No work today. A "pressure system", so called because it originated over the mainland rather than in the tropics, blew this morning's snow more or less horizontal and prompted the Samaritan's Purse higher-ups to cancel all mud-out and carpentry work in Ishinomaki for the day. Though this is unfortunate in that it makes it more difficult for SP to reach it's goal of finishing 450 homes by the end of April, I feel that it was a good opportunity for the volunteers and staff of SP Tome Base to really fellowship and connect. I spent the day down at the base, eating, talking, playing ping-pong, and making music with people who have been in Tome for weeks whom I had not had the chance to spend time with. Ryo and Daniel showed me some pretty impressive licks of the guitar, and we had plenty of downtime to help Michelle learn the chords to play her favorite songs. Douglass is also coming along in his guitar skills, and while he might not know all the chords yet, he has incredible rhythm with his right hand, and he's learning the Redemption Song by Marley. There's a Youth With A Mission group which arrived some days ago and will stay in Tome for three weeks. As of yet, the close-knit group of eight or nine tends to keep mostly to themselves, but I had the opportunity to meet their leader, Mr. Mike, and his wife this afternoon. Toshi, a Japanese fellow who once cut my hair and intentionally left a tail-type thing in the back told me today with a perfectly straight face that he was pregnant.
After preparing the Tome kitchen tent to be taken down after lunch, fourteen or so of us took a trip to a local coffee shop. It's a pretty good mix; some Japanese, some Canadian, some American, some Hong Kongian, some Australian.
Analog TV broadcasts have officially ended in the Miyagi prefecture as of a couple days ago. It's sad to see it go, but I suppose most Japanese are prepared.
It felt kind of strange to help empty the kitchen earlier today. It exists as a tent separate from the main building, and will be taken down as soon as Saturday. I could feel a certain aura about the staff members as if this was the mark of finality, the point of no return; after some of them having spent eight months at Tome, this is proof that Tome Base really will be shutting down on the thirtieth, the end of a great era. It's hard for me to say goodbye to friends I've only known for a weekend, so I can only imagine the mixed emotions the SP staff will feel as they head home.
I think that my Japanese is improving. The other day I managed a moderately lengthy conversation with an elderly Japanese homeowner, with some help from an electronic Japanese-English dictionary Satoshi gave me the other day. The lady was 71 years old, and I believe that she had heard the gospel for the first time from SP. She was a very friendly lady, and offered us mud-out volunteers tea and cookies.
Right now it looks like I'll be heading back over to Ishinomaki for a week or so to stay at the Grace Mission Tohoku-sponsored Men's house, and perhaps head down to Nagoya on the 12th where Pastor Gary of the Nagoya International Christian Assembly has offered to put me up for the weekend, after which I'll head back into Chiba and hang with friends from my time at CCSI for a day or two before heading back to the states on the 18th.
GMT runs a pretty tight outfit down in Ishinomaki. It boasts a forty-person rooming capacity, four buildings, and an "army tent" used for Sunday worship and sometimes for meals. High school grads and college kids from as far as Nagoya will often travel up to stay at GMT buildings for days at a time, and usually they will work under Samaritan's Purse doing mud-outs. These kids are always a joy to work with, full of energy and a passion for Christ.
One evening after a long day of mudding out while staying at the GMT men's house with three young Japanese fellows we had about two hours to kill, so Ken suggested we take a walk down to the ocean. It seemed about as exciting as anything else, so Ken, Motoki, Ryo and I put our boots on and headed out towards the south in the most direct path to the coast. We crossed over several now-vacant lots, a cracked road which runs parallel to the shore, and a bamboo-enforested area before reaching the final parallel road at the base of a fifteen foot tall gravel sea wall which ascends at a forty-five degree angle from the ground and can therefore be climbed without a terrible amount of effort. This is a lonely street with a distinct smell, where the traffic lights perpetually blink yellow. It would resemble a ghost-town but there is no town, only two or three buildings which, by virtue of some inconceivable circumstance, managed to stand in the face of a forty-meter wave. In the distance, the basic frame of a preschool and playground can be seen, hardly recognizable even up close, completely devastated by the tsunami. After climbing the sea wall, the Japanese fellows and I spent more than a half-hour skipping rocks over the dark sea into the vacant, solid grey-blue eternity of the evening sky as the setting sun could be warmly felt shining brightly from the right. Afterwards, it was decided that we should get some sweets, so we all ran back down the sea wall and headed east down the lonely road towards the Seven-Eleven. We passed the preschool on the way back, and briefly discussed the tragedy, mostly in English which the guys are pretty good at. As the sun set, it became chilly and we headed back for GMT.
Anyhow, my roommate Riku seems to be dozing off here, so I'm gonna have to turn the light out and get to bed. God bless you if you read this whole post, and I hope you all have a nice day.
おやすみなさい
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