- Jon (for the rest of the team)
July 26, 2012
Ishinomaki Newspaper!
Made it into the Ishinomaki newspaper! Pretty cool stuff!
- Jon (for the rest of the team)
- Jon (for the rest of the team)
Tsunamis and the Character of God
If you haven't tried it yet you really must know that Shinkansen (the bullet train) is the best form of travel known to mankind. It's fast, efficient, comfortable, and quiet; the perfect spot for processing our trip.
As I've been sitting here chatting with our teens I've been encouraged and blessed by their spiritual growth and their impressions of the trip.
Just yesterday we capped off our time in Ishinomaki by visiting Onagawa,the neighboring town which was possibly the hardest hit by the tsunami. Words won't do any justice to the feelings that arise when you drive over the crest of the hill into Onagawa. The town is on a peninsula, so when the wave hit it squeezed them from two sides. The first couple blocks on one side of the hill looked bad. Obviously flooded and badly damaged. The other side was a different story entirely. The main section of town with its seaport and the two valleys that branch off of it were literally wiped from the map by the tsunami.
We stood on the hillside by the hospital over looking a valley that was now completely empty, with only a couple remaining apartment buildings left. Those two buildings were on their sides though and one was missing four stories. The pictures we posted yesterday show it. At the hospital on the hill we were about 90 feet above sea level. It was an evacuation point where most of the city fled to. Only problem was the waves reached 100 feet high. Swamping not only the evacuation point but the whole first floor of the supposedly safe hospital. Needless to say many people lost their lives right there. There were actually three massive waves that day. After the first one hit most people thought they would be safe and stepped out to escape. Unfortunately the wave met its counterpart on the opposite side created a whirlpool effect and rebounded back at the hospital, sweeping many people out to sea as they fled.
We then drove into one of the valleys where they have begun to collect the debris. It feels much like driving up to go skiing, with the road dwarfed on both sides with drifts that rise 20 feet into the sky, except these drifts are all made of rubble and garbage. It is surreal to look at the piles and see personal effects spread among the debris. Those mile long piles of garbage represent countless lives that were ripped to shreds on that fateful day.
We finished our time there sitting by the water meditating and processing the destruction we had seen. It was a sobering time to say the least. The teens were dead silent for the 35 minute ride back. Emotionally it is one of the most devastating things I've personally experienced and it hit even harder with our kids, all of whom had never seen something on that magnitude of suffering. It will take a lot of time to process what we saw.
That being said, we had a fantastic finish to the trip. God really stepped into our midst and began to change hearts and lives. Many of our teens had been struggling to connect how scooping mud from the bottom of a house could possibly be beneficial to helping people. Seeing Onagawa changed everything and brought the enormity of what we took part in into stark contrast.
All told we accomplished much as a team. We finished 5 houses (As far as we could, apparently we're not professional carpenters. Who would've guessed?). We served four separate temporary housing complexes and built relational bridges for the church in Ishinomaki, significant because our presence in those complexes is a first for volunteer groups like ours. We enabled the church to have a permanent Friday night cafe concert series to connect with the community. We also were able to be of encouragement and blessing to the staff of Grace Mission Tohoku, our hosts. I wish I had the time to type all of the stories that our team has, and I don't even know half of them.
The ways God moved and worked are too numerous to count.
On a trip like this there is always a purpose for what we do that seems to emerge only only with the ability to look in hindsight. It takes time and reflection to discover beyond the surface relief work and general spiritual growth. As I've processed with our staff people I think we have finally identified what our unique purpose and learning experience was. Last year in San Francisco it felt like God wanted to show our team how he worked and what it felt like to have his power move through us in ministry. It was like a jolt to the system, comparable to a caffeine boost from a Red Bull. This trip feels far different. Instead of the quick jolt this feels more on par with a gentle simmering of God's presence. Perhaps more comparable to a 24 hour release Prilosec (ha!). God work in and through us took more time and was hard won. My belief is that where last year was about God's work this year is about God's character. We were really discovering as a team who He is and what that means for us. Especially in terms of waiting on God and realizing that sometimes God moves in a quiet whisper rather than in the fire, thunder, and earthquakes of spiritual life that we like to see (1 Kings 19). It felt very much like moving from instant gratification spirituality to deeply rooted and tempered faith. Our teens are growing from spiritual infancy into adults in their faith. This trip is probably one that is going to take months to fully process.
Either way, as I ride on this train I feel incredibly blessed to work with our teens. They have gotten rave reviews from every team and staff person they've come in contact with. Probably the best compliment was that they renewed and refreshed many of the long staff members with the way they lived out their faith and worshipped. That's an incredible thing to hear and is a real credit to our kids actually living as the body of Christ and living like their lives depend on it.
