You haven’t really lived until you’ve ridden in the Hokkaido Team’s bus! It’s old and rickety, with virtually no shocks, seats that are coming unbolted from the walls, and wheels they say are dry rotting. I’m not really sure what that means, but it doesn’t sound good! Nonetheless, we spent several hours Wednesday evening touring the coastline on the bus.
My friend and colleague Nathan Snow delights in shocking visitors from the U.S. by driving said bus along narrow Japanese roads. Today, he also had another objective: to visit some of the folks that he has befriended during the months since the earthquake and tsunami.
One of his new friends owns a small grocery store in the town of Otsuchi. Her neighborhood isn't on the ocean, so its residents weren’t particularly concerned about the tsunami warnings on March 11. However, when the tsunami caused the river that runs through Otsuchi to reverse its currents and run inland, it flooded out all of the homes and businesses on its banks in just an instant. The first floor of the store was completely destroyed, but its owner happened to be upstairs in her apartment at the time checking on her invalid husband.
She was very fortunate to survive. But she lives with the memory of her friends and neighbors calling out to her as they were washed away before her very eyes. There was nothing she could do.
Nathan, Pastor Kimura, and the Christian group called Hokumin have visited with her a number of times in the past few months, helping her to clean up the store, serving hot curry rice to as many neighbors as they can, and seeking to be the feet and hands of Jesus.
Today, her store is open for business again and we were able to buy soft drinks and ice cream. We also reaped a blessing we did not deserve when she decided to give each and every one of us a T-shirt. Well, Nathan and Pastor Kimura deserved it, but the rest of us rookie volunteers certainly didn’t. The T-shirts were donated to the people of the town by a charity organization and, roughly translated, say “Stay strong, Otsuchi!”
The bus drove us to another small community where we met another one of Hokumin’s new friends. This handsome young man was thrilled to see Nathan and Pastor Kimura and had, in fact, visited a Christian church the Sunday before. His house was a few meters above sea level and several kilometers from the ocean, but it still got some damage on the first floor. The real tragedy, though, was that his sister had left his house that afternoon after the mega-earthquake saying, “I’ve got to go get my kids!” She and her 2 kids have not been seen since, nor has anyone found their car.
The bus carried us miles and miles along the coastline, and everywhere we went, we saw scenes of sudden destruction. Driving along the coastline of one small peninsula, the low tide revealed a mini-van submerged just below the surface. In one town, patrol cars lined the streets as a line of 10-12 police officers worked in a drainage ditch that had not yet been cleaned out. As we traveled a little further on the two-lane road, we passed the police vehicle that is used for removing corpses. Another victim had switched columns from the “missing” list to the “dead”.
As difficult as it was to see the sorrow around us, with each kilometer the dilapidated old bus traveled, my respect for the body of Christ grew. As I watched Pastor Kimura interact with survivors, I thought of the Biblical description of Jesus, “He went about doing good” This pastor was modeling His Savior. In the volunteer center, at the temporary housing unit, speaking with every survivor at every stop, Pastor Kimura was both gentle and bold.
We stopped by a newly rented facility where OMF (the mission descended from Hudson Taylor’s China Inland Mission) has set up a base to reach this devastated and hurting region of Japan. There we met some more missionaries and pastors who will be concentrating their efforts and prayers for the next 2 years on loving those who hurt. They will be feeding the hungry, healing the broken, encouraging the hopeless.
The people on the bus, including myself, were definitely going “up and down” on those bumpy roads all evening. The highs and lows we had seen this day were dramatic, but as I lay down to sleep in the gym again that night, my heart was filled with praise. The Spirit of Christ is alive and well.
“Be still and know that I am God. I WILL BE EXALTED among the nations.”
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