This is a disaster relief update from Pastor Yoshiya Kondo in Morioka city, Iwate.
A little earlier, a relief team left the church to go to Miyako city. They will be splitting up into “Clean-Out-the-Houses troop” and “Play-with-Children-in-the-shelter troop” again. I’m going to stay in Morioka today and pray for the teams, prepare for Sunday service tomorrow, and play with my son, which I hadn’t done much of at all in the past 3 weeks. May the Lord’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
When I saw the flowers beautifully arranged in the sanctuary on Sunday, it made me realize that my sense of things had not been “normal” since I started visiting the disaster area. I couldn’t move for a while at the sight of bright colored flowers, for I felt like I had seen colors and living things for the first time in a long time. In the last 2 weeks, what occupied my mind was the grey and reddish brown of the rubbles, and the shadows of death towns from which I cannot imagine its previous state.
Now I’m just running around doing the specific works needed right now, but when I stop and think about rebuilding the disaster area, I find it difficult to picture a specific blue print. Where will they build the town? Who’s going to live in it? Who’s going to do the rebuilding? What will happen to the economy of this area now that they lost their main industry, fishery? Is the population going to shrink even more, and economic gap widen as the people have lost their industry and jobs?
In my mind, I dream and pray for the day when flowers will bloom in the town of rubbles like a flower in the grey and make it colorful again. May the Lord who makes way in the desert have mercy on this land.