Welcome to Kashiwazaki

Hi, this is Laura. I wanted to tell you about my trip
to Niigata:


In the recent 6.8 earthquake in Niigata prefecture, Kashiwazaki was the city that sustained the most damage. 3000 people still remain in the evacuation shelters almost 2 weeks after the earthquake. I left for Niigata to work with a Christian organization called CRASH along with the short term team from Hawaii. It was a pleasant surprise that several of my classmates and their families were also helping in the clean up.


Over the next three days we worked on three main projects. The campground where we stayed was attached to the Niigata Bible Institute, and many of the cabins were damaged so that the summer camps usually held there could not continue. So a Japanese group of builders, carpenters and engineers were reinforcing the cabins so that eventually they could be used again. Another group was demolishing a church that had collapsed and were separating the cement, wood and metal to be taken to the dump. A third group was helping out a missionary family whose house had been severly damaged.

The day I arrived I helped by mixing cement for some off the cabins, I hoped to help in the same way the next day but was sent to the Mort's house, missionaries in Kashiwazaki. The earthquake damaged the Mort's home so that it was red tagged and dangerous to live in. Thier English school was green tagged and safe. It was our job to make the school more livable. We cleaned it from top to bottom and played with their children; 2 girls and a boy with cereberal palsy. It was good to see the family become less stressed and laugh, a sign that life in the city is slowly reaturning to normal.


Before leaving I helped clear the church grounds, in the picture you can see part of the building that still needs to be cleared. What is visible is the second floor crashed onto the first. We moved cement roof tiles from one part of the yard into another, then into a truck to be taken to the dump.



Please pray for the people still in Evacuation centers who have lost their homes, and their things, pray for CRASH and the volunteers who come from Tokyo and elsewhere as they clean up the community. Lastly pray that people whos lives have been changed forver would consider a loving God in control of the universe.