Maryknoll Sisters

I just came back from six days in Japan’s Tohoku Iwate prefecture, where the people are slowly finding the next step in their lives after they have literally lost everything.  They are reaching out to each other and trying to make the most of each day.  It is a privilege to be with them and walk even a few steps of the way together.

It is still overwhelming though to meet so many people who have lost so much, and their future is still so uncertain.  Just imagine walking down the street you always went shopping on and seeing only shells of buildings.  The next town had the earthquake, tsunami and then a fire that burned for more than a week.  There is literally nothing left.

The woman on the train with me this morning is a beautician.  She said it was because the woman whose hair she had just cut didn’t want a perm and went home early that she was able to escape immediately after the earthquake.  The people fled up the mountainside and when the fire started to climb up the mountain, too  – they all thought, “This is it” – we have to die here.  But then it began to snow and the fire subsided.

And the volunteers who come are so selfless.  A group of young people drove two days from Nagasaki to help for two days and then drove back.  Two Japanese Sisters who are in their 70′s have come for a week to help cook for the volunteers – they also help to visit the elderly in the temporary housing units.  This work will be needed for at least two or more years.

The weekends they have many volunteers who can come, but the weekdays there are not so many.  I wish more married women could somehow arrange their schedule to come even for three days during the week. It is very easy if you just contact Caritas Japan.

Now I must get ready to teach school.  Miss and love you all.

 – Sister Kathleen Reilly, MM

I was privileged to be able to work as a volunteer with Caritas Japan in Kamaishi, Iwate, from June 9–14.

The five-hour train ride through Fukushima Prefecture and Iwate Prefecture was beautiful. My heart is broken for the people from Fukushima who have to evacuate because of the nuclear disaster. The mountains and fields of the Tohoku district remind me a lot of the beauty of Pennsylvania and how worried I was in 1979 at the time of the Three Mile Island nuclear accident.

Even after I arrived at Kamaishi train station everything looked pretty much normal – it was only after we crossed the bridge into the town that one could see how the tsunami had ravaged the shopping area and the fishing port, and also many houses in between.

Miraculously, the tsunami literally stopped at the front door of the Catholic Church of Kamaishi. Caritas Japan has set up a base in the rectory and first floor of the church building.

We were approximately 30 volunteers, men and women from all over Japan from Hokkaido – Kumamoto from 20-70 years of age. Each morning small groups went off to our assigned tasks; the men did a lot of clearing debris from the gutters. There were also those who helped clean the mud off photo albums that had been found.

I was asked to join the Kokoro no Care team. We try to provide counseling for those who come to the Center and we also visited some people in the evacuation centers.

Some young mothers with children I met are concerned because their children only want to play “earthquake” and “tsunami.” I assured them that that was a child’s way of working through some of the trauma they had been through. I am still a “child at heart” – so I really enjoyed my time playing with them.

Every evening, we volunteers would come together and share in small groups and then in the bigger group what the day had been for us. Then we talked about what tasks we would do the following day.

Caritas Japan is so well-organized in providing hands-on support to the people on a long-term basis. Only about a third of the volunteers are Christian – one man said as he was leaving, other groups can learn a lot from Caritas, especially in the way they enable volunteers to get involved.

In Japan, they have the saying Gambaroo, “Let’s hang in there and not give up.” But the people who lost everything in the tsunami said, “We can’t do anymore than what we are doing now.”

I said, “Yes, don’t you think we should change the phrase to ‘Let’s Help Each Other – Japan,’ and they were all Smiles.

God-willing, I hope to be able to go back there on a regular basis, perhaps once a month or so. After the initial physical needs are met is when the depression and anxiety and sense of loss set in. But there is also a lot of hope when people reach out to one another.

But many in Kamaishi said they are lucky – with time they can rebuild their future – but the people who have had to evacuate their homes in Fukushima because of radiation from the nuclear disaster will probably never be able to return.

I was only in one small town, but 600 kilometers of the coast has been ravaged in the same way. The power of nature is staggering. One man said when he thinks of our lifestyle, he feels as though the earthquake was the earth “groaning” and trying to restore its balance.

I pray that we can all heed mother nature’s voice before it’s too late – especially in passing on a “habitable” earth to our descendants.

— Sister Kathleen Reiley, MM

Many have written to ask me about the recent happenings in Japan so I’m writing today to share a bit of it with you. You may have heard all this already from the news reports, so please forgive me if it sounds repetitious but it’s something that could happen to you in some form or other.

Engraved in my memory now along with the term “9/11,” reminiscent of the World Trade Towers tragedy, is a new one “3/11.” It is the date of the triple disaster that struck Japan: a devastating earthquake, monster tsunami, and nuclear reactor nightmare. The disaster wiped out lives, homes, land and infrastructure in the prefectures northeast of Tokyo.

We Maryknoll Sisters living in Tokyo and Kamakura experienced a strong shake-up as well. I was walking towards the subway after having said “See you next Friday” to the women at the shelter for the homeless when the big quake shook. The concrete pavement felt like quivering rubber and signs and poles waved back and forth. People on the sidewalk were staring at each other in disbelief. It seemed so unreal.

Four of the Sisters eventually made it home that afternoon. Three others, myself included, had to sleep on the floor of our workplaces as there was no way to get across the city. Our newest Sister, with the help of her language teacher, was able to get directions to walk to the convent of another community of Sisters who took her in for the night.

