Dryer

Two nights ago there was an earthquake in the middle of the night. It was intensity 5. Don't know the magnitude, since what people here care about is how much it shakes. It was long. Short shakes are easy, but long ones... I thought my concern was for the people around me. Even checked on others in the sleeping quarters. Went back to sleep easily. 

So I missed an important piece of what happened. First hint: I noticed an intensity 2 and was ready to move. I miss most of the 2s now. 

Second hint: The dryer was running when I filled the washing machine just now, and I had to look up and check whether the rest of the building was shaking too. It felt remarkably like two nights ago. 

Yeah, that quake scared me, and I need to admit that. And it was about half the intensity of the March 11 quake. 

Some of the people I meet are talking about their fears about the next big earthquake. Many assume that there will be another, and that there will be another tsunami. They say "when." Hearing them say "if" is a gift to notice and treasure. 

Perhaps they, like me, need to face the fact that this is a scary time, and not fall into denial. But it's also easy to assume that it'll always be this way, and let the quake win. 

Until we look, and catch a glimpse of Life. 

I'll be watching. 

Restoration

Some of the locals are joining us as volunteers. Some of them are absolutely enraged by how the power company is handling the nuclear zone situation. Others work for the power company. 

Wanna know what selfless love looks like? An angry evacuee driving the power company guy to the store. Sure, she needed to talk about it, and she cried. But that was brave and enormously kind. She's well on her way. 

A young dad-to-be decided to help with making supper for people at an evacuation shelter. The beauty here is the transition from seeing his own life to seeing a need and taking action. 

We distributed bags of veggies. One lady brought a gallon bag of curry she made with them. Another brought a potato dish. Their Japanese give-back-part-of-a-gift instinct is functioning again. 

One, very physically ill, practically pounced on the chance to select a crochet hook this morning, and chose two skeins of yarn. By the afternoon she was back with a little round crocheted cloth to give to the assistance center. And wanted a third skein. Did I spoil her by giving in? Absolutely, with no regrets. 

The chef, whose story I don't know, stocked our cafe freezer with ice cream bars. He pokes fun and teases, just like I'd expect from a middle-aged man who is reasonably happy. Good to hear good-natured ribbing around here. 

Kids and bubbles and origami and sketchbooks and crayons and cat's cradle string. Just plain normal. 

A few people admitting they came to the assistance center for the air conditioning. It's a hot one. 

Old guy coming upstairs to the volunteer quarters to talk to the staff. Wait for it... sure enough, the standard joking statement that the staff he came to see is his girlfriend. Yeah. His geezer-hood is intact. 

Normalcy is invading the tragedy. 

Good stuff. 

Hi

*sticks hand out from under pile of kids* 

*waves*

No no, don't rescue me. It took a long time to get here. 

:-)

Box of love

Your treasure chest arrived yesterday morning, with the kid's swimsuits and the knitting needles and crochet hooks and yarn. Thank you so much for sending such fun love!!

When you finish knitting socks and start to take it off of the needles, and an older lady comes right over to tell you there's a much better way to do that, you know she's a knitter. Sure enough, she had lost everything in the tsunami and happily chose a set of needles, a crochet hook, and some yarn. 

And she taught me a much better method for casting off rib stitches. Good elasticity to the edge. But I digress. 

Another lady had just gone to dig through the debris at her house, and found a double-ended crochet hook in the muddy sand. She said it was like finding gold. Two skeins of yarn went home with her. 

The pool stoppers have not been found. By God's grace it's raining this morning. Hoping to go buy another pool for the bigger kids today so that these swimsuits can splash around with some kids in them. That's what they're here for. 

I'm starting to lean toward wanting to extend my stay, kinda sorta maybe. Not sure what that will look like. Can't answer any of the standard journalist questions yet. Just putting this out there. 

But first, buying a pool. And the morning meeting just started--I'd better get out there. Catch you later! 

Role models

The day started out pretty rotten. Someone asked me questions that hit some sore spots. I'm still a bit sensitive to variations on the theme of "And what ARE you doing here, exactly?" Probably because I'm mostly being here, and the things I do don't have a shape most of the time, and I don't know how to say that to someone who values action and tangible results. 

Plus, some of my USA friends are hurting, and I miss them. Having several homes sucks sometimes. 

