up to the challenge at this time.