Since then, daily aftershocks and the threat of spreading radioactive particles have kept everyone’s nerves on high alert. The inconveniences suffered in Tokyo for the first few weeks after the quake (rolling blackouts, transportation delays, limited deliveries to grocery stores and convenience stores, unavailability of parts and products from the now-destroyed factories in the Northeast,) were nothing compared to the hundreds of thousands who struggled to survive on scant rations, spending their days and nights on the floors of evacuation centers, many without functioning plumbing and electricity, nor heat during the March cold temperatures. Added to it all is the mental exhaustion from the trauma of March 11, the loss of family, friends, homes, cities, livelihood, and especially anxiety over their children so vulnerable to radiation.

Now that nearly two months have passed and many organized groups of Japanese volunteers have responded to the immediate needs of food, water, clothing, medicine, and the government has cleared roads and reconnected electricity along with other necessities, the immediate emergency needs have and are still being met.

What remains is the huge job of rebuilding the damaged infrastructure. Temporary cassette housing is being set up, but contractors are having trouble finding enough land in this mountainous country on which to set them up. Most of the flat land left is in tsunami-prone areas. Destroyed or damaged hospitals and nursing homes are in great need. Damaged Catholic schools and churches are not receiving government aid because they are private institutions. Even Caritas Japan cannot help the Catholic institutions with the repair of their buildings as their regulations limit them to direct aid to people only, not buildings. The diocese of Sendai, for example, has had to set up a special fund for this.

There were a lot of factories in that part of the country which suffered heavy damages halting their operations. The resulting unemployment for the men and women eager to get back to a self-supporting way of life adds to the stress of the devastation. The farmers whose land was either flooded with salt water from the tsunami or contaminated by radioactive fallout are very angry, as are those with dairy herds and pigs and chicken. Tens of thousands will have to be slaughtered with no assurance of any compensation from the government. The fishermen are also extremely upset, to say the least, at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant for having dumped contaminated water into the sea and ruining their livelihood.

This disaster is truly a wake-up call for the people of every country to take measures now to care for our Earth and to quickly begin to develop new forms or energy and safety for living.

God bless you all.

— Sister Rachel Lauze, MM

Tonight’s news interviews with Japanese spokesmen for the Fukushima nuclear reactor plant took great effort to reassure the people. But even though their chart stated that the microsieverts are only twice that of a chest X-ray, I figure that an X-ray doesn’t harm you because it only takes a second, but they were telling people they would have to be outdoors for a couple of days to be in danger. And that if people just cover their mouth and nose with a disposable mask and wear a hat and gloves, they’ll be okay.

Today, the trains were running pretty much on schedule, although fewer in number. On my way home, I was standing on the platform waiting for the westbound JR Sobu Line train, and looking across the tracks to the people on the opposite platform, I calculated about 800 to 1,000 folks waiting for an eastbound train. That gives you an idea of the backup.

At least Rita Burdzy, another Maryknoll Sister, and I were able to get to Sanyukai for her work in the clinic, with me making miso soup upstairs before going out with four teams to the Riverside Park terrace to deliver cooked rice lunches. We ran a little short or lunches for the more than 300 men and a couple of women lined up to receive the rice.

A lot of these people live on food from convenience stores, but many of the store shelves were empty this week in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami disaster. So I’m sure the folks we met today were pretty hungry. Second Harvest Japan, Charlie McJilton’s food bank organization, usually delivers bread to Sanyuka on Tuesday for us to give to the homeless, but this week they sent their truck up to the disaster area as the people in those shelters are surviving on hardly anything.

The main problem besides rubble clearance and opening roads is the shortage of gasoline for transportation of goods and people and the shortage of heating oil and fuel for cooking. Three ships from Hokkaido were on their way but had to turn back because they couldn’t find a place to dock. They will try going on the Japan Sea side instead of the nearer but damaged Pacific coast, then overland. By Thursday, some roads will be open, and the Sendai airport should be usable again. That was good news.

Back at Kichijoji tonight, more stores were open and restocked today. Seiyu department store’s basement supermarket, which was half-empty of stock supplies yesterday, had eggs and a couple dozen loaves of bread today, which brings hope that more of the staples will arrive. What shocked me, however, was that many delicatessens and fancy bakery goods were being sold today. I guess those high-class companies have insured their stocks of dairy products, flour and sugar. They must have heeded the words of Marie Antoinette

All that kept running through my head on the way home was the scripture passage from Luke 17:28f: “they were buying and selling;…on the day when Lot left Sodom, fire and brimstone rained from the sky to destroy them all.” With the Fukushima nuclear reactors exploding and spewing out radioactive particles in Japan, it sure gave pause to think during these Lenten days.

Tonight, Abby Avelino, another Maryknoll Sister, was called to our parish church in Kichijoji, which will be offering shelter to 42 Filipinos from the stricken areas of Sendai and Fukushima. These adults and their children were coming on a chartered bus, thanks to the assistance of the Philippine Ambassador to Japan and his wife. They will bed down in the tatami room of the parish center. The Catholics of Tokyo’s International Center (CTIC) will provide the funds to cover the expenses while they take refuge in Tokyo. Since Abby will be on duty at the hotline for domestic violence victims tomorrow morning, she asked me to go help with serving breakfast to the refugees after Mass tomorrow morning.

— Sister Rachel Lauze, MM