Japan

So…I went to Japan last week!! That was pretty crazy, right? The whole trip kind of came about out of nowhere (for me at least) and I only had 2 months or so to get myself all ready for it. But I’m so glad it all worked out because it was a really great trip! I went with Team Expansion of course, with Doug Lucas (President), Betty Byrd (Prayer and Personnel), and 3 younger girls, Casey, Cassidy , and Whitney. Whitney had just finished college a year or so ago, Casey was in college, and Cassidy was only 16 and still in high school, but really had a heart for Japan. We took this trip for a couple of reasons: 1) To visit the missionaries we have in Japan, 2) So Casey, Cassidy, and Whitney could see if Japan is somewhere they’d want to serve long-term, and 3) So I could get experience in leading these types of trips for the future.

Just a warning: I’m about to give you a detailed recap of the entire trip…so if you don’t care that much (which I don’t blame you for) or don’t know how to read (which is sad, we should talk about that), please feel free to stop here and go get a snack or skim the rest of it to see if any exciting words pop out. Just to keep you interested, I might add in random words to catch the attention of all you skimmers. Things like DRUGS and PUPPIES and TACOS. We’ll see.

Ok so I’m probably just going to go day by day here, since that seems easiest.

FRIDAY/SATURDAY: So we met at the airport Friday morning at 4 am. Needless to say that wasn’t fun. Plus, if you’ve been getting my e-mail updates, you know I’m slightly terrified of flying…so I wasn’t super excited about the whole travel part in general. Our first flight was from Louisville to Dallas and it was fairly miserable. I got super air sick and I was really pretty nervous so it was just a bad few hours. But we got to Dallas and I ate some crackers and took some DRUGS (legal ones, just to be clear) and felt much better. The flight from Dallas to Tokyo was much better. The DRUGS really helped, as did the whole “being able to watch movies on your own screen on the headrest in front of you” thing. It took about 12 hours, but I slept for most of it so it wasn’t too bad. We got to Tokyo on Saturday afternoon. There was a delay on one of the trains we had to take (a number of people told us there was probably a suicide—apparently it happens pretty often, people just jump in front of the trains on an almost daily basis. Very sad.) so we missed the last train to Ishinomaki (the city we were headed to). Needless to say that created a pretty crazy series of events where we were rushing around train stations and random city streets trying to find a very specific bus stop so we could get the absolute last bus to Ishinomaki. Luckily we made it and arrived in Ishinomaki at like, 11 pm, and were greeted by the distinct Tennessee accent of one of the missionaries yelling “Konichiwa, ya’ll!” which was wonderfully amusing after 30+ hours of traveling.

SUNDAY: We had a pancake breakfast at the church in Ishinomaki, which was delicious. It was a really cool experience getting to worship with Japanese believers, the missionaries, and a few other short term teams. After that we headed to Onegawa, one of the cities hit the hardest by the tsunami last year. Ishinomaki had also been hit badly, but Onegawa lost something like 80% of their buildings and ¼ of their population. We went with 2 Japanese believers, Ahbay-San and his daughter. He had lost his wife in the tsunami when she tried to seek shelter on the roof of the bank she worked at. Sadly, it wasn’t high enough. He and another man, Suzuki-San (a community leader trying to rebuild the city) explained to us that the evacuation center for the town was a hospital pretty high up on a hill (but still right beside the water).  They said it was pretty cold the day of the tsunami and a lot of people were in their cars in the parking lot of the hospital trying to stay safe but also keep warm. They could see the shoreline very well from where they were, so they were trying to keep an eye on the water levels. However, the mountains behind them apparently forced the water to funnel back toward the hospital, where no one was looking, so many of the cars and people at the evacuation center were swept out to sea when the waves came rushing toward them from behind. It was pretty surreal to stand in that parking lot, overlooking what used to be a thriving downtown area but was now just empty lots, knowing that dozens of people died where we were standing. Not to get too morbid here…but all I could think about was the fear these people must have felt while they were being swept away inside their cars, knowing there was nothing they could do to save themselves. Knowing the statistics of the country, it’s also pretty safe to say almost none of these people were Christians. It’s scary enough to know you’re being swept out to sea and won’t survive…but can you imagine knowing you’re going to die and not knowing where you’ll go or what will happen to you once you do?

While we were talking to Suzuki-San we asked him what we could pray for and all he said was that he wanted to be remembered. He asked us not to forget him or Onegawa and to not let everyone in America forget what happened and how they’re all still healing and rebuilding. The tsunami might be over, but the recovery is a long, painful process for them.

MONDAY: Monday morning we woke up to a 6.2 earthquake around 5 am! So that was an exciting way to start the day! The rest of the day we spent with the missionaries, cleaning up Ishinomaki. Since the missionaries in Ishinomaki moved there about a year ago (from Osaka, where they had been doing church planting) they’ve spent almost every day helping the community clean up from the tsunami. Almost every day is a “work day” of grueling physical labor for them. On Monday we spent the day with them, cleaning up a number of small apartments that had been ruined by the tsunami. And by “cleaning up” I mean we emptied the houses of the owners’ ruined, muddy, moldy possessions, removed moldy floors and walls and doors, and took multiple truckloads of debris to one of the dozens of massive city dumps. The dumps were one of the craziest things to me. I had never really thought about it before, but all the debris from the tsunami has to go somewhere. Every piece of broken furniture, every moldy item of clothing, every ruined house and car and office building has to go somewhere. The size of these dumps is almost unfathomable. They’re stories and stories high and some go for miles. It’s just unbelievable how much debris is leftover.

