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!