Japan Missions - Day 7 (Heading up to Sendai)

We got the okay to go and then it was time to get ready. The girls in the CRASH house are so generous, lending me all the things I don't have. (Hat, long sleeved shirts, long pants, sleeping bag...) They send me off with a prayer. It turns out Marisa and Jordan, two of the individual volunteers at HQ who joined our team, spent a lot of time in Sendai since their family owns a vacation home at the beach there. They are the perfect addition to our team since they both grew up in Japan and speak Japanese. Praise the Lord.

On our way up to Camp Morigo in Sendai, the epicenter of the earthquake, the rest stop looks pretty normal, but the presence of Japanese military is our first clue that things aren't like they were. They are walking around in their camouflage uniforms. We pass through Fukushima Prefecture, and a thought runs through my head - uhm... are we close to the Fukushima nuclear disaster site? ...Oh well. Already here.

It's a long drive from Tokyo to Sendai (five hours), and I'm a little sleepy when we arrive in Sendai where the tsunami hit. I bolt wide awake when I open my eyes - I can't believe the devastation around me. Cars are shriveled and flattened, upside down, houses look like their walls have all been punched out by some angry giant. The only word for this is "ravaged." In the rubble there is everything - a trombone, pages from photo albums, tea cups, a bottle of tea... I want to cry but I don't (somehow it doesn't feel real), and instead I feel nauseated.







We pull up to the former location of the Seaside Chapel in Sendai, and miraculously the church's cross was still upright after the disaster. (To be fair, it was a little crooked, but still upright.)



I wonder if we're allowed to be here, do we look like disaster tourists? Our team leader says no, people are allowed to come. Some people are looking for their belongings. We have a CRASH sticker on our rental car. Bulldozers are doing cleanup, but from where I'm watching, it looks like a snail's pace. The bulldozers, relatively few of them, swing slowly from one pile to the other, sorting individual pieces of scrap. Good grief, this is going to take forever.