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!