空気を読めない

Today I went to Fukushima.

In Fukushima there are many trees, green rolling hills, rice fields and waterfalls, parks, sports, schools, mom&pop restraunts, soba noodles, lots of things. There are two main evacuation centers in Fukushima as well, one of them being Azuchi. Azuchi is surrounded by a sports park where baseball teams can have games, as high school baseball is very popular in Japan.

When I first stepped out of the car in Fukushima, I realized how beautiful Fukushima is. It is one of the most gorgeous places I have seen in my time in Japan. Yet there is unrest in the silence. People are not happy, and those tensions and feelings can be felt especially in Azuchi. With one day of Kokoro no Care training under my belt, I went in with a team of 20 other people to go and give hand massages to the refugees in Azuchi, and listen to whatever they would like to share with me.

Going in to this, I was extremely nervous, and unsure of myself, because I did not know what exactly to expect. With each step towards the evacuation center, my heart was pounding, and all I could do was ask God to turn the heaving of my heart into waves of compassion. When we walked into the evacuation center, it  looked like any usual hotel would, with an information desk, a lobby, a giant television, and a performer singing enka. Many people were gathered in this kind of common room listening to this manin an bright silver glittering jacket as his voice resonated throughout the hall.

We went up the stairs, and I saw what people had described to me as the cardboard houses Japanese people had begun to make as their stay in the evacuation center because something more long term. All of my imaginations and all of the things I had heard aside, I found myself in shock. There before me where rows and rows of literal cardboard cubicles covered with sheets. Some had welcome mats in front of the perferated "doors" and others had small fake plants hung along the sheets of walls. Here nearly 1,000 displaced people had created a home for themselves as best they could. My eyes watered.

We were met with many different kinds of feelings. In Azuchi, there is much tension and sharing a hand massage or a conversation with people is very difficult because the stage of the disaster is a time when morale is low. There was a man who got angry with my partner because he was trying to sleep and did not want us to bother him. Others were more polite, but expressed they would rather be alone than talk. We were met with many different kinds of feelings today, and my own feelings were getting so mixed up, by lunch time I wasn't sure if I could go another three hours in the evacuation center.

The walls in the center are covered in artwork, many children's projects and donated artwork, many of them saying, "Ganbare Nihon, Ganbare Tohoku, Ganbare Fukushima!" and such. I have heard that people have taken the phrase "ganbare" and taken it to the extreme of never ever showing weakness, and that we can say if we feel it is okay that maybe people in the evacuation center are being too hard on themselves, or it is okay if they don't do their best today, it is okay for them to cry. We will cry with them.

I was invited into three people's homes today.

An ojiisan sitting alone away from a group of people gathered at a table, in the confines of his space in the center. He spoke with an accent my partner and I had a hard time understanding. Someone told me many evacuees have Fukushima-ben or a Fukushima accent. The ojiisan had a lot to say about the center, and he told us about how temporary housing was not as great as it looked, and he thinks it is better to stay in the evacuation center. I met his wife, and gave her a hand massage. She was fragile and small, but beautiful nonetheless. They said many things as though they had not many options as to where the rest of their life would be spent, and their faces seemed tired from stress.

An obaachan sitting alone in her space closed in partially by some sheets, hunched over on her bed. Her name is Masako. She has a daughter with a cleft lip, whose name I was not told. Masako-san is 94 years old, her daughter is 72, they share a space in the evacuation center. Masako-san also had an accent, and she was unable to understand my Tokyo accent, so we got along well not understanding each other. But as Masako-san spoke, I listened carefully to her feelings she expressed to me after the earthquake and having to leave her home. Nani mo dekinen she said constantly ( I can't do anything), expressing how she felt. My heart hurt for her, I read her Psalm 23. She showed me her hobby of making paper dolls and origami, she gave me so much of the things she made. I wrote her name down on the paper crane she gave me, showing me that she had one identical to it, so we are connected and I will never forget her. My partner and I gave her and her daughter small windmills from the United States. I left her Psalm 23.

An obaachan watching her grandson's pet beetle (kobuto mushi). She has worked on a farm for many years, and I was able to have a conversation with her about working on farm from my 3 day experience at A.R.I. She is aware of the trouble farmers are facing, because she has experienced some of these troubles herself. Her daughter is from the Phillipines. She has a beautiful smile.

I was invited into three people's lives today. My gratitude is unspeakable, and my heart is full, boiling over with prayer for them. I know that Jesus loves them, and that He knows the pain they are feeling, I just wish there was more I could do. I could feel Masako's feeling in my heart of "Nani mo dekinai" as she told me her story and how the tsunami took so much away from her. I felt in my heart that I could not do anything for her. I am having to surrender this helplessness to God, and trust that He will provide for these people in Azuchi, not just in material things, but in emotional wealth and spiritual wealth. This is as real as it gets, truly.

I am sorting through my feelings. I currently have none that I can write down. This is as real as it gets. This is not the television, this is not pictures on a screen, heresay, no. This is reality for thousands of Japanese people. And just as unreal as the tsunami and the earthquake felt, so does seeing so many beautiful people displaced feel. It feels like it's not right, like it's not the way the world should be, like it could never happen and yet it has. I am sorting through all of these feelings. It was like...seeing the tsunami crash through the houses on the TV for the first time, but this time it was 10x more shocking, and brought tears to my eyes as we drove home.

I cried going home because I had a home to go back to. A lady asked one of the volunteers to pray that she could just go home. Four months was too long to stay in an evacuation center, she just wanted to go home. And here I am in a bed, not on a cardboard box, in a room with walls and a roof, and plenty of food to eat and surrounded by friends and not strangers, and  there are thousands like the beautiful people I met today who just want to have what I have. It hurts.