Every morning we do devotionals. A girl from the California team shares about how she was tempted to measure her productivity and become frustrated when the numbers are low, but we won't earn our way to heaven. It is so important to simply have peace and delight in His presence.
I reflect that being here, volunteering with a Christian organization, is living solidly in a Christian bubble. It is so easy to dwell on God's goodness all the time, because everyone else around me is Christian. I think about how being in the workplace is the opposite, and hiding faith is the norm. It's hard to maintain faith when you're constantly hiding it from view. It's easy to forget it's there when it's out of sight.
As I'm dwelling on how easy I have it here, our team goes to help clean out a house in Ishinomaki that hasn't been touched in the three months since the disaster. When we get out of the car, the stench is overwhelming. There are flies everywhere. We put on masks and goggles, but it is still nauseating. We go inside the house where it is humid and stuffy, and it looks like there was a landslide inside the house. There are dead fish everywhere - on the roof, on the shelf, and the owner's personal belongings. Fortunately, the owner made it out safely, but is not coming back. We've been called in to help clear away the stench because the next door neighbors are staying.
The bright spot of the day is breaking bread with the other church, a group from Korea. I have a very confusing conversation with one of the elder members, who only sort of speaks English lol I only know a few Korean nouns that mostly didn't come up in our conversation haha. No worries, showing God's love is the best form of communication! They serve us their homemade noodles. We offer them our convenience store bought bentos. We got a better trade. It’s such a blessing to see God’s children serving each other. I feel a little bad to have them serving us their food, but they are so generous and are genuinely hosting us out of their kindness of their hearts. We all just met today, but we are all on the same team.
By the evening I've had a little more time to process the day's events, and I realize that I am solidly bummed out. I volunteer to share a prayer request, and before I know it my voice is breaking and I am all out crying in front of everyone. What a loser. XD But hey, God made me this way. I can't even watch other people cry without tearing up. I am overwhelmed by seeing the destruction, the slow pace at which recovery takes place (it takes 20 of us swarming all over one house for a full day to help the situation, but how many houses like there are there across Japan?) I am emotionally drained by picking personal belongings out of rubble all day, seeing maggots crawling across rotting objects, and comprehending what is like to have one's life as you know it suddenly wiped away. Sure these are material objects, but we grieve with those who grieve, and loss is loss. I apologize later to my team leader for crying, but he says, "I'm glad you can cry, because I can't cry anymore."
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