Final Thoughts

This trip was amazing, and it wouldn’t have been the same experience if it weren’t for everyone who partnered with me and the people on the ground with me. I want to continually show my gratitude for everyone who donated and prayed for my trip to Japan. Here’s a quick summary of what I did for to consolidate what I did in the week while I was in Japan.

1. Like in any service project, our team participated in manual labor for the locals in the area. After the tsunami, a lot of people left the Tohoku area which has caused a huge need of manpower for the recovery of these areas. Initially, manual labor didn’t seem super appealing because I had no real vision for the long term effects it had. What was really cool for me to see was that it was actually a great avenue for relationships not only for myself but for assisting the missionaries. Our missionary friends shared with us that, when locals hear that volunteers are coming, a lot more requests for assistance/servicey projects come to them. After the volunteers help, the requestee is super grateful and intrigued which helps the conversation and relationship between him or her and the missionary. It was awesome for me to see how even a week of work could be so impressionable and helpful in our partnership with the missionaries.
2. During the early times of tsunami relief, one of the missionaries really struggled with how she could help provide immediate impact for the women in Ishinomaki. Because the little town’s main industry is fishing, there’s not a lot of opportunities from the women in the area to give back and help stimulate the economy. To briefly explain, there is a huge need to circulate money which helps stimulate the economy which in turn benefits the recovery of smaller towns like these. As she walked through the devastation of the town, she noticed around her millions of shards of broken pottery scattered across the dirt roads, and it clicked. What if she trained local women to build jewelery from the broken pottery pieces from the tsunami, which has turned into what they call now the Nozomi Project. I could explain more, but the website will explain it better. If you’re looking for gifts to give and also want to give to a good cause, Nozomi Project is a social enterprise that sells jewelry in hope to give back to the people and town affected tsunami 4 years ago. I helped with their front page during my week there and am hoping to help them more in the future. Here’s the site http://nozomiproject.com/

Overall, it was a great time to partner with the missionaries, hear the stories of the people, build camaraderie with my teammates, and see what God is doing in Japan. It was good to be reminded of the global church and know how the Holy Spirit is active not only of what I’m aware of but everywhere. Lastly, it also opened the question if I would consider long term missions. My mindset of missions has always been that I would go to an underdeveloped country where there was a huge need for general resources and communicate the gospel to them. Although awesome, that has never appealed to me for whatever reasons. I was able to witnessing the missionaries in Japan and how they were extremely incarnational, learning the language, culture, and stories of the local people, and had a community of partners doing ministry together, which, if you know, are all characteristics in ministry which I not only care about but also love doing. I am definitely open to this model of missions in the future if God were to lead me in that direction, but for now, I will move to West Long Beach to love the community there.

I hope this blog helped set a picture of my time in Japan. If you need real pictures though, here is a site where our designer documented our time in Japan:
http://paul.hanaoka.co/

It looks like we were just playing, but that wasn’t the case :P

Thank you again for reading this blog and partnering with me during this trip. I am so thankful to Jesus for this opportunity and the work he is doing for his glory. This will be the end of this blog, so thank you :)

Third Day

Yesterday morning was the first time our team members slept in. Looks like we're all settled! We started the day with a prayer meeting, sharing praises and requests to each other. It made me really thankful to God for this opportunity to partner with the Be One team and share life with the locals here. Immediately afterwards, we visited the Nozomi Project site. The Nozomi Project is a social enterprise that takes in broken pottery and makes jewelry for sell. We got to meet the employees, watch the process, and listen to some of their technical needs. 

This is where the local pottery gets cleaned and finished into jewelry. There's a team of 3 local women all with tragic yet amazing stories of recovery from the tsunami and their ventures of starting this jewelry business. From the story told to us, the first few months at Nozomi were full of tears from the pain and loss yet joy for the hope in the future in midst of a lot of pottery restoration.

Here's an image of the final finish.

 

A lot of Japanese pottery is blue and white, which ended up becoming the main theme for the Nozomi Project. Their vision for the past few years have been beauty from the brokenness which can definitely be seen not only in their jewelry but their experience.



This is a picture of the grinding process, which happens right before it is sent to the finishing room. Gotta make sure no one gets hurt wearing their jewelry!!

After we went through the tour of their jewelry process, they asked us to give them some technical training for their shopify site, and boy was that difficult!! The problem with teaching web dev is that so much of it is the experience of knowing the context of a problem to provide the correct solution or solutions. In other words, there was no way we could teach them how to re-vamp their site in that short amount of time. Our designer though really wanted to offer them a more moon look to their website, which I would implement. We have a pretty big project ahead of us, and I'm a little concerned with our time constraints. But if there's someone that can do it, it's definitely us :)

After meeting and talking of ways we can revamp their site, our team went back to our base, and Paul and I started working on their site. We've hit some big parts on their navigation and will be looking to work on their site's flow next.