But then I met Noa. He's two years old, and has bigger faith than most. He walked up to the empty baby pool, took off his shoes, stepped barefoot into the bone-dry half-deflated plastic pool, and stood there with quiet expectation. 

Everyone jumped into action, quickly re-inflating the pool and filling it up. All the while, little Noa waited patiently, just plain knowing there would be water. And he was right. 

He's well-named. His name is written as "walk in hope." I wanna grow up to be just like him. 

Then there's a fourth-grade girl. Quiet and somewhat shy, she was hesitant to talk to me. Her mom said their house was in the nuclear zone, but was fully destroyed by two freak tsunamis. The house was between two rivers, and the tsunami came up both rivers and sandwiched the house from both sides. From the rivers. 

I had nothing to say. Neither did she. Until I started making her a twine doll. Suddenly she was intensely curious, and came right over to me, wanting to know how to make it.  Mom has the same twine at home. The temporary housing is small, and every entrance looks the same. 

"Well that won't do! You need to decide what kind of house you want yours to be, and decorate it." I finally had something to say. 

She nodded eagerly, and started telling her mom what she was planning. I sent a doll home with her, and asked her to show me some of the dolls she'll make. She flashed me a smile. 

You can't stop a nest-maker. Not even by destroying her house and vacating her entire hometown. Take that, tsunami. 

There were wild ones, giggly ones, and sweet ones, each with their own treasure. Wish you were here to meet them. They just won't fit on the page. 

My day is a whole lot better now. Thanks, kids. I needed you more than you know. 

Purr

 My kitty-cat-in-tree-ness wasn't quite as severe as the last time I took a break. Fatigue and the sheer intensity of the disaster sends me into full retreat. But I'm thankful to have a pastor who excels at talking me down from branch to branch. And lets me watch the silliest TV shows for hours, and includes me in family meals and activities. 

His wife has the gift of always being real, which frees me to do the same. Friendship forms quickly with someone like that. 

And they have the best kids ever. Nothing ends the day better than a hug from Sweetness, or starts it better than a cheery greeting from Faith-man, or describes it better than an analogy from Mr. Science. 

Heading back to Iwaki City in a few minutes. 

I do believe I'm purring now. Thanks again, guys!

Ready. 

Huh. 

One of the pools is missing its plugs. 

We heard of a couple of kids who lost their mom in the disaster. 

There are major discussions going on about the sudden flood of kids in the assistance center cafe. Summer vacation just started a few days ago. 

An evacuee gave 100 yen to the assistance center as an offering. Widow's mite. A bit more than a dollar. What a huge gift. 

Another bike with training wheels has a new owner. He can't quite get the pedaling started without a push yet. Cutie pie. 

Made some twine dolls for a group of girls. You'd have thought Barbie herself had walked in. 

Yeah, I'm back. 

Ready was a bit much to claim. How about ready-esque?

God will keep us. 

Rest, round three

Highway bus again, heading to Yokohama. The roadsides are mostly clogged with weeds, but a few places here and there have trimmed hedges and cleaned flowerbeds. It's just not the highest priority this year. 

The highlights of my week are simple. 

Rolling a ball to a toddler, who wandered off at one point, and ending up playing catch with her mom and her grandma instead. The giggles were a nice touch. 

Zeroing in on the shy kids and using my little Tickle Bug puppet to steal a smile or two. Tickle Bug is very bashful and needs a lot of reassurance to meet a new friend. (It's OK, sister won't hurt you, you'll see. Go on, say hello.)

Being the shooting target or the monster or the available lap for three wild little boys running all over the room. Giving one of them a plastic bag to put his fifteen paper airplanes into, so he could play airport at home. 

Helping kids choose from the kid's bikes. Teasing an already lanky fifth grader that he'll outgrow his new bike in about three weeks. Getting happy grins when I ask each kid to promise me they'll outplay the kid who owned the bike before. 

Seeing the scared, sad little seventh grade girl, who wouldn't go to school this term, start to smile a little. 

Grandma. 

Being able to just plain worship in Japanese without searching for words. Took a month and a half to get my language solid enough to let my heart fly. It flew. 

There are lowlights too. 

A photo of a road running into the sea. "There used to be an entire neighborhood where that sea is. I lived there. There's nothing left."

