Delivery Day- March 24

Soup Kitchen at Kamaishi New Life Church

A generator for light, a stove for warmth- temporary quarters 10 inches above the high-water mark.

Delivery Day March 24, 2011

With the parking lot cleared, the team was able to set up a soup kitchen. Pastor Mitsuhashi from Sapporo was there with a team that day. We loaded apple juice from Itayanagi on the truck, and I drove up and down the local streets, while two of the team (Pastor Ohtsuka and a young man named Yudai) passed it out to those working on their homes and stores, and invited them to the soup kitchen. About 40 showed up, and were very appreciative.

During the morning, I took Pastor Yanagiya, from the Shinsei Church, to visit contacts in Ohtsuchi, as his car had floated off somewhere in the tsunami. They both lived in Ohgaguchi, near the shelter we had visited previously.

One was a church member, an elderly lady who lived two houses above the highest reach of the tsunami. Electricity had been restored the day before, but they still had no water. As the central hospital had been destroyed, she had to hike up a steep hill to a smaller hospital for medicine and food.

We visited a seeker as well. He was upset because it was impossible to get gasoline, and he wanted to look for family in Kamaishi. As the phones were out and he had no cell phone (unusually), he was getting desperate.

We then unloaded food and other goods from Sapporo and the Itayanagi load at the Ohgaguchi shelter. They were glad to see us back.

As we were leaving Kamaishi the next day, we had to get all of our donated goods out of the church. Dieter and I took a load to Kotsuchi, one valley south of Ohgaguchi (in Ohtsuchi), and looked for a place to drop it off. A woman pointed to a nearby building and told us a distribution was to be made there for those not in the shelters. The JSDF was just starting to hand out bags of goods as we arrived. I realized they would not want a random addition at this place, so went to ask the man in charge where to take the things. In contrast to all the other JSDF personnel I had seen, this guy didn't look like he had just stepped off a recruiting poster. His uniform was grubby, and he looked tired and harried. I don't know what his rank was, but I suspect it placed it him between desk jockeys and ground pounders; the place where you can't pass decisions on to someone else. He told me to go up the valley to their camp, and drop it there, which we did. I knew they were onto the situation facing the people not in shelters, and would divide and distribute the goods fairly. When I told the harried officer how I admired the good job they were doing, he looked like he would burst into tears. Stress is everywhere; a word of encouragement can really help.

We did a third load, this time with Mike driving a van behind the truck. I wanted to drop it in a different valley, but the next nearest one is on highway 35 to Tono. There is a long line of houses up this valley, better able to absorb refugees and allow them access to the outside. The local collection agency was run by volunteer firemen, and they seemed to have what they needed already, so we did a second trip to the Kotsuchi JSDF camp.

Meanwhile, Pascal had helped finish the initial cleaning of the shop across from the church, while the others had gone to clean a church member's apartment. They were impressed that there were no walls left between her apartment (3 from the end), and the great outdoors.

Then it was off to bed. It was interesting to sleep in 'the zone'. I was very conscious of being 10 inches above the high water mark, and didn't find aftershocks very comforting. I can see why many go to shelters at night, even if they could stay in their homes lower down.

Tomorrow: off to Ofunato and cleaning another church.