Prayer requests:
It definitely doesn't feel like I'm on vacation in Japan ;) yesterday, I put in about 13 hours of work, and I foresee this happening for the majority of the trip. Today, I woke up pretty tired, dehydrated, and congested. Please be praying for supernatural energy so I can finish the work we need to do on this site. Please also be praying for our team in this way.

Blessings from Ishinomaki!!

Second Day

Ohaiyo!

Because of jet lag, our team has been going on walks every morning and exploring Ishinomaki. I forgot to take my phone with me, but there is definite evidence of the damage the tsunami caused 4 years ago. Near the shoreline, there are rows of houses missing. Only the foundations of once houses remain. The walks have been also a great time of bonding. I've gotten a lot closer to the team, and they feel super comfortable to stab jokes at me, which is always a sign of affection. Well, maybe sometimes, haha.

The service project of the day was to help one of the Be One team members clear our some of the debris from his house for renovation. 

Thee are some of the Be One team members hammering in the infrastructure of the house. Our team was there to burn all the debris from the old house. I was so busy working and being dirty, I forgot to take pictures of what we did. Just imagine a team of Americans digging 2 holes, throwing 7 truck loads of wood into these holes, and burning wood for 7 hours. The Be One team member thought it would take them over a week to burn all the wood, but we were able to do it in a day! A lot of it was crafty engineer work on my part in making the fire wider instead of taller :) Afterwords, we were all so dirty from the work, the majority of us decided to go to a public bath. Hmm, how to describe that experience! Let's just say, I pretty much just paid $10 to see my co-workers with their pants off ;)

We met up with some local missionaries and businessmen for dinner to talk about future partnerships with Liferay to further stimulate the economy in areas of Japan that are in need due to the damage left by the tsunami. We decided a place last minute an went to Coco's, and let's just say I was pretty disappointed by the dinner option. I'm in Japan!! I'm here to live like the Japanese do and not eat at Coco's!! But it was still fun. I immediately KO'd when we got back to our base. Here's a little bonus for those reading. It's my current bed set up :)



I'm so cute.

Today is the day we actually start the projects we originally signed up for. We'll be meeting with the Be One team's social enterprises to see how we can help their websites and teach them little do-did dies on the way. The two social enterprises we'll be working with are called the Megumi and Nozomi projects. The Megumi project offers employment to women who are victims of the tsunami and trains them to restore old kimonos for clients. The Nozomi project does similar things but through jewelry. They're currently in need of setting up a shopify site for their customers. The awesome thing is that I've worked on shopify before thanks to Elaine an the Jubilee Project! I'm thankful to be able to bring my prior work knowledge and help those here.

Ways you can be praying:

My allergies are still going crazy, but I've been able to continue to work an serve hard. Continue to be praying for good health for our team while we're stationed in Ishinomaki.

Thank you to everyone again who donated and is is praying for our team. It is by God and your grace we are here and able to do the work He has for us here. Blessings from Ishinomaki!

First day

Started the day off with the local church the missionaries started. It's a pretty cool home church that hosts a lot of the people from the local community. The church is pretty small, but some of the stories shared by the locals of the missionary family were quite amazing. I got to talk to a 66 year old man named Aoki-San who just could not stop talking about Chad and how much he owes his life to him for his transformation and introduction to Jesus. Aoki-San and I got to share a lot of laughter, and he even joined us for our service project during the day. He must've really liked me because, later on in our day during our tour, he kept trying to show me stuff while speaking Japanese. I just nodded like I understood, and someone later translated for me that he saw me like a brother. I hope I'll get to see more of Aoki-San during the trip. Here's a pic of the home church.

Right after church, we went to Abee-san's place to help him move some stuff from his house/auto shop. Abee-san was a victim of the 2011 tsunami who lost his wife and business. He's one of the many locals who, although not Christian, has built a deep relationship with the Be One team in Ishinomaki. An interesting aspet the missionaries shared was that having temporary volunteers  further helps relationships and open doors with the locals because more service jobs are requested. In the politest way, they see us as work horses, whom they also deeply are grateful for, to help with their dirty work ;) okay, that's only half true. Herer's some pics from Abee-san's.

This is at his garage/home. Awhile ago, the Be One team helped remove the dirt and mud from his garage's ceiling, and today, we helped move stuff for his remodeling. There's a ditch to the left where he plans to build a garage for his future auto shop. 

Some of the stuff we helped move. This was only half of it!

Our team and Abee-san at his in-laws place where we stored the goods. Abee-san is the little blue man on the right, and his daughter is the little blue girl on his left. Abee-san is really proud of his daughter for finishing pharm school and starting work at the Sendai hospital. Aoki-San is the man in the middle with the mask. Chad is two to his right.

