And speaking of pine trees....

The pine in front of our house here in Ajigasawa is gone, too, victim of a removal order from the power company. I told the story in a previous post. Here is a picture of what is left of our tree- no cuttings, but some cut-up firewood.
There is a little tree growing alogside the stump, though.

Hope Tree

The Hope Tree in Rikuzen Takata (Iwate Prefecture) is drying out, despite efforts to save it. The only survivor of a famous forest of 70,000 trees along the shore, it became the symbol for regeneration of the battered city. Cuttings have been taken, and the trees that grow from them will be planted here in a few years when the sunken, salty shoreline is repaired.
May the people of the Iwate coast also find a greater Hope- in Christ.

More to do

Decks and benches at the Hassendo temporary housing project, Ofunato, Iwate.

One of the things I have noticed about the recent tsunami disaster here is how quickly conditions change. You have to be nimble to keep up with changing needs.
A friend who moved into temporary housing asked me to make a small deck so she could hang the bedding out to air. This, and the smaller bench version, have proven to be very popular. Nearly everyone in this small housing project (11 units) now has either a deck or a bench. A visitor from a different housing project (Maeda Kouen) asked me to make one for her; now her neighbours are wanting them, too. It is great to see how these simple objects not only make hanging laundry easier and safer, but also make it possible for residents to be outside, and get to know each other (I have a photo of four ladies sitting on one of the new benches chatting, but am reluctant to post it. They were nor too sure about being photographed, as they were nor dressed up).

A Little Help From My Friends

Two skids of 1x4s.

Look like this when piled in the shed.

and like this after helpers make them into table tops.

Here is the portable cutting table.

And here is the delivery- in this case, the shelter in Rikuzen Takada Number One Junior High School.

A fellow OMFer from Tokyo got together with her church and bought colorful cushions for the chairs- a big hit!

At the height of the chair project, we had orders totaling over 200. Fortunately, several short-termers and volunteers pitched in to help. Some of them got very good at turning out a quality product.
By the end of July, shelters were all but closed. Temporary housing had been thrown up at a break-neck pace, and residents were urged to move out of the shelters. Not all of them wanted to! Usually they got sent to different places, as a lottery system was used to allot available units. The close-knit communities that developed in the shelters were broken up; food hand-outs ceased. Not everyone has a car, and some temporary housing projects are far from shopping. Those with jobs are getting on with life, but those still unemployed (and there are many, due to the destruction of many businesses) are in limbo. Finding those with needs, and addressing those needs has become difficult, now that individual conditions are so different, and they are not all in one big room.

A New twist On Chairs- July 5-8

Explaining chair construction.

Mr. Yamamichi; retired Jr. High shop teacher from Aomori City, came to help.

Near the waterfront in Rikuzen Takata. The tsunami broke windows to the fourth floor.

The gutted remains of Kessen Junior High School. The school moved to a recently decommissioned building in the mountains.

Since May, I have been making chair and table sets for children in shelters in the disaster area. I work in the towns of Ofunato and Rikuzen Takata. On one visit to a shelter, I met a Junior High School teacher who asked me to do chairs with the 60 first and second graders from Kessen Junior High School, as they had no money for the yearly "summer craft project'. It turns out that their school buiding was innundated, shortly after the whole student body and faculty fled up a steep mountain behind the school. He said he didn't even have time to get his wallet from the teacher's room. They stood on the hillside in the snow and watched the town wash out to sea.
The students were cheerful enough on this sunny July day; we had a great time working together.