Fri, 18 Mar, Shiogama Town, Miyagi Prefecture

by Shawn Lim, TOUCH Community Services

We only received the confirmation about the trip from Pastor Elmer Inafuku of Shinjuku Shalom Church on Thursday morning. After that, it was a mad rush to pack and made all the travel arrangements to fly to Tokyo. Foreigners were desperately trying to get out of Japan because of the nuclear radiation threat and the flight crew was surprised that we are going in. When we landed, the arrival hall of Narita airport was unusually quiet – no crowd, no vehicles.

It was a huge challenge from the start to organise the relief operation. Pastor Elmer could not get any trucks to carry the supplies as rental companies would not release their vehicles to the disaster zone. Then, there was the issue of getting food, water and other relief essentials in a time when everyone was hoarding them. Petrol is in short supply and being rationed. Most gas stations had run dry. There were long snaking queues at stations where gasoline was available. Finally, we also had to get a special pass with the label 'Emergency' from the authorities to enter the disaster zone; Without the pass, we would not be able to go as we could not even get on the freeways up north.

Obstacles kept coming our way, but God never fails to deliver! One church offered their truck for our use while a church member offered her MPV to carry the team. Pastor Elmer managed to find a small gas station with NO queues to top up gas for the vehicles. To top that, Shiomi from New Hope International Fellowship finally got two passes from the authorities to go after a long wait. So after furiously packing the relief supplies into the truck, committing the trip to the Lord in a quick prayer, we hit the road for Shiogama, Miyagi prefecture.

The team was truly international – There was Pastor Caleb, Ben and I from Singapore, Pastor Elmer Inafuku (Shinjuku Shalom Church) and Shiomi Sasanuma (New Hope International Fellowship) from Japan, Pastor Caleb Supraman (World Harvest), an Indonesian based in Japan and finally Martin Gattuso, a British volunteer working in Japan.

It was about 5.00pm when we left Shinjuku. The drive was more than 350 kilometres and took us pass Fukushima (the prefecture where the nuclear plant is situated). When we finally arrived in Shiogama town, it was almost 1.00am. In the darkness, we could not make out how badly devastated the place was, we were dead tired and freezing cold (-2 Degrees Celsius at least). Pastor Yuki Otomo of Shiogama Bible Baptist Church kindly hosted us in his house. Water supply was cut so we could not wash up or use the toilets – we had to go back to the good old days of dig and cover in the backyard.