Afterwards, we got to visit Onegawa, where the tsunami was greatest and also the town where Abee-san lost his wife. The tsunami was at 80-ft when it hit this town, and although his wife was three stories up at 13m, the tsunami overcame her building at 24m. Abee-san shared his story with us, which I hear is not common in Japan. Generally, a lot of the Japanese harbor in their pain an try to move past it. They don't want to relive and revisit this memory if huge pain and loss. I was very fortunate to hear Abee-san share his story and even revisit with him the town he lost his wife.

A bay in Onegawa. You can see they're still in recovery mode. When I first sawthe bay and it's proximity to the town, I could see how the tsunami was so devastating, but what's crazy was that behind us was a huge hill/mountain that the tsunami came over from. I felt a good amount of shock when I heard this.

This is a line of how high the water got during the tsunami. It says it's 2m high at this point, but we were already 24m high. Crazy.

These are temporary shops where tsunami victims set up tent for the past few years during recovery. We got to visit a local bar where the bar tender created a local Onegawa beer that was really good. It was a pale ale with a ton of flavor (hint of strawberry). And don't worry. Our CEO paid for the tab, so your donations didn't go to me drinking ;) It was a great time of helping a local business and fun with the team. We ended the night with dinner at a Japanese hamburg restaurant, and said bye to one of the Liferayers who lived 3 hours north of Ishinomaki and to Abee-san and his daughter.

Ways you can be praying:

I'm getting serious allergies from the dust and pollen. I have medicine now, but please be praying against this so that I can continue working my best here.

Here's to today and what God has for us! Blessings from Ishinomaki!

Landed!!

Hi everyone,

the team landed in Japan about 14 hours ago.  Yesterday was just full of traveling, and we go to meet a lot of the members on the missionary team stationed in Ishinomaki called the Be One team. They're a fun eclectic group, ranging from a once homeless guy in the local area to two ladies from Tennessee. So far, I really like Japan. It's super clean, the people are really nice, and the food is awesome. I've been eating a lot of these rice balls from the local convenient store (I'll try to post a picture of this sometime). So the days about to start, and for now, I'll post some of the interesting things from my travels.

This was the smallest, cute airport kiosk I had ever seen.

Japan seems to really like dolphins. But here's one on an airplane wing I really enjoyed.

And finally, here's one of our first morning in Japan.

Our schedule for today:

930 orientation

10   Church

1     Helping a local restore his auto store that was hit by the tsunami

This one will be our first service of the trip. The local man has lost both his wife and his auto shop from the tsunami. It took awhile for him to recover, but now he wants to restore his auto shop and has asked the Tokomoto's for some assistance. I'm looking forward to seeing how we can assist this guy, and further continue his relationship with the Tokomoto's.

Hope everyone is doing well!

T-2 Days!!

Hey guys,

I'm testing out the blog service right now. Hoping that it works, and you will be able to see this.

So to update everyone, life is definitely been crazy right now. This trip to Japan coupled with church, work, having conversations about moving to West Long Beach to love the under-served, and just other things life throws has been an interesting juggle. Maybe I'll be able to add chainsaws after all this ;)

Corny jokes aside, I really wanted to lift up some prayer requests to those who are reading. If you know something about me, it's that I'm very action oriented and pragmatic. But lately, especially with what has been happening in my life (the decision to move to the westside), I'm learning just how important prayer is. Just as important is how I want to invite everyone who has donated/cares/loves me to be part of my journey, so here are some ways you can be praying for me.

1) Safe travels for our team
            -This one speaks for itself

2) That we would be an encouragement to the mission family we'll be partnering with in Ishinomaki
            - The Takomoto's is the missionary family we'll be partnering with in our time in Ishinomaki. They are a married couple with a few adopted kids who have over the years brought the gospel to Japan, have witnessed conversions in Ishinomaki, and have built an amazing youth center to not only reach out to the children but to provide a safe place for them to hang out and build connections. From what I hear, it has been a very discouraging season for the Takomoto's. You can be praying that our partnership and time together would be one full of love, companionship, and joy as we partner with them and serve those in Ishinomaki.

3) For the Liferayers in Japan

            - Three of the Liferayers in this trip will be going to talk to potential leaders about ways to stimulate the economy in Tsunami affected areas in Japan. This will not only help business but open doors for Liferay to be a major influence. This is huge!!! Liferays ultimate goal in Japan is to show that we, as Christians, care not only about their pain and loss but also communicate we are here in their recovery for the long haul. Please be praying for Bryan Cheung, Daniel Ozeki, and Yasu.

Thank you again to everyone who donated. I'm always reminded not only by how much you guys love me :) but also that I have a community walking besides me who also value loving mercy and doing justice. You'll be hopefully hearing from me everyday with updated pictures during my trip. FTK!!