A group from Harumi spent the weekend up in Ishinomaki in the disaster zone, cooking lunch for 70 survivors and doing some other volunteer work. One task was to haul some rubble to this house, which has two walls torn away by the tsunami. The city will demolish the house and haul away the rubble with it. Looking at the place you could ask "What's holding it up?" but that question could be asked about the Tohoku recovery efforts more than 18 months after the triple disaster.
We arrived in Ishinomaki as the morning program for tsunami survivors was in progress. Miyuki of Enka Friends was performing, and you can see a video clip of the Enka Friends concert in Harumi by scrolling down on this blog. This program and lunch have been held weekly since March 2011, and people have found Jesus through it.
So, let's get the food on the grill and get going! I've got mushrooms and leeks cooking on the charcoal here, and the strips of thin sliced beef for yaki niku are cooking on the left. In the middle are the noodles and cabbage of yaki soba. We were so glad to have the vegetables and meat prepared before our arrival. With a 90 minute traffic jam en route, we couldn't have been ready on time any other way.
While in Ishinomaki we watched a two block long procession of Buddhist priests walking, ringing bells and chanting. Since Buddhist priests are best known for doing funeral rites, their presence in the neighbourhood reminded us again of what has been lost and how far the area has to go to get back to "normal".
