Earthquake!

Hi to all of you from Ishinomaki. We arrived on Saturday morning after a bumpy 12 hr all-night bus ride. We all got swollen feet, but renewed ourselves with breakfast at the Sendai train station.  Then onto another bus for about 1.5 hrs to finally be picked up to be taken to the Takamoto's home.  We saw manga statues in downtown Ishinomaki since the originator of manga comics came from this town.  There was a joyous reunion for many of our group at the Takamotos especially from those from Sanda and Nishinomiya who had come up with us to help.  The Takamoto children were so excited to see Minami who used to babysit them when they lived in Sanda.

We quickly got to work cleaning one of the neighbor's home with leftover trash probably from the tsunami from 2 years ago. Mike and I got to go with Eric to dump off the trash.  It was sad to see mounds of so many different kinds of material being moved about by crane.  Eric mentioned that the trash is accumulating there because other cities won't take the trash because of their own trash problems.

We men help assemble a BBQ/smoker for Eric. Sue was so appreciative since she said it would have taken Eric a 1/2 day to assemble it himself.  We prayed that this BBQ that would be used for hungry people would also draw people to hunger for Jesus.

We surprised Sue and Eric with a birthday celebration after dinner.  There were streamers, poppers, balloons, cake and ice cream. Lucille led everyone in hula lessons.  It was great fellowshipping and celebrating.

Today we went to church and had a joyous time of worship.  Cyndy, Mike and I were able to help Mao, the worship leader, with worship. I knew God was there especially when all of us sang Amazing Love.  Eric asked for people to share about the good God had done in their lives that week. Many deep and heartfelt stories of God's miracles were shared by the team as well as members of the church.  Sue shared about how the Nozomi project is receiving more business tied-in with a tourist group and a financial group.  She shared how prayer is really required.

Eric's started to share from 2 Cor 4:16-18 - then it happened. Earthquake!  We felt the vibrating jolt and many of us started to pray for Jesus' protection. Jesus answered: it was only about 20 seconds and nothing fell down and nobody was hurt.  But Eric asked us to pray then for the people especially surrounding Ishinomaki for peace since he was sure the earthquake would bring back bad memories. There are many just outside of Ishinomaki who have not had the help of Christians.

Later on in the day were able to clean up another neighbors lot of weeds.  Then we finished off the 
evening with a BBQ at the meeting hall followed by line dancing and Zumba lessons.  We were able to meet some other team members from the US. The children enjoyed fireworks and we said our good-byes. 

We ask for the spirit of fear and depression surrounding this area to be removed in Jesus' Name. Please pray for breakthrough of the Holy Spirit and that God's love will shine brightly.