Miyako Mission Trip pt. 1

At the end of July, we were suddenly presented with an opportunity to take some of our high schoolers from the youth group down to the port city of Miyako on a three day mission trip. The chapel has been working closely with some Japanese pastors in this area since the earthquake struck, delivering food and household goods to people living in temporary housing. But our point of contact randomly asked the Japanese pastors once if they would like us to bring some teenagers down to help out. Turns out they often have visiting volunteers put on programs at local elementary schools to encourage young children traumatized by the earthquake and tsunami.

We scrambled to put this trip together in two weeks. Considering I've never really been on a trip like this, let alone planned one out before, it was a big challenge. I often found myself overwhelmed with decisions I never thought I would have to make before. (For example, puzzling over how to feed twelve hungry teenagers for three days without much access to refrigeration, or what kinds of American card games we could easily teach to children who don't speak our language.) But the Lord ensured that everything fell into place just in time.

One of the great things about working for a government chapel is that this whole trip, which people in the States would normally pay hundreds of dollars to go on, was completely funded! Not only did we provide transportation, lodging and food for each student, but we also purchased 400 kilos of rice and several toys and games to donate to the children and families who lost their homes to the tsunami. Before we knew it, we had everything packed into two government vans and set out on the morning of August 2, 2011 with a team of 12 students and 4 leaders.

 The congregation praying over our team the Sunday before we left.

Preparing for the trip! Erika is loading up some of the bags

of rice, and one of our teenagers is helping me collect

all of our arts and craft supplies.

At first, I'm not sure if our students realized the importance of our mission. Many of them probably signed up for the trip just to get out of the house, or for the sake of going on a mission trip, whatever that involved. I don't know how many teenagers would get genuinely excited about spending three days playing with little kids. But as we drove south along the coast and started entering areas heavily affected by the tsunami, it started to hit home. These children and their families had seen and experienced atrocities no one should ever have to go through. Many of them had lost their homes and loved ones. They do not know God or have any lasting hope. So it was our mission to bring joy back into their traumatized lives and tell them about the love of Jesus.

Footage from the moment the tsunami hit Miyako

Miyako was probably the northern-most city that was really slammed by the tsunami. Hachinohe had some significant flooding and there were some large boats that washed up on dry land. But that was nothing compared to the loss of life in Miyako. If you look at the map at the top of this post, you can see that it was pretty far north of Sendai, but the wave was still 40 meters (120 feet) high when it hit here. Most of the footage that was played on the news shortly after the tsunami came out of Miyako. If you click the link above you'll see one of the famous videos taken from the roof of city hall when the wave hit. Unbelievable.

 You can see how the coast line was just flattened.

 Workers sitting in front of one of many, many football field-sized

piles of debris. It was amazing to see them working to sort it all

out and recycle as much as possible. That would never happen in the U.S.

 Most of the big beached ships had been removed from the area

we visited, but here is one small fishing boat that flipped over the

sea wall there.

 All of those little squares of concrete were once houses.

 It was really terrible seeing all of the destruction down there. It's hard to fathom the sheer power of the wave. We saw very thick concrete doors in the sea wall that had buckled and been bent back. Semi trucks had been wrapped around trees, and concrete light posts snapped like tooth picks. It definitely helped us get into the right mindset for our mission. But honestly, it wasn't as bad as I imagined it would be. Most of Miyako city has been cleaned up and restored to the point that people can function fairly normally. We stayed in a flat on one of the main streets in downtown Miyako, which was apparently covered in three feet of mud a few months ago. But now you would never know it. (You can see for yourself in the picture above.) Obviously the first and second stories of many buildings are still boarded up and trashed. But I think what we were most impressed by was how far they have come down the path to restoration. There is hope for them yet!

We stayed in a large one room apartment that the OMF International missionaries have been renting and offering as a place for volunteers to stay while in the area. We had a four story walk-up to get there, and there was no air conditioning. But all things considered, it wasn't bad. We spread out our air mattresses and sleeping bags on the floor in a squashy grid pattern (with our five boys hidden behind a small divider), cooked our meals in a small Japanese kitchenette, and somehow managed to peaceably share one bathroom between sixteen people!

During the day we were either out serving the children at local schools (more on what we did out there in the next post), or we were helping OMF and the 3.11 Church Network move all of their stuff out of this rented space, down four flights of stairs, packing it into trucks and our vans, and moving it to their new temporary base in a near by town. At night, we cooked dinner and did some fun fellowship-building activities. Then I lead us in a 30 minute devotion and discussion of how we saw God working that day. Finally, at 9 pm we spread out for an hour of quiet time with the Lord. When I announced this the first night, they thought I was crazy for expecting that they would spend an hour doing nothing but reading their Bible, journaling and praying. But the next morning they said it was awesome and that an hour wasn't enough time! That statement was evidence of some of the greatest spiritual growth that occurred on this trip. I am so thankful!