The daily contrast between life as usual in the grocery store around the corner, and the destitute people I meet in the assistance center. It's a bit jarring. 

Some of the people coming for assistance are rather abrupt and demanding. There's no real way to sort the rude from the outspoken from the desperate. 

Some things disappear. We try not to assume the worst. It's an ask-and-receive environment. I wish everyone understood that. 

Some days are so people-filled that I retreat to the sleeping quarters for a while after the assistance center closes. 

I'm heading for a break thinking I'm not all that tired this time, and my silly body keeps falling asleep every few minutes on the bus. Oops. Maybe I should have left a teeny bit earlier in the day after all. 

Overall...

God calls us living stones being built into a building. That includes edges getting rubbed the wrong way now and then. Some edges more than others. But the work continues, and you'd have thought unloading trucks was a party game if you'd seen us this morning. 

It's been six weeks since I got here. From where I sit, Life seems to be going strong. What do you see?

That was fast...

Papa, thank You for the trucks of relief goods.

Thanks, brothers and sisters who heard and sent the goods. Water, rice, and then some. Lots of soap too. Food. Etc.

Tissue paper and toilet paper still out there somewhere.

Over here guys!! Over here!

Thanks for the smile to start our day, whoever you are.

Granny gripes

I approached Grandma because she was a quiet bundle of sadness. She started out with polite conversation. Then listened a while as I talked with her neighbor. 

When she decided to jump in, there was no stopping her. She started with scolding me for being barefoot on a cool day, and for sitting on the cold stone floor instead of on the carpet. 

Yes mother, I'm sorry mother, is this better?

Then, the long pent-up list of granny gripes. She tries to be considerate but her neighbor cleans at all hours of the night. She's alone and lonely. Young people these days. Back in my day. People should know better. Nobody to talk to. Cycle back to the top and list the gripes again. They're real concerns. But classic Grandma. 

If we were in America, this is when the stale cookies and old coffee would be offered. If we were at Grandma's house, we'd have had some green tea. 

We hardly talked about the disaster itself. But once she had finished her gripes and talked about her loneliness to her satisfaction, she softened and told me about her current hero. 

Apparently there was a devout preacher in her hometown near the nuclear plant. She admires how many, many years he had continued to "believe in Christianity," as she put it. She thinks he must be 90 or so. 

"He stayed to the end. Insisted on staying until everyone else had left. He stayed. I was afraid for him, that he might have gotten exposed to radiation. When he finally left, he went to a facility where they take good care of him. He gave so much. He called me on the phone and he's doing well. Oh I want to go see him sometime!" 

We exchanged names and quickly found out we were both called Rei-chan when we were young girls. Grandma crinkles beautifully when she smiles. 

A little while later, she picked up her bags and announced that she was going home now. 

"But mother, you didn't get your relief goods yet."

She patted my arm. "I got a conversation. That's enough for today. I'll come back for the relief goods another time."

I saw her off. She had such a spring in her step that if she was 20 years younger, I know she would have been skipping. 

Sure enough, there it was. The classic Japanese granny wave. Every five or six steps, she turned back and bowed and waved. Good thing she turned the corner at the next block. Only a dozen waves or so. I hadn't bowed that many times in a row in years. 

Do me a favor, would you? Go have some stale cookies with your lonely Grandma. Eat Sunday dinner. Have too much cake. There's nothing quite like watching her revive. Even if her granny gripes cycle round a few times. 

Two smiling Rei-chans. Life is good. 

Routine?

Typhoon down south. Which means rainy days and no swimming pools, but that didn't stop the assistance center from filling up in the mornings. 

I'm thankful that Kochi, my rugged home prefecture, is the one getting pounded by this typhoon. They're much better prepared to take it than the Northeast, even without the damaged buildings. The wind is still a bit stiff here, but not too bad. 

Odd when the hustle-bustle of relief goods distribution becomes normal. Doesn't everyone have stacks of diapers to fit everyone from newborns to Grandpa, and boxes of clothes and shoes? Doesn't every wish list routinely include water, rice, tissues, and toilet paper? (Please Papa, move someone to send us more.) Isn't everyone excited to get some soft food for Grandma? Aren't dark blue Crocs (boxes and boxes of dark blue Crocs) the must-have item to make feet comfy for the summer?

