Impossible We

Who is this team in Ofunato? 

We're connected to the United Project, the relief work branch of International Bible Fellowship, made up of some churches in the Tokyo and Chiba area. 

We're working under the 3.11 Iwate Church Network, a relief work network of local Protestant churches in Iwate Prefecture, predominantly Baptist. 

I'm sent in by Pearl Vineyard, a church in Yokohama, with the backing of the Vineyard church in Seattle, Washington, plus the prayer backup of the Vineyard church in Portland, Maine. And amazing blog readers who mean business. 

Which sounds impressive and all. But right now, we are three incredibly different women sleeping on the floor of a retreat center library in sleeping bags. We have a whole lot of backing and volunteer teams waiting in the wings. But this week, we're a teeny hodgepodge. 

The 3.11 Iwate Church Network has a couple of bases already in Miyako City and Taro. Our task, which we have accepted, is to set up a base here in Ofunato. The leader of our team tried setting up a location first. A house where the three of us would live, where volunteer teams could come to work. But there are no houses available that we can find. (Hence the delay that kept me in Yokohama.) So we decided to just plain start doing relief work instead. 

Paula. We call her Po. She's a tiny little powerhouse from Taiwan, very much the leader. She teaches whenever she gets a chance, organizes, peeks over the dashboard to drive, and prays up a storm. She's committed one to two years to this effort at this point. She's been in Japan for eight years, and a missionary for three years. A big person in a very small package. 

Fang Lin. Also from Taiwan, and Po-san's best friend. Medium-sized. She's on staff at a Covenant church in Taiwan, and is on a sabbatical year. She's spending the last three months of it here on this project. She encourages, takes lots and lots of pictures, and sleeps in the back seat of the car on long drives. But don't let appearances fool you. About half of what looks like sleeping back there is actually prayer. And when we're praying together, she goes for it. 

Me, Rachel, the largest, approximately two and a half Po-sans. I pray the quietest of the three, and so far, my role has apparently been to laugh at the things that should freak us out. Like the GPS deciding it would be faster to take a one-lane road straight (OK, winding in hairpin curves) over a mountain to Kesen-numa instead of the two-lane highway around it. (And by one lane, I mean about a third of an American driveway, with occasional wider spots to let opposing traffic by.) And the real estate office telling us there won't be any rentals available in town through the end of the year. And three of us taking on a whole city. 

None of us particularly mind being on tatami mats on the library floor in the retreat center, with access to a kitchen, laundry, bath, and restrooms. Free housing for  volunteer relief workers. There are two other women staying in the library too. What could be better? This way we get to start, instead of waiting for the silly ducks to line up in a row. 

Do I know how a team works? Nope. I don't have a bloomin' clue. Guess I'll find out, huh?

And language. Po-san and Fang Lin share Taiwanese and Mandarin. Fang Lin and I share advanced intermediate English. Po-san and I share advanced Japanese and middle intermediate English. Yeah. Talking is an interesting adventure in itself. Fang Lin and I are still fine-tuning how to say each other's names. She's called me everything from Leecher to Richard, and I have no idea what variety of names I've accidentally invented for her. We'll get it right one of these days. 

Ofunato has at least 1800 families in temporary housing in more than 30 places that used to be sports parks, neighborhood parks, school playgrounds, anywhere non-tsunami zone with any room at all. Some locations have over 300 families. Some have four. We've found out that the tiny places get much less help than the large ones. 

Our phone number will be in the newspaper in a few days for people to call when they need help. Oh, and Councilman Miura wants a city Christmas event. Ha! This will be verrrry interesting.