Be praying for these last four days as we debrief and process as a team. Pray that God would really reveal lessons to our hearts and that he would give wisdom to see how He has worked. Also pray for refreshment and a rich time of relational growth. Our God is good!
- Jon (for the rest of the team)
As I've been sitting here chatting with our teens I've been encouraged and blessed by their spiritual growth and their impressions of the trip.
Just yesterday we capped off our time in Ishinomaki by visiting Onagawa,the neighboring town which was possibly the hardest hit by the tsunami. Words won't do any justice to the feelings that arise when you drive over the crest of the hill into Onagawa. The town is on a peninsula, so when the wave hit it squeezed them from two sides. The first couple blocks on one side of the hill looked bad. Obviously flooded and badly damaged. The other side was a different story entirely. The main section of town with its seaport and the two valleys that branch off of it were literally wiped from the map by the tsunami.
We stood on the hillside by the hospital over looking a valley that was now completely empty, with only a couple remaining apartment buildings left. Those two buildings were on their sides though and one was missing four stories. The pictures we posted yesterday show it. At the hospital on the hill we were about 90 feet above sea level. It was an evacuation point where most of the city fled to. Only problem was the waves reached 100 feet high. Swamping not only the evacuation point but the whole first floor of the supposedly safe hospital. Needless to say many people lost their lives right there. There were actually three massive waves that day. After the first one hit most people thought they would be safe and stepped out to escape. Unfortunately the wave met its counterpart on the opposite side created a whirlpool effect and rebounded back at the hospital, sweeping many people out to sea as they fled.
We then drove into one of the valleys where they have begun to collect the debris. It feels much like driving up to go skiing, with the road dwarfed on both sides with drifts that rise 20 feet into the sky, except these drifts are all made of rubble and garbage. It is surreal to look at the piles and see personal effects spread among the debris. Those mile long piles of garbage represent countless lives that were ripped to shreds on that fateful day.
We finished our time there sitting by the water meditating and processing the destruction we had seen. It was a sobering time to say the least. The teens were dead silent for the 35 minute ride back. Emotionally it is one of the most devastating things I've personally experienced and it hit even harder with our kids, all of whom had never seen something on that magnitude of suffering. It will take a lot of time to process what we saw.
That being said, we had a fantastic finish to the trip. God really stepped into our midst and began to change hearts and lives. Many of our teens had been struggling to connect how scooping mud from the bottom of a house could possibly be beneficial to helping people. Seeing Onagawa changed everything and brought the enormity of what we took part in into stark contrast.
All told we accomplished much as a team. We finished 5 houses (As far as we could, apparently we're not professional carpenters. Who would've guessed?). We served four separate temporary housing complexes and built relational bridges for the church in Ishinomaki, significant because our presence in those complexes is a first for volunteer groups like ours. We enabled the church to have a permanent Friday night cafe concert series to connect with the community. We also were able to be of encouragement and blessing to the staff of Grace Mission Tohoku, our hosts. I wish I had the time to type all of the stories that our team has, and I don't even know half of them.
The ways God moved and worked are too numerous to count.
On a trip like this there is always a purpose for what we do that seems to emerge only only with the ability to look in hindsight. It takes time and reflection to discover beyond the surface relief work and general spiritual growth. As I've processed with our staff people I think we have finally identified what our unique purpose and learning experience was. Last year in San Francisco it felt like God wanted to show our team how he worked and what it felt like to have his power move through us in ministry. It was like a jolt to the system, comparable to a caffeine boost from a Red Bull. This trip feels far different. Instead of the quick jolt this feels more on par with a gentle simmering of God's presence. Perhaps more comparable to a 24 hour release Prilosec (ha!). God work in and through us took more time and was hard won. My belief is that where last year was about God's work this year is about God's character. We were really discovering as a team who He is and what that means for us. Especially in terms of waiting on God and realizing that sometimes God moves in a quiet whisper rather than in the fire, thunder, and earthquakes of spiritual life that we like to see (1 Kings 19). It felt very much like moving from instant gratification spirituality to deeply rooted and tempered faith. Our teens are growing from spiritual infancy into adults in their faith. This trip is probably one that is going to take months to fully process.
Either way, as I ride on this train I feel incredibly blessed to work with our teens. They have gotten rave reviews from every team and staff person they've come in contact with. Probably the best compliment was that they renewed and refreshed many of the long staff members with the way they lived out their faith and worshipped. That's an incredible thing to hear and is a real credit to our kids actually living as the body of Christ and living like their lives depend on it.
Be praying for these last four days as we debrief and process as a team. Pray that God would really reveal lessons to our hearts and that he would give wisdom to see how He has worked. Also pray for refreshment and a rich time of relational growth. Our God is good!
- Jon (for the rest of the team)
Location:Kyoto,Japan
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