Don't you listen to a retired deep-sea fisherman from the Bering Sea tell about his harrowing escape from the quake and tsunami, and about another narrow escape on the high seas? How he finally retired and settled down, how his house isn't all that bad (ignore his address--it's in one of the hardest-hit communities around), and how he's lonely because his kids and grandkids moved away because of the radiation? Don't you sit in silence after he tells of family friends who were washed away?

And don't you immediately follow that up with blowing bubbles with a toddler and watch her learn how to blow them herself? And hold a baby boy until he notices his mommy is out of sight and he starts squalling?

Don't you routinely scan the room for who's being quiet, and go sit by them and coax a conversation from its hiding place? 

Thanks for tapping me on the shoulder and checking whether I'm OK. I missed a couple of days there because nothing was happeni... 

Oh. Yeah. This isn't normal. How did I allow it to become routine?

Holiday

Just a lazy holiday today. 

Long walks. Proper coffee. Conversations. Knitting. Painting prayer pictures. Being given cool color paintbrushes. Going to Mos Burger (the burgers are meat, no moss involved) to hang out and strategize. Watermelon sherbet. Lifey things. 

Winding down on purpose, to be ready for whatever the new week brings. 

-----
 "And, my lad," said the blessed John, "do not let this slight and short relaxation of my mind disturb you, as unless it sometimes relieved and relaxed the rigour of its purpose by some recreation, the spirit would lose its spring owing to the unbroken strain, and would be unable when need required, implicitly to follow what was right." -- The Conferences of John Cassian. From Chapter XXI. How the Evangelist John is said to have shown the value of relaxation.

(Thanks for the quote Priscilla!!)

Hearts

It's getting intense around here. Not that volunteers don't have our moments. But the local folk who have joined us to help out have their own set of raw pain. 

One told me about some people in the shelters who weren't telling people where they got their relief goods and were hogging it all, and complained that it was discrimination and wanted to draw a line to prevent that here. We had a long talk about types of victims and people who have fallen through the cracks of the system. And why an attempt to close out the selfish would close out too many others. 

Another who got invited to go somewhere with a staff member and said no. "I can help here because it's closer to the school than home. I have to go pick up the kids when another big quake hits. What would happen if it came while I was elsewhere? I'm not that peaceful yet. Maybe later, but not now."

A nuclear worker who tried reassuring a local woman with the facts got yelled at to stop talking, and accused of not having a clue what she's feeling. 

The nuclear worker himself has guilt over somehow benefitting from this tragedy by getting such a generous salary. He's over-sensitive to thank-yous, and he's exhausted and edgy. 

One local lady looks troubled but will flash you a fake smile. I call her on it sometimes. She calls herself on it sometimes. Slowly she's starting to talk about the tough stuff. 

Another actively tries not to cry and spins everything to the positive. She suddenly rushed past me in tears the other day. I glanced over at a staff member and got the nod to check on her. We cried together for a while. 

Pray for the hearts shaken by the tragedy. It's not just the landscape that bears the scars. 

Summer day

We were having a quake-laden day in the assistance center cafe. Many broken hearts. Then a group of five kids bustled in with their moms, wanting to swim in the pool while their moms got relief goods. One family had swimsuits. The babies had diapers and their birthday suits to choose from. 

That left one second-grade girl in a light blue dress. She got to the pool and realized she couldn't swim. And the kids' swimsuits haven't arrived yet. Poor sad little shoulders. 

So we headed to the clothing box in the relief center. She chose jeans and wanted the top to be cute. I was thinking more along the lines of a t-shirt and shorts, but alrighty then. 

What does one do with a little girl in a new outfit she likes, heading to a pool? You eliminate the choice to stay dry. I lifted her into the inflatable pool and started a water war. She was soaked from head to toe, and the swimsuit crisis was over. 

Didn't take long before they all decided to retaliate. "Get the auntie!!" may not be among the top five battle-cries to rally troops, but no matter. I promptly lost the war. So did two other volunteers. 

And a three-year-old boy climbed back into the pool holding the open container of bubble liquid he was playing with. Wasn't long until all those kicking feet churned up a nice layer of froth. That's one way to guarantee cleaning a pool...

Normal summer day, with a kid-sized crisis. It's about time we had one of those. 

