Two more Stories- May 23

A home near the place Ms. Kumagai's friends were lost, soaked in black,oily residue.

In the same area, acres of wrecked cars awaiting location by their owners.

Today was a frenzy of buying and building. We have managed to deliver 20 of the promised 90 table sets today, and hope to do 20 more tomorrow. Partway through , we had a visitor.

Ms. Shimotomai is the mother who requested the first 3 table sets. She and her children were in a school gym near the church. As numbers had dropped to 10, the town decided to move everyone to 2 different centers. I was a bit apprehensive when I heard that, and phoned her on Sunday night to see how she was doing.

She was not doing well. From being in a big gym with a handful of people, she went to a room crowded with older people who resented having active children around. She had to ask a friend to keep her tables, as there is no room for them; barely room to lie down, in fact. There are no privacy dividers in the room at all. She will not have a chance to get into temporary housing for several weeks.

As she was still near the church, I suggested she drop by for a visit. I had been in the town office introducing Micah to the officials I know there, and returned to find her helping the guys with the tables.

She lived in this neighborhood before the tsunami. She knew about the church. But, she had never been in it. So, I took her across the street to show her the building.

Fortunately, Ms. Kumagai, the church member who was so helpful during the reconstruction, was there to get something she had forgotten the day before. We had quite a conversation.

We were talking about Ms. Shimotomai's job as a Chinese translator drying up when all the Chinese workers in local factories went home after the tsunami. That led to a discussion of the fate of the huge cement factory across the river, and I asked Ms. Kumagai if she had been down to that end of town.

"Yes", she said. "I had a student down there I hadn't heard from. None of the family showed up in the lists of dead or missing, or in the shelter lists, so I assumed they were all right. I went down to visit the family a couple of weeks ago. The whole area was wrecked. I asked a neighbor who was clearing his property if he knew where they were. 'They're dead', he said. 'They had no other family, so there was no one to report them missing'."

Her eyes filled with tears.

"I stood on the beach and cried", she said.

I have worked alongside this cheery woman for many days; it is sobering to hear even a little of the burdens she quietly carries from those dark days.

On April 11, Ms. Shimotomai was at work, high enough to be safe. Here children were in schools above the high water mark. But, her apartment was on the first floor in the same neighborhood as the church. Her neighbors upstairs have been able to return to their unflooded apartments already; she has lost everything, and has no idea what is ahead.

Ms. Kuimagai did some gentle probing about living conditions in the shelter, and when she heard the Shimotomais would have difficulty coordinating their schedule with the shelter's bathhouse bus schedule, she offered her own bath as an alternative. This is a stretch for anyone, and especially for a Japanese person. It seems she is taking to heart the sermon I preached yesterday.

Ms. Shimotomai left to meet a friend. I gave her a children's picture book version of the life of Jesus for her boys. She seemed a bit reluctant to take it. Will she give it to them? Will she accept Ms. Kumagai's hospitality? Will she come to church, now that she has been in the building and met one of the members?

Please pray on. Volunteers like myself need prayer for sensitivity and wisdom. Local Christians like Ms. Kumagai need prayer for boldness and compassion, even as they struggle to come to terms with the disaster themselves. And, non-Christians like Ms. Shimotomai need prayer for the light of the Gospel to penetrate the darkness that threatens to engulf them.

3/11- it's not over yet.