Ishinomaki Trip

Just returned from our Ishinomaki trip and while I'm still thinking through everything that happened and everything I saw.. I thought I'd post a few photos of what we did up there so you can see for yourself.
We left on Wednesday right after school and drove up North (about 6 hours), past Fukushima towards Sendai.
In the morning we met at the headquarters and grabbed our supplies before heading up to a remote village that was wiped out during the tsunami. We spent the day hauling out junk from peoples destroyed homes and doing basic work around the village. I spent a large part of the day cleaning out a home and coming across the things that belonged to a young girl. Seeing all these toys and little purses and clothes that once belonged to a regular little girl was rather difficult. Occasionally we would come across family photographs and if they weren't too damaged they were collected.

I was continually struck by how suddenly these peoples lives changed. In half an hour they lost everything. Nothing will ever be the same for them. We went past schools where almost all the students died and schools where the kids survived but their parents did not. It is an ongoing tragedy. To think that the waves stretched 250km down the coastline.. well I hadn't thought about that before. It was a real awakening for me to see the extent of the damage done.

 To see buildings half destroyed was something.. so much wreckage.

 To think that people actually lived in these places..

 Notice the clock.. stopped at 3:11.. when the earthquake happened.

 I was a tad upset that the helmets were orange.. Orange does nothing for my skin tone. There's my shallow side coming through.

The second day we went to a fishing village and helped clean out a factory that had been severely damaged. Not glamorous work but I did feel that we were helping out. There are so many tedious jobs to be done that it was fun being part of a large group that could get a lot done in a fairly short period of time.

 We had to scrub rust off gears.. it took forever!

 This is the lady who has been doing this job for 7 months.. She was happy for the help.

During our lunch break we went down by the water.. Such a beautiful area of Japan and hard to believe that calm water behind me was not quite so calm only a short while ago..  (like my rain suit? Not quite sure why I kept it on all day.. )

 It was also fun to get to know people I haven't really hung out with before. Things like this have a way of bringing people closer.

At the end of two long days! I think quite a few of us will be back!

 ***
Another thing that struck me.. the story has pretty much disappeared from the news but the tragedy is still very much existent. There is so much work to be done and that itself seems overwhelming. Tokyo sends buses of people up north every weekend to help out and I think this country is doing all it can to fix itself but it still takes time. Foreigners and Japanese are working hard to fix the country but it's difficult work and takes many hands and lots of time.

So please.. continue to Pray for Japan.