Then a truck arrived in the afternoon with about 45 kid's bikes and 10 or so trikes. I smell adventure. This could get good. 

Worry

Jesus said not to worry. He didn't mean pretending it's peachy either. He meant it was unnecessary. 

Like when an older lady was about to ride a friend's new bicycle home, and it was starting to thunder. I was never happier to see that the bike was missing a valve cap and had a flat. (We'll fix it. She had a ride home and stayed dry.) 

Like that yellow bicycle. Mustard would have a tough time being more yellow. The bike was relatively cool-looking. But nobody wanted it. The red one and the bright pink one found homes quickly, but I couldn't convince anyone to take the yellow one. 

When we were down to two bikes, a high-school boy chose the silver bike with the granny basket over the sleek yellow one. Uh-oh. 

The last one was then assigned by phone, and the owner came to pick it up. I was beyond nervous. Until the man got out of his van. 

His sneakers had bright yellow laces. The bicycle was going to the right home after all. 

The assistance center folk were also learning the same lesson. There was very little left this morning to give. The staff had to buy water and rice to get the day started. 

Then a couple of trucks arrived, one with rice, other food, and water, and the other with 100 futon sets (Japanese ones don't come with a wooden frame.) 

OK. We get it now. Worrying is a bloomin' waste of time. 

Maybe I should listen to Him a bit sooner next time around. Heh. 

Bicycles

"And this ain't luck, it's love grace, right?"

"Right, Pops. The bicycles are right over here."

He's here every afternoon, diligently asking for supplies. Asked for a space heater for the winter last week, and we had one available. Everyone else is asking for fans. Best prepared evacuee I ever saw. I'd love to have a grandpa like him. He wanted a folding bicycle, but a regular one will do. 

We had a conversation about luck and God's loving grace recently. His conclusion was that he could stay selfish if he considered it luck that he got a good supply source, but grace is generous and requires a response. His own conclusion. We barely pointed out that luck wasn't why we are here volunteering, and reminded him about God's love and grace. 

He picked a silver bicycle and named it Grace. Who knows what his response will be. Whatever it is, it'll be diligent, intentional, and will benefit the people around him. Pops doesn't do things halfway. 

Gentle Mom liked the pink bike for her daughter, but her son would be sharing it so she chose a silver one instead. 

Three other middle-school and high-schoolers can ride to school. Two aren't sure they like that idea, since Mom was driving them every morning. But Mom needs to save on gas a while longer. 

Shy Guy actually talks. He found a bike with just the right distance from the seat to the handlebars. 

If only the people who abandoned these bikes in Yokohama could see where they ended up... Even the Yokohama city officials at the bike impound yard were smiling as we loaded the truck. We wanted to take 30 but only managed to fit 25 in the rented two-ton. There's plenty more where those came from. One phone call from Iwaki City and Yokohama will give us more. 

A full day since delivery and we have only 11 bikes left. I'm guessing the city will call Yokohama again soon. 

Love grace in the bicycle impound yard. Who knew?

July 11, 2011

It's July 11th, four months since the quake. The TV aired tsunami footage from March 11. I couldn't take it. 

So we watched a documentary on Audrey Hepburn instead. She came through tragedy herself, during the War. And used the money from her acting career to help children facing similar tragedies. 

How will March 11, 2011 change me? 

And I wonder if Audrey Hepburn could watch war footage? 

I don't have her millions. But I have bubbles. Origami. Sketch pads. Water balloons. A little yarn and two pairs of knitting needles. Essentials all. 

I can't echo Audrey. But maybe I can imitate her a teeny tiny bit. 

Please. Don't forget Japan. It's only been four months. 

Break. Ish.

Break. I'm on break. 

And there have been break-ish activities too, like watching TV and a movie. Like eating the best food in the world, which I will refrain from describing in detail because some of you may be eating dinner, and I'd hate to make you jealous. Only some of it was slimy. 

But it takes a while to decompress. There are stories to tell, ones that didn't make it into the blog. There's advice to ask for. Tears to shed. Ideas to gather for the next few weeks. Acrylic scrubbers to knit. 

Acrylic scrubbers?? I didn't know what they were either. They're a knitted or crocheted dishcloth or ball, made with rough acrylic yarn. The ladies kept mentioning them after the knitting conversations. Their faces and voices and stories don't fade away that easily. 

