Tokyo continued
Some companies and many schools are evacuating their personnel. Other companies are requiring their employees to go in every day. A family member of one of the leaders from our church was fired from his job the other day. He was living a few hundred miles west of Tokyo, but his wife and kids were up north. He drove up to see them and to make sure they were alive and okay. He went straight back the next day but lost his job.
Tohoku
I went to a town up there called Onagawa. It was a small fishing community. There were other areas that were not as bad...but that town... Pretty much the whole town was gone. There was a hill going up from the port with hundreds if not a few thousand houses on it.
I would say that less than 5 percent of the houses were still half standing.
The first person I talked to at the shelter I went to on my first trip up north was a man in his early sixties. He lost his wife. He just sat there in the gymnasium all day, waiting for some word about her whereabouts. A volunteer worker came in to tell him that they hadn't found her yet. With tears in her eyes, she kept saying, "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." She had to move on to the next town. This was still when they had bodies floating up every day.
In the next building over there were instructions on identifying family members. It said, "If you identify your family member, fill in the paper work. Turn it in at the office. Then you have 30 minutes for the cremation ceremony--basically, to burn the body." There were huge rooms--sometimes bowling allies or anywhere they could find space--filled with bodies.
thank you!
Thank you:
for praying and giving.
It is because of your prayers and the money you have given, we are able to do what we are doing. We have seen so many smiles in such dark places...and so many tears of gratitude.
Thank you.
Prayer:
For those who are suffering.
Safety on the road. There is often snow and ice on the highways and our drivers our driving anywhere from 6 to like 20 hours per trip (which we usually do in a day).
Guidance. We need to hear from the Father.
That we would be able to touch people with the love of Jesus.
