Golden Week

A cluster of national holidays in the first week of May creates "Golden Week"vacation time for the nation. This year, for Heather and Laura, it was "Muck Week" in the Tohoku disaster zone.

In addition to helping clean up the mess the tsunami left behind, Heather had an opportunity to do a program for children at a nearby church.

Friday was a golden opportunity for us to have a meal together as a family for the first time since Laura had arrived back from Canada the previous Thursday. She and Heather headed up north shortly after that.  

The Only Constant is Change

It's a challenge building a relief organization from scratch after the disaster has taken place, and with a constant stream of volunteers coming and going. CRASH is now entering its third month of response to the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, and since Carol has been at CRASH from the beginning, she's now in charge of screening for volunteer teams, and oversees a staff of helpers.
This is the volunteer coordination table at the CRASH HQ, which was once a convenience store. Chuck, on the left, came in from California. The woman at the end of the table is here from England. The others are in-country volunteers, several of whom must return to their day jobs, so they leave, and others must be trained to take their place.

The challenges are worth it as teams cycle in and out of Tohoku doing a huge variety of tasks and making an impact in people's lives.