One of the TV shows today was about the political response after this disaster, compared to the response after the last one. Nobody bothered mentioning that more than four times as many lives were lost in the current disaster. Even so, I wanted to take sides in Japanese politics. For someone to demonstrate that Tokyo cares about the Northeast (Tohoku). I don't even like politics. What's come over me?

I may not be able to make a clean break, at least not today. But I can sit for hours on the couch. I can overeat at a restaurant. I can breathe the air and drink the water without wondering if I should. I can have a few days to process the stories I've heard, without adding new ones. To finish crying interrupted tears. To tell the funny stories too. 

Climbing stairs was a whole lot easier today than yesterday. A few more days and I'll be ready to return to Iwaki City and "be with" again. 

More later. Beddie-bye for now. 

Girl things

There's a new breeze blowing among the evacuees. A restlessness. It's time to do something. They're starting to bring bottled tea and sodas. Offering to help with volunteer work. Cleaning, cooking, anything. Holding baby while mama gets relief goods. Whatever there is. 

The box of onions were spectacular.  Fattest onions you ever saw. Straight from the garden. Votes are split about eating local produce. Some eat it, and others don't. I don't quite know who to believe. But the onions were a thank-you gift from one of the regulars. I smiled and bowed and said thank you. 

You'd think that I was knitting gold instead of socks, the way the ladies gather round. Some just never saw such a thing, others know their terminology. Some left their needles in the nuclear evacuation zone. Others lost their stash of needles, crochet hooks, and yarn in the tsunami. Some grouse about how much their shoulders ached back when they used to knit. One lady specialized in quilting and lost the tools she had used for 30 years. Some make the outrageous claim that crochet is better. Hardly any would refuse a couple of knitting needles and yarn. 

Other changes are happening too. One precious lady, who has finally found her smile again, showed me the beautiful Indian (or maybe Thai?) skirt she was wearing. "It's the first time I've worn a skirt since the disaster. I finally feel safe enough. I always wore pants so I could run if it happened again. But I found this skirt in the relief goods and wanted to wear it."

God bless whoever donated that skirt. 

And one of the nuclear plant workers says that the 30 kilometer zone will be re-opened soon. Families with kids will probably stay away, but adults may want to go home. 

Most of us got out of bed at 3:15 this morning when a vertical quake hit. One lady grabbed her keys just in case she had to leave. 

It's far from over yet. But hey, knitting looks fun again. We're on our way. 

Comforted

My patience ran out this morning. Mostly because I'm tired, in body, soul, and spirit. (Need to catch on earlier next time before I hit empty.) But also because I really, really want to be around kids. How I ended up with a kid shortage I'll never know. They're supposed to be everywhere. 

You know what happened next. I melted into a miserable soggy puddle. It took a little while to listen to the patient reassurance offered by a new friend and regroup. But I still looked like Eeyore. 

But then, there were two inflatable pools to empty, clean, and fill. Then two little one-year-old babies to play with in the kiddie pool. Then a third. Two kids blowing bubbles. A fourth grader in an evacuation shelter who sang me the entire keyboard part for her band tune, her chorus song, and then let me help her build a battery-powered car from her science kit. 

Then there was the late-middle-age man who was over- impressed with the fact that I grew up in Japan. Once we got past that part, he started singing me songs from his home state. I sang him mine. Then we sang a couple of good ol' Japanese country songs (enka) that I hadn't sung in a quarter century. 

I've recovered to approximately Piglet level. 

It was good to outright need them today. Whoever thinks that volunteering is always about giving hasn't tried it long enough. It's more about being human together. 

Another break coming up this weekend. Plenty of one-on-one time with Papa God. That should take care of the fatigue. 

Thanks everyone. I needed that. 

Oasis

Two devastated communities on either side of a seaside hotel. One with skeletal houses, the other with bare foundations and heavy equipment. 

The hotel was built high on a hillside, and was sheltered by a small mountain topped with a sleek white lighthouse. The wave took out 25 out of 27 little boats, destroyed the public restrooms, came up the bank, surged across the parking lot and covered the middle of the road, and then receded, leaving the hotel intact. An oasis of sorts. 

I heard numbers like 7, 9, and 15 meters. One man asking why he hasn't seen tide pools by the hotel since the quake, and being told that the coastline dropped. (One of the communities has "tide pool" in its name.) 

