16 days...

...after the earthquake. so much has happened. so much still to be done.

Sorry this post is a little later than I would have liked to have had it up. This week has been full for the Chapman household. Tdub has been on several flying missions. I have been traveling about an hour away to the CRASH command center to work most days. I have taken up three full car loads of donated supplies from the Yokota Air Base family. Thanks friends! I know there are many packages on their way and I am soooo excited and grateful from the response from the caring stateside peeps. Your love and encouragement and desire to help has been such an encouragement to us here in Japan. Thank you. You can continue to send, I updated a few things on the link "send some love." so please check back as I will be updating, but I know the needs will be great for a long while, and will change as time goes on, but there will still be needs.

http://tdubandkate.blogspot.com/2011/03/send-some-love.html

I have been mainly working on helping the Volunteer Coordination Team. We have been inputting over 800 volunteers that have signed up online to offer relief into a data base. Right now, we are specifically sorting through the many names and locations of these people and finding teams of people that have transportation, financial support, know the language and have supplies to go up north. Because everyone is still in "rescue mode" and there is really nothing to speak of set up, teams at this point have to be pretty self sufficient and be able to support themselves. Crash set up it's second (out of 5 planned) base camp in the north this weekend!!

As I have been inputting data all day long I have been moved by the care, love and gentle attitude towards Japan. So many people from so many places in the world care about Japan's devastation and desire to help in a real way. I think the world wants to see Japan overcome this. They are rooting for the Japanese people and their hearts have been broken. There have been so many gifted and amazing people with wonderful skills and beautiful hearts that have volunteered themselves. Doctors and EMT's. Counselors. Psychiatrists. Engineers. Electricians. Plumbers. Carpenters. Architects. Photographers. Retired military. People that can speak 5 languages. tons of willing hands and able bodies to do whatever is needed. We have seen some very interesting and sweet offers as well...which keep it lighthearted and give us a little break from the intensity and computer screens. Among a few...we have a hula dancer offer to come and give a positive distraction from the devastation. A balloon artist to come and make balloons for the children. and a young guy that willing to come and give his life and go work on the reactor. I have also been encouraged by so many believers that are scattered all around the world. So many people that love people and love Jesus. They want to bring Hope to the Japanese people. I have been humbled to be in the command center with tons of amazing people that are working hard, behind the scenes, many who will never go up to the north to pass out bottles of water, but are making it happen and bringing relief and hope to this nation.

I have to be honest, working in the office, at a computer for 12 hours is a bit hard for me. And my heart has wrestled with this because I want to be out there on front lines, handing out clean water and warm hugs. But I know this is just as important and where I am supposed to be for right now. I was encouraged to find a Japanese team among all the emails on Thursday, got them into contact with a bilingual, and the team is ready to go and will be going up north hopefully in the next couple days. So, for reasons like this, I'll keep searching through emails for another week. :)

I got to go to a stadium arena in Saitama (about a 1 1/2hrs) on Friday with a few other people. The Japanese government has evacuated 2,000 refugees from Sendai to this arena. We went without permission or really a plan, but with a 1,000 individually wrapped cookies and a smile on our faces. I'll write more in another post tomorrow and show some pics.

Tdub has been in and out, sleeping, on "crew rest" waiting to fly missions and flying missions. He has been to Misawa (an AF base up north) to drop off a plane full of gas, down to Okinawa to collect more gas, taken passengers that were stuck here at Yokota back to be reunited with their families in Misawa, and yesterday flew three times to Sendai and back to deliver water. His squadron is in charge of flying 1.5 million pounds of water to Sendai. Here is a link to the video about it. (Col Rapp is Tdub's squadron commander)
http://www.yokota.af.mil/shared/widgets/popup.asp?url=http://www.yokota.af.mil/shared/xml/rssVideo.asp?mrsstype=2&id=190&cid=257&cnt=12&pos=0

here is a picture of Tdub (click to picture "3", he's on the top left), barely, getting his crew and plane ready for Col Feather (our base Wing Commander...for those of you that don't speak military...he's like the "head honcho", "top dawg", "the boss" of the whole base. :)
http://www.yokota.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123248768

I am very proud of my hubby, he has been working long, weird hours and is doing it with grace, leadership and integrity. He was interviewed and videoed yesterday by Reuters. We'll let you know if they post anything of him.

Crash relief is set up to shoulder the weight of the relief efforts to enable churches and pastors up north to be the ones offering relief to the Japanese people. So that they can be the contact and build the relationships with the people, rather than that being a few strangers faces handing them a blanket that will be in and out in a few months. They will be there for the long haul. I think that is a beautiful plan for loving people for the long term, not just a quick fix. to help people through not only the physical disaster but the emotional disaster as well. Some hearts will not be healed, or minds repaired or families restored with a quick band aid, most of this will take months, years, a lifetime. and I love to be partnering with a group of people, that love people and want to see not only their houses and farms restored, but most of all their hearts, minds and souls.

below are a few links to some very powerful, real, raw pictures. these are from Reuters.com. i found myself crying through most of these slide shows. I hope my heart never stops breaking or hurting for people. but may our broken hearts not be in vain, but cause us to pray, care and love a little deeper.

http://www.reuters.com/news/pictures/slideshow?articleId=USRTR2JQY6#a=3
http://jp.reuters.com/news/pictures/rpSlideshows?articleId=JPRTR2JYUE#a=1
http://www.reuters.com/news/pictures/slideshow?articleId=USRTR2JVZC#a=1
http://www.reuters.com/news/pictures/slideshow?articleId=USRTR2KDND#a=1