One of my favorite parts about Monday was all the different stories we heard about the people who lived in the apartments we were cleaning. One woman and her children were saved by a neighbor who told them to run, not take the car, which saved their lives. Many people got in their cars to try to outrun the tsunami but ended up getting trapped inside and washed away. We heard about a few other families who used to live there and were so excited about the prospect of moving back into their ruined homes. It really made all the hard work that much more special, knowing we were doing it for real people with real stories who wanted their lives back.

One of my other favorite parts about Monday was that I got to use a sledge hammer. Turns out, I really love knocking out walls and hitting things with heavy objects J (TACOS)

TUESDAY: We left Ishinomaki Tuesday morning and traveled (for like, 5 hours on 3 different trains) to Karuizawa, where we met with another missionary family. (PUPPIES) Karuizawa is in the mountains of Japan, right next to an active volcano (which was pretty exciting!). The missionaries in Karuizawa work with a Christian school and camp. We were able to stay in a beautiful cabin on the camp. The missionaries let us participate in their Tae Kwan Do class they teach at the school---which was super fun! We learned all sorts of good moves so I’m pretty dangerous now.

That evening we went to dinner at the home of a Japanese Christian couple, Mikio and Kazuko. Mikio is the minister at a church near Karuizawa. It was really neat to be able to eat in the home of not only a Japanese family, but a Christian Japanese family! After dinner they took us to a Buddhist temple high in the mountains to pray for the people of Japan. It was pretty crazy to see an actual Buddhist temple with all of their creepy statues and idols that they pray to and make offerings to.  One of the craziest things, to me at least, was that some of these weird little statues had tiny knitted hats and aprons. Mikio told us the Buddhist monks put those on them to keep those “spirits” dry and warm. How sad is it that the gods they worship need someone to keep them warm? How pathetically un-powerful is a god that needs a human to put a hat on it to save it from the elements? While it was incredibly sad to know a lot of the people in that area pray to these false gods, it was also incredibly comforting to know that our God is all-powerful, he doesn’t NEED us to do anything. He doesn’t NEED us for anything. But he wants us and he loves us anyway.

This was the night of the typhoon, so while we were praying at the temple the winds and storms were blowing like crazy. It was definitely a powerful experience to be praying that God would knock down the high places of these false gods during a huge storm like that.

 After that we went to a Shinto shrine to pray, as well. It was still storming and while we were praying that God would show these people that praying to their ancestors was empty and pointless, the light that was shining on the shrine went out. We continued to pray and as we left we started singing Here I Am to Worship. As we sang “light of the world you stepped out into darkness” the light came back on. I’m certainly not saying this was a sign from God or anything like that. Lights do tend to go off during typhoons quite regularly. But it was a pretty cool reminder that God is still in control, even in places like Japan that don’t know Him at all.

WEDNESDAY: We spent Wednesday morning helping an English school move to a new building. The school was run by 2 young missionaries that use the English school as part of their ministry. I learned how to use a drill and take shelving apart, which was pretty exciting! (UNICORN) That afternoon we went to downtown Karuizawa. Apparently, the town of Karuizawa was founded by a missionary in the 1800s and is home to the oldest wooden church building in Japan. We also got to see the tennis courts where the current Emperor of Japan met his wife and where they return every year to play a game of tennis. Very fun.

Karuizawa was really one of the coolest little places I’ve ever been! The streets were all brick and lined with the cutest specialty shops. One of which was a French bakery that John Lennon and Yoko Ono used to frequent (Yoko Ono was from Karuizawa).  The streets and buildings perfectly framed the awesome, smoking volcano too, which was pretty cool. Since the entire town of Karuizawa is in the mountains there’s a lot of forest around, so a lot of the restaurants were nestled back into the woods. They all had outdoor seating with Christmas lights all around, so it looked like you were just eating in the woods. It was really pretty cool. (TACOS) Also, Bill Gates is building a house there---so you know it must be a great place!

THURSDAY: Thursday we traveled to Niigata to visit another one of Team Expansion’s missionary families. They took us to a really neat conservatory with all sorts of Japanese gardens and flowers. There was one sort of flower that looked like something out of a Dr. Seuss book, it was just a straight green stem with a ball of purple on top. Very weird! The conservatory overlooked most of Niigata so we spent the afternoon praying for the city and the work the missionaries were planning to start there.

FRIDAY: We spent lots of hours on trains again Friday, but ended up in Tokyo by the afternoon so it was worth the train rides! We got to spend the whole day in Tokyo, just sort of exploring and shopping and seeing the city. We took by far the craziest train ride ever through Tokyo! It was more packed than I could’ve ever imagined. I honestly thought for a second I was about to get crushed to death! (DINOSAURS) It was already packed when we got on the train, so we were uncomfortable to begin with. We thought for sure no one else could fit…but we were clearly wrong. After we got on (and thought it was full) at least 10 more people shoved on. Probably more, but at that point I couldn’t see anything past the person in front of me, and there was no room to turn around, so I have no idea how many people actually got on.  We were packed in there so tightly we couldn’t even hold on to anything, but it was ok because we were so squished we couldn’t have fallen down anyway!

SATURDAY: We headed to the airport Saturday morning and spent about the next 30 hours traveling…which was crazy because our flight left Tokyo at 6 pm and we got to Chicago at 4 pm, so technically it was a -2 hour flight! We had a short flight from Chicago to Louisville and we finally got into Louisville around 9 pm!

So I think that’s a pretty detailed trip summary! I won’t add anything else on here at the end because if you’ve actually read through this entire thing you deserve to go take a nap. And a medal. But you won’t get one, so just go take a nap and know that it’s your reward for reading like a champ!