A school teacher from out of town who spilled her quake story to the first volunteer she met, about kids hiding under desks just like during their earthquake drills, then evacuating to the playground but without time to grab coats, and standing there shivering in the snow flurries. No mention of the wave. Maybe her school was on a mountainside. 

A woman who called out from her second story window to the people heading to the seawall to watch the tsunami (seawalls had been completely safe any other time), warning them to run the other way, got a snide comment from one of them, and then saw them all get washed away. 

Don't judge the departed. Hindsight, remember? Breached seawalls were unthinkable a few months ago. Pray for the living who saw too much. 

The hotel owner saying that nobody but nobody expected damage from the tsunami, and some went shopping by the seaside after the quake. "If only they hadn't gone..."

The Japan Self-Defense Force soldier off-duty  who brought his grandmothers to see the coastline. The tired way that he accepted my thanks for his hard work. He nodded quietly. "If only the nuclear plant hadn't been damaged..."

The silent pain in one grandmother's eyes. 

Everyone there had lost so much. 

The hotel parking lot was where we set up the barbecue. Frankfurters on a stick, grilled fish topped with grated radish, steak kebobs, chicken skewers, sautéed onions/mushrooms/green peppers, grilled onions, grilled corn, rice balls, yakisoba (Chinese noodles stir-fried with pork, cabbage, onions, and almost-BBQ sauce, and served with pickled ginger), watermelon and snow-cones. 

Technically the snow cones were supposed to be for the kids. Bah. You should have seen how many adults ate two or more snow cones all by their lonesome. 

There was a ring toss game and a water balloon pool set up for the kids. I saw the staff add extra candy to the ring toss winnings. And you never saw a water balloon pool so lax with the rules. So much for using a paper hook to fish out the string of a water balloon floating in the pool. There were more little hands in that tiny plastic pool than disintegrated paper hooks. It's all good. 

And bubbles. That's where the laughter was. Kids chasing bubbles. 

Cloudy skies during the meal, then hot, hot sun afterward. 

I didn't even bat an eye when I heard that a YWAM (Youth With A Mission) team was coming. YWAM shows up absolutely everywhere, worldwide. Their bus couldn't get through the narrow roads so they walked the last mile or so. They entertained the crowd with drum performances and breakdancing. 

That completed the feast and the gift of a little bit of laughter. 

The silent grandmother enjoyed the drums. Mission accomplished. Small mission, but accomplished. 

Yay!

We were ready for 500 people, allowing for seconds. 

The cooks, the ward mayor, and the person who asked us to do the barbecue all insist that there were 1000 people there. The pastor estimates it a bit lower, at 700. Whether the discrepancy was angels or really hungry people, everyone had their fill, with a constant line for seconds and thirds, and there were leftovers. 

I say miracle. Feel free to discuss. 

More later on the whos and the wheres. For now, a nap calleth. 

I love my Papa God. Glad He didn't let us know how many would actually show up. My friends know just how freak-out-prone I am. I'm doing better lately, but still. 

Nap. I did say that, didn't I?

OK. More later. :-)

Alongside

Today is the big barbecue for 500 people. The food is ready for grilling. We even have a small bus ready to get us there. It's time for something light-hearted for the Usu-iso community. 

Some aren't ready. How could they be? One out of every six people in the neighborhood is gone. 

All too many are missing. Mourning is hard enough when the body is found. But gone? How can grieving even start?

It feels almost petty to mention that buildings and homes are gone. Loss isn't measured in things. But please remember that the loss of a place cuts deep. 

These people are far from weak. They're rebuilding as best they can.

So this barbecue won't be a frolic. It'll be a chance for a broken community to be together. To have plenty of food. To check on each other. To start remembering that good things and good times can happen. That kids play, and strangers care enough to cater lunch. 

It's not time for a festival. But a light-hearted barbecue is not out of place. A bit daring, perhaps. Certainly bigger than we've ever handled before. 

Pray for those who come. Pray for the volunteers as we come alongside with meat and noodles and grilled corn and grated radish and all the other things that make a barbecue special. 

And most of all, pray gently for the wounded hearts who stay home today. 

We're starting our day with prayer too. Only God can pull this off.