April 7, 2012

A Powerful Experience in the Sendai Area - Sorry the blog has gotten a little behind.  We have not had WiFi for a couple of days.

On Friday we visited a lovely pottery town, where we had a great lunch and saw a lot of beautiful pottery.  

I thought you'd appreciate this photo of the rows of slippers at the little restaurant we ate in.  It is definitely de rigueur to wear your shoes inside, do you want to wear pink or pink?

In the evening we were asked to participate in a women's meeting at Minemachi Church.  I was able to brag on Highroad Academy and show the video with Mrs. Mackie and Akira's interview.  Akira had many fans in the audience as this is his home church!  Alynne shared the Word and we prayed for ladies afterward.  Hearing the ladies sing worship songs was like listening to a choir of angels!

Here I am talking to the ladies about Highroad Academy.  Our interpreter for the evening was Emi Kuroda.  Emi attended Portland Bible College and is a friend of Jenny Civis (Maccan)!


Yesterday Toshi and Keiko drove us to the Sendai area where we visited what is left of the Okawa Elementary School.  The school was home to 100 children and only 30 of these students survived the tsunami, which followed the March 2011 earthquake.  We left an HRA bear at the memorial as a show of support to the grieving families and community.


It has been just over one year since the disaster.  Driving through the area you see huge mountains of debris, foundations that were once homes, roads, that have collapsed and been washed away and cleaning, cleaning, cleaning.

We were privileged to visit a great gal whose name is Wendy.  She is helping older ladies and young mothers who have been displaced and are living in temporary housing, by participating, along with a local missionary, in a knitting group.  This has been a successful opportunity to show Christ's love to these ladies and give them a chance to tell their stories allowing a healing process to begin.

This is the view from Wendy's house.  There was a village on that beautiful beach before the tsunami hit!