《 Diary Treasure �� 》6.25.2012
Last week as I gazed up at the rainy season’s sky, I prayed.
As the television repeatedly flashed local flood warnings, I prayed.
I prayed , “There’s this job to do, that project to finish and the festival to prepare for...and they say there is the possibility of a rainy season downpour and a typhoon is coming, Lord I need a miracle!”
I just got back from a long trip...and the roller coaster lifestyle continues,
the Mission continues.
By the grace of God,
we are experiencing numerous miracles.
Regarding Mr. and Mrs. “I”whose home was completely destroyed by the earthquake, there has been progress since our last meeting at the May “Wakaba Party”.
A little over a decade ago they moved here from Tokyo and built a brand new home but because it was on the side of a steep hill it was severely damaged.
Before the house was to be destroyed we went in together and removed their “treasures”. It had taken them a long time but they finally made the choice to have the house demolished.
The biggest problem is that they live in the city of “S”, about 50 minutes from Koriyama, and so it was unclear where they could store their stuff until they find a new residences.
Just before June when I was going to leave Japan for a long trip, I contacted Mr. “Y” who lives in the town of “T”, which is about 40 minutes away, and asked if they knew of any open homes or storages spaces.
Within a few hours, Mr. “Y’s” friend, Mr. “K”, who also lives in the town of “T”, had allowed us to rent a warehouse that he owns in the city of “S”. And wouldn’t you know it, it was directly next door to Mr. and Mrs. “I’s” condemned home!!
Then, just a few days after I returned home to Japan we had a volunteer team from Singapore come.
On the 19th, due to the impending typhoon, the bullet trains departing Tokyo station were stopped and so we were blessed to have help from pastor Sakai and the members of Tokyo Urban Church who got the team safely to Koriyama on the following day.
That following day, after the typhoon had passed, the temperature steadily began to rise and so we made the decision to go with the staff to “S” city and take care of organizing and moving the “I’s” house.
The house had sat abandoned since March 11th of last year.
There are huge cracks in the walls and things were so badly scattered by the quaking that you could not even see the floor.
As the volunteer team, our staff and myself changed into house slippers and stepped into the house we were astonished.
The foul smell and the dust. The severely cracked walls, the floor strewn with broken dishes and the toppled furniture.
I was reminded of the quaking of that day as I looked around at the room which clearly showed what happens when life is abruptly brought to a halt.
The clean up took two days.
We gathered everything up off the floor and put them in plastic bags.
I said, “Put the trash here” and pointed to a pile outside the front entrance.
And Mr. “I” said, “but what’s in those bags isn’t trash...”
For those of us cleaning up it all seemed like “garbage”,
but for the “I’s” it was their memories, their treasures.
Throughout the process, Mr. and Mrs. “I” often looked like they were not feeling well.
But still, they had taken some medicine and they were doing their very best to stand with us, guiding and directing our work.
“Maybe it would have been better not to have done this (clean up)...But they would never have been able to move forward if we didn’t,” I told myself as I rubbed Mrs. “I’s” shoulder.
The “I’s” home was part of a new residential development in the city of “S” and it seems that none of the other homes in the area were so badly damaged that they had to be demolished.
If you looked around you could see many people living normal lives with beautifully manicured homes and gardens.
For two days the volunteer team and our staff members silently worked at gathering up Mr. and Mrs. “I’s” treasures.
Two days from now, with the help of CRASH Japan, we will once again go and move some of the heavy furniture and finish cleaning up.
The “I’s”, whose “treasures” we were stuffing into trash bags, encouraged and moving forward, finally smiled for us on the second day.
Their hearts are still swallowed up in a wave of despair.
A few days back Mrs. “I” allowed me to pray for her and she could not stop crying.
“In this hopeless time in our life you church folk are standing here with us...I just don’t know how to thank you,” she said.
The picture below of their smiling faces is my “treasure”.
The team gathered around the “I’s” for this picture and then they gave them a gift from Singapore. We put away all of the cleaning products and tools and then the team and our staff members packed into a station wagon...and it started to rain.
My God Reign.
