Devastation Realization

YEAH, YOU SHOULD READ THIS PART FIRST!:   I was going to save this part of the soon-coming extensive blog post for later, but since I just posted pictures of this on Facebook.. I wanted you all to know the back story, not just look through them. These were from a day off we had this weekend, and how it really moved me. I have never seen devastation like that before, and I wanted to share my heart with you all. Love you guys! And don’t worry, I’ve actually been writing little posts everyday, but its a rare opportunity when I have internet so I will be posting them all at once in one MEGA POST (to be read with dramatic emphasis).
Enjoy :)

[April 7th, 2012]

Today we took a drive about 15 minutes away from our base to get a first hand look at a city that was (no exaggeration) leveled by the tsunami. The city is called Matsushima (yeah say that three times fast), and it had a population of a little over 14,000 prior to the tsunami. Today, the population has declined dramatically, with 10,000 lives lost and 2,000 still missing. We found this skeleton of a building with a memorial being set up in front of it, and there we met a man who spoke english (a pretty rare find on the streets here). While I watched a video of the wave actually sweeping houses away on the iphone of a girl who was with this man, he was telling us about how the city was affected. With the exception of the remains of a few buildings, all that was left of everything was the foundations. This man, a Japanese Orchestra conductor, started telling us about this girl named Meeki (I don’t know how to spell it, but thats how it sounds. sound it out, boys and girls.) who stayed in her building, warning everyone over the town-wide intercom system to get to higher ground because the tsunami was quickly approaching. She stayed at that PA system until the wave hit her building minutes later.. she was 24 years old. But because of her bravery, hundreds lived. Because of her, I was able to watch the video of the tsunami on the cellphone of one of the many who heard her repeated warnings. This is a well known story, but there are too others many just like hers.  

After we left the man, we wandered over to one of the remaining buildings to explore and take pictures. This building in particular, was a hospital. Articles of people’s clothing and shoes stuck half-buried in the mud everywhere you walked outside. The first thing you see when you walk through the what-used-to-be hospital doors, is a memorial. Flowers and candles and stuffed animals and notes fill this giant table in remembrance of the doctors, nurses, and patients. There was only 30 minutes from the beginning of the earthquake to the arrival of the tsunami, so not everyone was able to evacuate. There was wires dangling from every inch of the ceiling, and an evacuation map of the building, with black X’s through certain floors. I wandered up a few flights of stairs and into a random room, and was face to face with a boat. The wall was completely gone, and standing before this small fishing boat that had been thrown into the third story of this hospital was one of the most indescribable moments I have ever experienced. Standing in the freezing cold wind, trying to wrap my head around what I was seeing, and make sense of the horror of how it got there, was unlike anything I have ever felt. I held it together long enough to get some pictures (that honestly don’t do it justice), before I decided to move on to other rooms. But God had other plans, because I turned around and the first thing I see is this single little girl’s sandal lying by itself in the middle of the floor, and needless to say, I lost it. I thought I might have gained some idea of the devastation by seeing these things, but I still have no idea. This has re-broken and re-shaped my heart for Japan in a profound way. Not just because of the tsunami disaster, but the Japanese.. or just al of Japan for that mater, has grabbed hold of my heart in a way I didn’t see coming. 

I’ll write more about this in the next day or so, (because it's after midnight here) but I really wanted to get this post out there so if you see the pictures I posted (in my Oops.. We’re in Japan album on facebook) you’d actually see the heart behind them. Love you all!