3/11 Sunday: Ishinomaki - First Year Anniversary of the Disaster

What a privilege to be in Ishinomaki on this day.  It's the 1 year anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami and subsequent nuclear disaster.  Don't think I'll ever forget the siren and moment of silence this afternoon at 2:46 marking the catastrophic moment.  

The day started in Sendai for me.  Being with Mika and Hidemasa again was delightful - such wonderful friends.  Had slept pretty well (surprising given the time zone changes) until 5:30 AM, then got a quick bite of roll and coffee, and headed back to Sendai station.  As I walked in, guess what was right there with it's irrepressible tractor beam pulling me in?  Starbucks!  Very cool!  

Caught the train out to Tagajo where Lorna Gilbert picked me up.  Went out to the EFree Mission Guest House at Takayama on the Shichigahama coastline where they live and our teams have stayed each time.  Not surprisingly, it was a full house.  One family is leaving today after the memorial services, so a la hotel style, I'll settle into their now vacant room this evening.  

Ishinomaki Brethren Church

Good to be with Andy and Lorna Gilbert again.  Terrific folks, genuine hearts, and very caring for the survivors. They aren't interested in the hierarchy  or "office politics" of mission agency structure (they've "been there, done that" before), but have a calling and vision - and gifting too - for working face-to-face and heart-to-heart with people.  

We headed out on the 90 min drive to Ishinomaki, but the expressway was jammed with traffic, evidently heading to various memorial services.  It improved after we passed Matsushima, and we dropped off Andy for a quick pow-wow at "the little brown church" near the Ishinomaki station.  It's a tiny congregation, but their location has become the center for a potential collaborative community center outreach.  Their denomination (Brethren I think?), the EFree mission, and 2 other large ministry organizations are teaming up to replace their weary, 1-story building with a new, 3-story building which will become the Ishinomaki Community Center.  The church will have space on an upper floor, but the first floor will be a large, multi-purpose room for a whole variety of community activities and ministry events.

The quonset tent at the "takidashi" site

Lorna and I continued on to the Watanoha area where the main memorial service was planned.  Gilberts and a dozen others had spent most of Saturday setting up a room about the size of  half a basketball court for the meeting.  She had some final details to take care of, so I continued on a dozen blocks to the vacant lot used weekly for "takidashi".  The Dickens group sang here last December and helped with the "takidashi" food prep and supplies distribution.  But since then a 50-person quonset tent has been set up, making the weekly event - and especially the Bingo game selection process  -  a much warmer experience through the winter months.

Leading the memorial service for volunteers

A secondary event was planned here for any short-term volunteers, so as to make as much room as possible in the main memorial service for community folks and the care giving ministry people.  I had been asked to lead this informal gathering, structured more as a prayer & fellowship gathering.  About 30 volunteers showed up, including a Japanese team from Nagoya, a Chinese team from Hong Kong, and an American team from different states working with Samaritan's Purse.  

Just as we were getting started at 2:30, the city-wide PA system which can be heard for miles and happened to be on a utility pole just 50 yards from our tent announced the 2:46 tsunami warning siren would go off as part of the memorial, and cautioned everyone not to panic.  It didn't strike me until later how important that caution was, because the last time everyone heard that siren was for the actual tsunami 1 year ago.  It could very easily have induced PTSD panic in many people.

A minute of silence at 2:46

We continued with our meeting, singing a couple songs, until 2:45 when everyone stood, and the siren sounded for 60 seconds. Then we had the most sorrowful minute of silence I've ever experienced.  Standing surrounded by silent, groaning echos of disaster where 1000s of people lost their lives, and 1000s more lost their homes and livelihoods and join in the grief and pain was a horrible, humbling privilege. 

How do you continue a meeting after that?  After that minute, I can barely recall concluding with a prayer acknowledging God's supremacy over the sea and earth, and asking him to bring healing and hope to survivors, and restoration to communities.  We sang another song or two, then people shared meaningful scripture passages, and we prayed together for the survivors, the communities, the civic and governmental leaders, and most of all for renewed healing and hope.

Afterwards, people chatted for a while, and got acquainted.  I drove a couple of the newly arrived Samaritan's Purse folks the few blocks over to a coastline park - or at least the remains of it - and paused again at the power of nature to send such an immense wave of water over the sea wall and cause so much destruction.

Fellowship time after the main memorial service

Around 5 PM or so, I was able to join the Gilberts at the fellowship time after the main memorial service.  They said it was a very powerful time with over 100 from the community.  A community supper was being served, and plenty was left over so I got to join the fun.  I met several of the people we connected with during the Dickens Carolers concerts, and also several of my missionary buddies.  Very cool.

A couple dozen of us all pitched in to help clean up, and we finally headed back to the Guest House around 8 PM or so.  Or at least I think it was - jet lag was finally starting to kick in, and I dozed as Andy drove home.  It was good to finally fall into bed around 10 pm.